Hong Kong’s part-time girlfriends (and a boyfriend) tell their stories
A 16-year-old who feels compelled to sell her companionship, though not her body, to earn money, a 26-year-old who sounds like a life coach - women shrug off the stigma of being girlfriends for hire, and the frequent requests for sex
Jo, a 16-year-old Hong Kong student, opened an Instagram account in May to offer her services as a part-time girlfriend. She’s trying to save HK$40,000 to buy a clarinet, she says, and made HK$3,000 in her first month. Jo meets clients, aged between 25 and 35, about twice a week at nighttime and during weekends, when she’s not studying.
The phenomenon of part-time girlfriends – or PTGFs – for rent in Hong Kong has blossomed on social media in recent months. They offer services ranging from dining out to watching movies, but also the full gamut of sexual services, with dates costing between HK$100 and HK$4,000, depending on what’s on the agenda.
The trend made headlines last week when 10 Hong Kong women, including a secondary school pupil, were arrested on suspicion of advertising sexual services as part-time girlfriends on their Instagram and Facebook accounts.
Like girls involved in a previous Hong Kong phenomenon, called “compensated dating”, there’s a social stigma attached to being a part-time girlfriend because of the widespread assumption that they are all available for sex at a price.
Jo, who requests anonymity, says not all part-time girlfriends are selling their bodies. Although she has met a man with a taste for sado-masochism, who paid her HK$2,000 to “beat” him, she insists there was no sex involved. “I won’t overstep my moral bottom line,” she says.
