Though compensated dating was first emerged in Japan, this practice started to appear in other East Asia countries, such as China (Hong Kong), Singapore, and Thailand. Schoolgirls who engaged in this activity are often being negatively labeled as anti-soc

Introduction

The term “compensated dating” was first emerged in Japan. During the 1990s, compensated dating was widespread in Japan, especially among schoolgirls. It was even considered as a Japanese youth subculture (Udagawa, 2007). According to McCoy (n.d.), compensated dating is “the practice whereby ‘dates’ with children, frequently involving sex, can be purchased by adults – usually via an organised medium such as telephone registries and Internet sites”. Though compensated dating was first emerged in Japan, this practice started to appear in other East Asia countries, such as China (Hong Kong), Singapore, and Thailand. Schoolgirls who engaged in this activity are often being negatively labeled as anti-social groups. In this essay, it will be divided into two parts. First, the reasons for teenagers to experiment with compensated dating will first be discussed. Psychological theories and sociological theories are used for explaining the reasons. Second, solutions towards the engagement in compensated dating will be illustrated.

Reasons for teenagers to experiment compensated dating

Why do teenagers nowadays experiment with compensated dating? There can be different kind of reasons, and in this paper we are going to focus on two reasons, which are seeking for proximity and earning quick money. These two reasons can be explained by both psychological and sociological theories. In order to gain more real case examples to support the theories, an interview on a compensated girl called Siu May was conducted by me (Yeung Wan Man), Lo King Yee, Poon Wing Yi and Anthony Lai on 2nd March, 2011. The interview results will be used below as supports.
Teenagers engage in compensated dating because they got insufficient amount of love from their significant others, such as parents and friends. Hence, they want to seek for more care by other means. This reason is supported by both psychological theory and sociological theory. Firstly, for psychological theory, attachment theory by John Bowlby proposes that human beings possess psychobiological system innately. This system motivates us to seek proximity from our significant others, especially family. When there is an actual or potential threat towards our sense of security, the system will be activated automatically. In other words, we were born with the attributes to seek for comfort and protection from people around us. In addition, we intend to maintain proximity to those people until our sense of security can be satisfied (Bowlby, 1982/1969). When applying this theory to compensated dating issue, we can find out that teenagers get in touch to this activity due to the insufficient love and care they obtained from their family members. This insufficiency caused the psychobiological system to activate, which motivates them to try using other means to gain it, such as getting proximity from their clients of compensated dating. In our interview, Siu May said that she is from a single-parent family. She often quarrelled and fought with her father so she moved out from the family when she was 18. After moving out, Siu May and her father only meet twice a year. From this, it can be seen that Siu May did not have a close attachment with her only family member. She could hardly gain the sense of security from her father and therefore, she found compensated dating as a mean to gain those lacked love.

Secondly, for sociological theory, social bonding theory by Travis Hirschi states that it is informal social control exerted by the social bonds between individual and their significant others restrains people from becoming deviant (Cheung & Cheung, 2008). In other words, weak social bonds cause people to act in a deviant way. According to Wenweipo (2010), compensated dating girls pass through three stages until they can stably engage in compensated dating. Here, we are going to focus on the first stage when schoolgirls first experiment compensated dating. It stated that initially, girls start to get in touch with this activity because they want to gain more care. Due the weak social bond between those girls and their significant others, i.e. friends and family, they cannot gain enough care. Moreover, girls received little or no informal social control due to the weak social bonds. Hence, when they want to experiment in the activity, they will not be deterred by pressures or negative labels that their friends and family would give them.

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Youngsters experiment compensated dating also due to their desires in earning quick money. Social learning theory, which is a psychological theory, holds that “both criminal and conforming behavior are acquired, maintained, or changed by the same process of interaction with others. The difference lies in the conforming or deviant direction or balance of the social influences such as reinforcement, values and attitudes, and imitation” (See, 2004). Reinforcement, which includes both negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement, is a very important element in social learning theory. In this essay, only positive reinforcement will be focused. Positive reinforcement refers to “an individual receiving something of value for committing a certain act. This may include things such as money, food, or approval” (See, 2004). Regarding compensated dating, quick money earned in a short period of time positively reinforces teenagers to experiment this activity. In addition, mass media acts as a channel to publicize the information on how compensated dating helps to earn quick money. Compensated dating started to be prevalent in Hong Kong after the shocking news of Kiki in April 2008. Kiki, who is a compensated girl, was killed, beheaded and dismembered by her customer after providing sex service. This tragedy was headlined over couples of weeks at that time. Though horrible photos and sensational wordings are used by news reporters to describe the incident, there was a huge news coverage stressed on the large amount money that can be earned by compensated dating. The deterrence effect of the news were not significant, instead, they let more people know about the pros of engaging compensated dating. In our interview with Siu May, she thought that those news three years ago did not have much deterrence effect on her. As she was in financial need, she just entirely focused on the huge amount of quick money she could earn from the trade. Furthermore, in a news titled “Police reissue 'compensated dating' warning” (China Daily, 2009), compensated daters need to pay $800-$1600 per date, and online pimps got $200-$300 or each referral. This undoubtedly would encourage teenagers to become compensated dating girls or online pimps.

