The co-hosts of “The View” had a heated discussion about the definition of “hooker” on Friday’s episode of the ABC daytime talker.
The debate sprang from a conversation on the new trend of “sugar babies” chronicled in a recent New York Post article and epitomized by matchmaking site SeekingArrangement.com. Co-host Joy Behar graciously explained the phenomenon for those uninitiated.
“They go out with a guy, maybe an older guy. Maybe they sleep with him, maybe they don’t. And then the guy leaves money,” she said. “Well, hello? That, in the book — in the dictionary — is called a hooker. But they say they’re not.”
Guest co-host Sunny Hostin took a hardline stance, objecting to any woman who would trade sex for money or favors. “It’s prostitution. I’ve prosecuted enough prostitution cases to know,” she said. “Sex for money equals prostitution.”
But she also took it a step further, calling trophy wives and women who marry rich men “prostitutes” as well.
“I reject it because the bottom line is, when I was growing up, my father would always tell me, ‘You’re kind of cute, but you never trade on your looks. You trade on your brain,’” she explained. “It’s the same thing because you’re doing nothing of value.”
The other co-hosts immediately jumped on her statements, saying that there’s no reason to assume that a woman who marries a wealthier man is doing nothing of value.
“What about the girl who like goes and finds a really rich dude and flaunts,” Raven-Symoné asked, “but instead of cash, she gets like Louis Vuitton bags or her apartment paid for?”
“You mean a prostitute?” Hostin immediately shot back.
Candace Cameron Bure took a more motherly approach to the conversation, lamenting the fact that the women in question probably didn’t receive enough love from their parents. “I want to pour into these women,” she said. “I want to pour just heart and say you’re more valuable than a Louis Vuitton bag. You are worth more.”
Moderator Joy Behar also threw in her two cents: “I don’t even understand it. No one ever gave me nothin’.”
“I don’t even believe in marrying a rich guy. I do not,” Behar continued. “Because there’s too much control that they have over you. I like an equal relationship. That way if I don’t feel like having sex, I don’t have to.”