France's sordid housing crisis (BBC) {sex in lieu of rent}

[eppur_se_muova]

By Jonny Dymond
Europe correspondent, BBC News

It took six months for Liberation journalist Ondine Millot to get to the truth about the most sordid side of France's housing crisis.

Look through some property websites and you can see the advertisements: the phrase you are looking for is contre services - when a room in an apartment is offered, sometimes "free", in exchange for services.

Sometimes the service is perfectly innocent - cleaning the apartment or washing clothes, to defray some of the high cost of renting property.

But sometimes it is not: instead the requests are sexual, demeaning, bordering on the perverse. "Sex twice a month," is one blunt demand. Another asks for someone "open in spirit and elsewhere".

"Flat in exchange for libertine services," goes another.
***
more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/7290139.stm

And how many think this is not going on here? Show of hands ... ?

[screembloodymurder]

1. The perfect solution to our housing crisis and the economy.

Those who can afford one will want a rental unit and those who can't afford the rent will get the big unit.

[bobbolink]

2. It's always gone on!

This has been the state for women for a very long time.

It just hasn't been talked about.

[Samurai_Writer]

3. There are ads like this on Craigslist all the time

When I was looking for a place to rent, I ran across at least 2-3 of these ads every week. It goes on everywhere.

[Ellen Forradalom]

4. It's called marriage

OK I KID I KID DON'T KILL ME