Strain theory, a sociological theory, states that “criminal and deviant acts are one

possible adaptation to stress. The three major types of deviance-producing strain are: failure to achieve positively valued goals, removal of positively valued stimuli, and confrontation with negative stimuli” (See, 2004). In addition, this theory stresses on two major elements, which are socially defined goals and acceptable means in achieving these goals. In Hong Kong’s society, getting into the university, getting a good job and earning more money are defined as goals that “successful” people should achieve. However, desired moral means and required procedures in attaining the culturally defined ends are always limited. Therefore, people try to use other methods in achieving those goals. In the case for compensated dating, as teenagers know that this activity allows them to earn money in a short period of time, they therefore experiment it in order to accomplish the culturally defined goal in earning more money. In an article published to RTHK Media Digest (2009), it includes an interview results that was conducted with 685 students in Hong Kong aged from 11 to 24 years old. The results show that a large proportion of youngsters in Hong Kong agree to materialism. About 60% of them felt that they would be happier if they can have the ability in buying more things. Additionally, around half of the interviewees stresses if they can possess something they do not have now, their lives will become more fruitful. Moreover, according to a survey done by Hong Kong Christian Service (2009) about youngsters perceptions towards compensated dating, 57% of the respondents think that compensated dating is for earning quick money. In sum, teenagers get in touch with compensated dating is because they want to gain more money to enjoy materialistic life.

Solutions to help teenagers get away from compensated dating

With references to the reasons that causes teenagers to experiment compensated dating, what can we done to help them stay away from this activity? It is vital for different socializing agents, such as family, school, social workers, police, government and mass media, to work together in order to solve the problem.

Family

Family i.e. parent-child relationship, is the most important socializing agent in influencing the development of schoolgirls or teenagers (Steinberg, n.d.). As mentioned above in attachment theory, we were born with the attribute to seek for love and care. Inadequate proximity received from parents cause youngsters to engage in compensated dating. To alleviate the increasing trend of compensated dating or to prevent people from experiment the activity, parents need to have three important roles. First, parents need to take up the responsibilities in providing love and care for their children. They should spend more time with their child at night times and weekends. Second, nowadays in Hong Kong, many parents are very busy at their works that they may work till very late and even need work on weekends. However, they should always bear in mind that insufficient love given would pose serious negative impacts on their children. In order to solve this problem, parents can choose some appropriate extra-curriculum activities for their children to join so that children can receive intimacy via friendship. Third, it is usual that teenagers especially those during puberty do not like talking much with their parents. In this case, parent should work together with schools in order to know more about their children.

School

School is another very important socializing agent for teenagers. First, school should take an active role in inviting parents to join the Parent-Teacher Association. This association allow parents to speak with teachers or vice versa. School are like “second home” for teenagers as they spend most of their time in it other than their families. Therefore, it is easy for teachers and schoolmates to realize if anyone has any inappropriate behaviour or suffer from great unhappiness. When school find out any suspected student who wants to experiment compensated dating, they should refer the cases to social workers. Second, school should provide more up-to-date and tailor made sex education as well as reduce suppression of sex-related issue. According to Government Information Centre (2008), sex education such as how to get along with the opposite sex and pre-marital sex are covered in the curriculum of Hong Kong’s Moral and Civic Education. Moreover, Liberal Studies, which was introduced as a compulsory course for senior secondary school students in 2009/10, also includes discussions on sex-related themes. However, the sex-related topics discussed in these two subjects are very old-fashioned. To improve this, schools can adopt the sex education model proposed by the Evangehcal Lutheran Church of Hong Kong (2010). According to the model, sex education should vary with the different developmental stages of children. For instance, during Primary 5 to 6, students should learn about the appropriate attitudes toward Love and friendship. Also, they should know how to respect and protect their own bodies. While in Secondary 1-3, sex education about the consequences and responsibilities of having sex should be provided.

In addition, in Hong Kong’s society, people are very conservative that they think sex should not be discussed publicly. Hence, teachers do not know what methods should they use to teach about sex. To tackle this problem, schools should set some guidelines for teachers to follow in teaching about sex. Teachers need to understand that inadequate sex education provided can lead to severe impacts when the children grow up.

