https://www.thecut.com/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-treated-young-women-as-luxury-goods.html

Many years ago, when I was a broke graduate student living in Europe, I was asked to organize a “database of women” for an extremely wealthy American businessman. He’d hired me initially as a secretary, explaining vaguely that he worked in “international finance.” At first, I performed ordinary duties…

…After some time, though, my duties changed. The businessman decided I should concentrate on just one task: organizing the “file of women.” It was a big job: I was to read through hundreds of hard-copy profiles of young women and create a database of them.

In each profile, a woman was identified by name, age (they were all of legal age), nationality, and profession (mostly they were actresses, models, or beauty-pageant winners). Some files contained special details or instructions, such as “Lives with mother, have a woman phone her home to avoid suspicion.” Others listed which plastic-surgery procedures had been promised to a given woman, and which super-wealthy client would be footing the bill. These notes did not bother with elegance or discretion; a typical one read: “Mr. X. agrees to do Ms. Y’s boobs.”

Lately, the Jeffrey Epstein saga has had me remembering that long-ago job. My employer was not an Epstein. He was not a criminal or a pedophile. But he did occupy a similar stratum of society, and his business did rely on an objectifying and transactional view of young women (though they were all between the ages of 18 and 30). And I was drawn to it all, despite my feminist principles.

I was horrified by this “database,” but I did not quit my job. I needed the money, but more than that, I admit I was dazzled by the cinematic world I’d stumbled into. I loved the furnishings, the clothes, the jewels, the models, and learning the inside gossip about the famous people who attended the parties. I was seduced by the fairy-tale glamour of it all.

…this kind of dehumanizing view sustains so much of our cultural fantasies. There is very little difference between seeing women as rarefied luxury commodities and seeing women as bagels. A thing is a thing. But the ubiquity of wealth porn and our ongoing romance with a certain glamorous vision of male success and power continue to blind us. Even women are susceptible to this vision of ourselves. With every “anti-aging” product we buy, every fashion magazine or romance novel we read, every young fabulous celebrity we compare ourselves to, we perpetuate some part of the myths that also sustained Epstein. Few of us — including myself — are exempt from the attractions with which he armed himself, attractions he used to deflect suspicion. Epstein’s world may be crumbling now, but the culture that permitted his rise remains intact. We can see it, if we open our eyes.

Thought this was a pretty interesting article because it gives us some insight into how this woman is/was allured and drawn into a lifestyle that may contradict her principles. I find the conversation of where to go from here interesting because I can't imagine a future exists where young women are exempt from the attractions which high status men arm themselves with. Or a future where men gain the upmost respect from their peers and abundance of female sexual attention without this sort of glamorous vision of male success and power so often fetishized in female fantasies.

Every man is free to challenge the hierarchy we struggle to climb or maintain, but what incentive is there for men to forgo this race? You could reject the idea that men need to pursue higher status to be respected by men and win the attention of women, but it seems obvious to me that abstaining from such goals would merely result in loneliness and an absence of respect. And of course you don't need to be a billionaire to gain attention and respect, but I would argue that some level of success is required.

What are your thoughts on this article? General discussion.