Originally published at Daily Life, 17 August 2014

Dear all women,

The very notion of human value has a long and dignified history, until the first time someone swapped money for another human being over whose body they could exert complete control.

However, in these more sophisticated times it’s often difficult to know exactly how much someone is worth in dollar terms – which are the only terms that matter.

And sure, there are some useful rules of thumb – you’re worth 70% as much money as a comparable man, for example, going by the accepted gender disparity in Australian salaries – but what if you want to know specific dollar amounts? Are you economically worth it, in the eyes of men (which are the only eyes that matter)?

Well, you’re in luck!

Dawson Stone – a brilliant economist and sociologist and definitely not a sad, terrified little man peddling pick-up culture nonsense on the internet – has come up with a helpful metric by which men can work out whether you’re worth ejaculating inside of.

(The site is here, and you can click on it if you must, but remember: your clicks are only worth 0.7 of a man’s click, and why must you women go disturbing men with your intrusive page views?)

“Here is how it works. You tally up 100% of the money you spend on a woman during the course of ‘dating’ her and divide that amount by the number of times you have sex with her.”

He then breaks it down into how the sort of shitty semi-male who doesn’t even realise how much women are just wasting their time when clothed might fare:

“If you are a traditional beta male, you buy a woman three expensive dinners at ~$200 each, and try to close her on the third date. If you were successful and had sex twice, your CPO would be $300 ($200 * 3 / 2). As a beta, there is a decent chance you don’t even close. You could argue that you should only use the money spent on her (divide the numbers in 1/2) and your CPO is still $150.”

Because he is awesome and cool, he explains that his is obviously better. And why would he – a forty-something year old man who’s attempting to sell his patented pick-up tips on the internet – have any motivation to mislead you?

“I have diligently tracked my CPO for the last 4 months. It was $44.15, $20.82, $36.75 and $37.20… My CPO might seem a bit high, but in my defense, I always have 1-2 women in my monthly rotation that are out-of-towners. In fact, in my most recent 4-month period I had an unusually high number of women (eleven) that were out-of-towners. Most of them are struggling college students, so I do buy their plane ticket. But I plan in advance and can usually get a ticket for between $200-$250. If it wasn’t for this variable, my average CPO would be closer to $10-$12.”

Numbers don’t lie, ladies. And it’s worth remembering that these are American dollars, so at current exchange rates you should really be looking to get a man off at least once for every $12.91 he spends in your vicinity.

Now, there are worthless semi-men who might respond “But Dawson, what if I disagree with the notion that all romantic interactions with other people can be reduced to a direct financial exchange, since I am not a broken, hideous monster angrily cry-wanking on a blog about how scared I am of women?”

Because Dawson is very, very smart, he’s already thought of that.

“Sex is about money! If sex wasn’t about money there wouldn’t be alimony, child support, pre-nups, palimony, engagement rings, and weddings that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I could go on forever.”

And that’s a great point: so the lesson that Dawson Stone has taught us is that sex is, frankly, too expensive.

Why, not only are we internet sex-alphas expected to break a $20 note every time we shrug one out, then there’s also alimony, child support, and weddings that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Heck, I could go on forever!

Fortunately, there’s a cheaper way to get the most bang for the least buck for awesome cool guys like Dawson that find dealing with women an onerous and tiresome condition for getting the sex to which they’re naturally entitled.

A 60-sheet box of Kleenex Facial Tissues Extra Care is a mere $2.40 (and they’re the ones with aloe vera in them – go on, treat yourself!). Divide that by 20 orgasms (at three sheets per: one to collect the ejaculate; two for the lonely, lonely tears) and it gives you a CPO of a mere 12 cents per orgasm! You can’t beat that price!

You’re welcome, Dawson. No need to thank me – not least since I’m sure you’re already across this, in both a metaphorical and stickily biological sense.

Wash your hands before writing your next economic opus, though, there’s a good chap.