Double Standard

Ok. I'll let you in on a secret. Last weekend I signed up for a free membership to an online dating service. I did this for two reasons: Part research for my book and part curiosity. I was also very eager to investigate the site because a friend of mine swears by her husband's grave that this particular site is teeming with hungry fishes. You drop a line and within minutes you'll get a bite, she said. The site is very specialized; the women are only Filipino women and the men comes from all over the world.

My friend is right. Within minutes after uploading my picture and posting my profile, my email started bobbing....there's a bite. It was wild and it was exciting, but what my friend forgot to tell me, is that some of this men borders on the two "P's." Perverts or Pedophiles. One man, aged 62, was looking for a girl aged 18-25 years old. Can you imagine a woman 50 and above, saying she prefers boys of that age? If at my age now, I would feel inclined to date boys of that age, you'd know there's something bad wrong with me, right? Mothers from everywhere claiming to protect their sons would want to skin me alive - Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, Mothers Against Tatoos and Mothers Against Peeing Standing Up would all band together just so they can skin me alive, legally. So why is it ok for a man to want to bed his daughter? And advertise it publicly too. Or is this only acceptable and welcomed, because the girl is Filipino?

In America, if an 18 year-old girl dates a man 5-years older than her, the girl's family will be all over town, cross eyed and all. Unless of course, the man is a celebrity or a millionaire. Then old and tired Larry King is fine. I really should not be kicking the dog too hard, because I myself used to like old men. But that was when I was young. Now that I'm old, I've learned a few things; young is better than old, rich is better than poor and that an American man, even if he's on the poverty line, is still worth millions - if you convert it to pesos.