Escort agency 'offers virgin for sale'

According to the agency, this "rare opportunity" starts from May 19.

"She is a virgin, you can tell," the Brisbane times quoted a spokeswoman as telling a major newspaper.

"She goes to your place or hotel and you can spend two days together. She does not have a boyfriend and she wants to do it for the money," she said.

The escort agency recruits mostly Asian women aged 18 to 25 and suggests to potential workers they can make easy cash.

The website written in English and Chinese suggests working for the agency "to solve your financial problem within short time".

"Want to earn tuition fee? Reduce your family financial burden? Want to buy luxury brand like Louis Vuitton, etc? Please contact us immediately!! We will tailor a work plan to help you resolve your financial problem within short time!!" it says.

The agency's website has photos of the girl but her face is obscured.

Women's advocate Melinda Tankard Reist said the virginity sale and promotion of luxury goods as a cause to work for exposed the brothel's lack of ethics.

"If the woman is in financial need then the brothel is a vulture preying on her financial desperation," she said.

"Are they putting the girl's interests first or profiting from her and don't care about what happens the night she loses her virginity?

"No woman should have to sell her body for education. Has anyone asked why she needs the money? If she is a schoolgirl, is the school involved? Shouldn't teachers or staff look at her situation and help find a better way?" she said.

Tankard Reist also questioned what sort of man was attracted to this proposition.

"This raises a lot of questions. Why would someone want to pay to take a girl's virginity?" she said.

Leading Feminist Eva Cox, said it was a "very crappy" situation for all involved.

"Something is wrong in society to encourage this sort of behaviour but this prurient interest about a financial transaction is also a worry.

"I think sex work itself is a perfectly legitimate occupation but I just don't think this is a good way to start one's sex life," she said.

Feminist social commentator, Nina Funnell, said there was a double standard when it came to male and female virginity.

"As a society we still fetishise female virginity by artificially binding it to notions of purity and, in doing so, ascribe a sort of moral character and value to the female hymen. A man who would pay this amount has bought into this and is reaffirming the importance of that perceived purity by assigning a market value to it," she said.

"Moral crusaders intent on banning sex work will also respond to this with unusual levels of zeal," she added.