Social workers

While family and schools need to work closely together, schools and social workers also possess intimate relationship in solving the problem of compensated dating. Social workers can take both active roles and passive roles. For active roles, school social workers should talk to students, especially those who are labeled as “naughty students”, and students whose academic results are below average. While for social workers working in centers, they can try approaching compensated dating girls in Internet forums and nightclubs. It is because those girls and their clients usually get in touch with each other through these two locations. However, it is impossible for centers or schools to provide so many social workers to take the active roles due to capital constraints. In addition, even when a lot of social workers are hired, it is difficult to find out compensated dating girls in Internet and nightclubs due to “underground” development of compensated dating (it will be discussed in the police part). Hence, passive approaches should be taken too. Inducement and attractions, such as free body checks, free gynaecological check-up and law consultation services, can be provided in different centres. Compare with teenagers who do not engage in compensated dating, those who engage in it would worry much more about having sexually-transmitted diseases such as AIDS. Moreover, they would show more concerns on laws related to compensated dating or prostitution, as they do not want to be caught by police. Therefore, providing inducement can help social workers to identify people who get in touch with compensated dating.

Police

Police have been taking a few actions to prevent and reduce compensated dating. To prevent, there are warning advertisements posted on web sites to remind underage girls of the dangers of being involved in the trade (Lee, 2009). In one of the appeal, it reminds teenagers not to sell their bodies because of earning quick money. It also stresses that compensated dating would ruin one’s future. The warnings irrefutably can educate and deter a part of teenagers to experiment compensated dating. However, the deterrence effect is not big enough. To increase the effect, mass media can play a vital role in this. To reduce, in 2009, police took “Whalediver” action (Hong Kong Police Force, 2009). However, this action was a failure. Entrapment and undercover operations in this approach leads to direct negative consequences of “underground” development of compensated dating and emergence of online pimps. The indirect consequence of “Whalediver” is that it makes the works of police and social workers in monitoring the Internet for compensated dating much more difficult. What should police done in the future? Police should absolutely stop the “Whalediver” action in order to prevent compensated dating to go further “underground”. Moreover, instead of having hard actions in seizing compensated dating girls, they should take soft actions in referring them to social workers. The reason for doing that is to encourage reports of victimization. In other words, this solution helps to eliminate compensated dating girls’ fear of self-incrimination and discrimination. Furthermore, police should continue to work with schools to held talks for secondary schools students about the harm of compensated dating activities. Also, working together with Education Bureau, schools, social workers and parents of secondary schools are very vital, as police should brief them the methods in handling students who are suspected to be engaging in compensated dating.

Government and Mass Media

Government possesses three major roles towards compensated dating. First, it should

regulate and tighten legislation. Instead of having laws that punish compensated dating girls, there should be laws that arrest agents and horsemen. Second, it need to work with the mass media in promoting the potential risks, such as raping, murder, violence, epidemic diseases and accidental pregnancy, of compensated dating. Mass media, especially newspaper, is something that people would get in touch everyday. Hence, it serves a major role in deterring teenagers from experiment compensated dating if they focus more on the dangerous and cons of compensated dating instead of the facts and pros. In 2008, regarding the case of Kiki, mass media mentioned a lot of the huge amount of money earned from compensated dating. In a news entry in Wenweipo, it stressed that Kiki earned $1500 - $2000 for each date (Wenweipo, 2009). By mentioning this, the deterrence effect would be greatly reduced. Actually, writing more on the risks of compensated dating is a win-win approach. It is understandable that the ultimate aim of all newspaper agencies is to become the market leader. By adding more scary pictures as well as discussing more on the horrible risks of compensated dating, not only teenagers can be deterred from involving in compensated dating, newspaper agencies can also gain their selling point.
Furthermore, providing more job opportunities for teenagers, especially those with poor academic results are essential. As mentioned previously, earning money is a major reason that youngsters engage in compensated dating. If the government can provide more jobs, more teenagers would stay away as compensated dating, as no one would like to sell their bodies if there is other solutions to solve their problems.

Conclusion

Compensated dating, which is originated in Japan, is no longer solely a social issue in Japan, it is becoming more and more prevalent in Hong Kong. Schoolgirls engage in this activity mainly because they want to gain more intimate love and care through dating with the clients as well as earning quick money for materialistic life. To help them get away from compensated dating, it is vital for multi-groups including family, school, social workers, police, government and mass media to work together. Frankly, it is hard for compensated dating to vanish in the society in a short period of time, and it is hard to obtain the most appropriate solution towards this problem. However, after the trails and errors in tackling compensated dating these few years (since 2008), different socializing agents should have in mind some better ways to tackle the problem. For instance, police should know that “Whalediver” is not a good way to deal with problems of compensated dating. In the future, compensated dating would still be an alarming social problem in Hong Kong that all of us should unite together and take up the responsibility in solving it.

(2998 words)

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