Sexist Chart of the Day: Demi and Ashton Are Splitsville

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


For the Best Titles of Press Releases Ever file, see this one, received today by a fellow MoJoer: “Scientific Reason for the Ashton and Demi Breakup according to a Cougar Dating Study Conducted by WhatsYourPrice.com.” And there’s a chart, which we’ve included below.

WhatsYourPrice.com is pretty much what it sounds like: A dating site based on the idea that every man and woman has a potential market “value” in dollars, depending on their age and attractiveness and some other stuff. It’s even more soul-crushingly exploitive than it sounds, but more on the company in a moment. First, dig their “scientific” dishing on Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, celebrity lovers whose age difference has long enthralled Hollywood paparazzi, and whose coupling is now supposedly threatened by infidelity.

AshtonDemiCougarCubChart

Demi and Ash are part of a larger negative trend in “Cougar-Cub relationships,” writes company founder Brandon Wade, an MIT grad who also authored The Definitive Guide to Sugar Daddy and Mutually Beneficial Relationships. Cougars, of course, are what douchebags call attractive older women; cubs are the attractive young men who love them. Now that we’ve defined our terms, on to the pseudoscience: Let’s figure out what everyone is worth, in dollars, based on age and hotness!

Based on the chart above, Wade explains:

…we see that the perceived value of an attractive woman peaks when she reaches 25 years old, and gradually diminishes as she ages. The perceived value of an attractive man however, starts at a much lower price when he is young, peaking only when he reaches the age of 34. It appears from the value curve above that at least some stereotypes we often hear do hold some truth. For example, that female models earn the most before they turn 30. Or that men become more attractive as they age.

Does the curve prove these stereotypes, or just perpetuate them? We’ll leave that up to you. But Wade says his gross generalizations have major implications for the 33-year-old Kutcher and 48-year-old Moore. You see, Cougar-Cub unions are basically screwed at some point:

Demi and Ashton started dating back in 2003 when she was 40 and he was 25. The green circle on the value graphs show the value at their respective age back then. Both were valued at approximately $70. This likely means both valued each other equally, which may provide a simplistic (but scientific) explanation for why the two started dating back then. Over time, as both age, Ashton’s value has been on the rise while Demi’s have declined. Fast forward to 2011, the orange circles on the curves show Ashton’s value at approximately $158, and Demi’s value at $56, a $101 difference in Ashton’s favor. This may explain the recent rumors we read about Ashton cheating on Demi, and that their relationship may soon be over. It is also probably a coincidence that Ashton’s new mistress, Sara Leal, who is 23 years old has a value that is more closely aligned to his.

So where is Wade getting all these dollar values for warm bodies anyway? Ah, that’s the WhatsYourPrice.com difference: The site’s raison d’etre is to get folks to set their bidding price for a hot date—to establish, through open trading, a stable market value for everyone who’s seeking companionship. “Most of us are already pretty familiar with the idea of buying a first date,” Wade’s site states, but “an economic model of pricing and paying for a first date did not exist in the real world…until now.” Basically, if you’re “young and attractive” by WhatsYourPrice.com standards, you can put yourself up for a first-date auction and make some dough. And if you’re a lonely guy with money to spend, you can buy yourself a first date with an insanely attractive woman. All the while, you’re providing Wade with macro data on his macabre sexual-slave market. It’s like some grand Nate Silver experiment, only, you know, completely douchey.

To be fair, Wade understands the sensitivity of his work. The Ash-Demi post includes this disclaimer:

While some of you may find this study to be offensive, please understand that it is not our intention to offend. The price value of an attractive male or female in this study is calculated from over 180,000 first date offers traded between members of our website. Our study is meant only to let us understand how humans, from a sociological and quantifiable point of view, evaluate each other.

The very next line of the “study” begins: “The following is the Cougar value graph and the Cub value graph.” Don’t try to fight it, folks: It’s only science!

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate