The world’s oldest profession seems to be very “in” right now. Between the Eliot Spitzer scandal, an NBC special on “The Business of High-End Prostitution,” a Showtime series about a London “escort” entitled The Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Ashley Dupré’s (Spitzer’s infamous call girl) media tour, the American public is very interested in prostitution. However, the media is not showing images of what many consider the typical victim of the sex trade, such as an impoverished and malnourished woman selling her body for crack. Clearly, that image is too disturbing for the middle-class American living room. Instead, the media focuses on “high-end” prostitution, where women are paid thousands for their services, which range from sex to compliments (seriously). While the data for this industry is difficult to track, the media is most likely not focusing on these “escort services” because they pose a deep societal problem. Instead the media probably sees what many young women today observe when examining the dynamics of high-end prostitution: how closely it resembles the dating situation for young women today.

Ashley Dupré and I have something in common. Neither of us has a degree in sociology or is really qualified to make sweeping statements about cultural movements. But we do it anyway. In Ashley’s recent interview with People magazine, she explains how the dynamics of prostitution have permeated the mainstream.

“This wasn’t any different than going on a date with someone you barely knew and hooking up with them,” she reasoned. “The only difference is I can pay my rent.”

In short, the relationship between sex and money is apparent outside the industry of high-end prostitution. Many young women today often joke about becoming trophy wives. I must admit that once I realized that no profession I was interested in could make me rich, that lifestyle seemed appealing to me. Women who “marry up” or “marry rich” are only lightly chastised by public opinion when what they are doing, offering up their bodies and looks for wealth, is not so different from high-end prostitution.

More pervasive, however, is how young women are responding to offers of wealth in exchange for the “hook-ups” Ashley describes. In our parents’ generation, women could expect men to pay for them and it was considered chivalrous. Today for us young women, when a boy buys dinner for us, we often feel guilty if we don’t give him something in return. In this post-feminist era, women are having trouble finding their place in the relationship balance and money only complicates that dilemma. Women are no longer burning their bras, but instead finding men who will buy them expensive ones.

According to CNBC, the most popular item offered by escorts today is called the Girlfriend Experience (or GFE). While there isn’t a standard definition, most in the industry agree that it involves some facsimile of real romance, including dinners, vacations and gifts in addition to original payments. With the advent of online dating, reality shows like The Girls Next Door (documenting the lives of the ultimate high-end prostitutes, Hugh Hefner’s three girlfriends) and the sex trade evolving into the “relationship trade,” more and more people are approaching dating like a business transaction instead of a search for companionship. And the media’s glamorization of high-end prostitution is not helping. If our society, especially young women like myself, continue to think this way, perhaps all relationships will simply become glorified “girlfriend experiences.” Chivalry may not be dead, but it could come at a hefty price.