A few weeks ago I attended and wrote about Dining in the Dark, an event hosted by the Foundation Fighting Blindness, where the main course of a Plaza Ballroom gala dinner was served in complete darkness by blind waiters. It struck me as a perfect match of cause and function, making guests contemplate tangible need while enjoying a night on the town.
I was drawn to an event called “Manthropy,” held Thursday at Hudson Terrace, a multi-floor event space on Manhattan’s West Side, for the opposite reason. Manthropy is a thriving event in its fifth year. It hosts “date auctions” (quotation marks theirs) with eligible bachelors. These auctions of man-dates benefit Redlight Children [redlightchildren.org], an organization that fights child sexual exploitation, which, according to Unicef, affects two million children a year.
Hmmm...now there’s counterintuitive for you. Figuring that some stories just write themselves, I signed up and arrived nearly on time, just after 8 p.m., not wanting to miss the sale. There were two events at Hudson Terrace that night, and the lobby and check-in tables were buzzing with activity. But Willa Bernstein, the auction's main organizer, told me it wouldn’t start until 11 p.m. “It gives you time to have a few drinks and get to know the bachelors,” one of the women behind the desk suggested.
Although I, of course, wanted to get to know the bachelors, three hours seemed like overkill. I took the five-page auction catalog and repaired to a nearby restaurant. The list of available bachelors turned out to be great dinner reading. Some man lots seemed like personal ads, listing height, weight, and eye color. There was Cam, a “Bruce Weber” model, soap actor, and otherwise attractive-sounding fellow. Two listings forcefully clarified that the bachelors were heterosexual. (I had assumed that, but now I’m wondering.)
Others were more cerebral. I was shocked to see the famed NYU Stern School of Business economist Nouriel Roubini on the list. Known as Dr. Doom for his early prognosticating about the collapse of the global economy a few years ago, he is on CNBC all the time. I feel like I know him. There were a few Jewish guys, though no bios mentioned any other religious affiliation, although one of the Jews also self-identified as a WASP. There was a tennis pro and a divorced guy from Locust Valley who sounded wealthy.
When I got back to Hudson Terrace, it seemed the free drinks provided by Bulldog London Dry Gin had worked their magic, and the crowd of wealthy young women (mostly pre-cougar, but I saw more than a few wild-eyed predators) seemed louche and lugubrious. The bachelors were all easily pegged by their red rose boutonierres, which matched the crystal chandelier and flocked walls of Hudson Terrace’s second-floor party space. Boudoir, yes, but I liked it—plus it has an outdoor smoking terrace which guests were using avidly. Even though I’m no longer one of them, I still say that an active smoking section makes for a great party.
I was surprised to see my cousin Robin McBride among the bidders; she currently has a boyfriend and a husband (although not for long), so I wondered what the hell she was doing there. “I’m not bidding, I’m helping Willa,” she told me. They’re old friends, so Robin filled me in a little bit on how Manthropy works.
All the proceeds from the auction go to Redlight Children. They don’t take expenses for the event out of the proceeds. Each winning bidder (the “dates” sell for between $200 and $2,000) goes on a pre-arranged date donated by a restaurant or nightclub.
Some couples go to a “famous” wine tasting party hosted by Guy Jacobson, a law professor of some sort at NYU, a wine know-it-all of some accord, and a film producer whose film Holly features Ron Livingston from Office Space. The clips I saw were both professional and disturbing. Guy talked about being approached by a five-year-old Asian girl and being groped as the impetus for his getting involved with Redlight Children. Ouch. As a hard-nosed filmmaker and matchmaking oenophile, Guy’s combination of activism and pleasure-seeking make him the perfect spokesperson for this event, dontcha think?
Manthropy is apparently a real word, at least according to the event’s Web site. It is defined in Webster as “an active effort to promote human welfare.” And things were starting to get active on the man auction stage.
Robin assured me that all the dates were “real” bachelors. Apparently there had been some previous instances of men donating themselves for auction who had a little lady waiting at home. Caveat emptor, girls.
Finally, the meat market was underway. It wasn’t sleazy, but maybe a little sloppy. The auctioneer was hard to hear at times, and the guys stood behind him sheepishly. Some of them, like Cam the “Bruce Weber model,” took off their jackets when their star turn came, the better to allow the bidders to ogle the goods. Last year one guy removed his shirt, but I saw no actual flashing tonight.
While I was taking notes, one of the bidders asked me if I was an agent for one of the bachelors. Bachelors have agents?
This wasn’t just a ladies night. There were lots of guys there, many better looking than those available for purchase, but this wasn’t a bi-friendly event. Robin told me that no dates had been sold to guys. Then a man was announced as a winning bidder, although he stated for the room to hear that he was bidding for “a friend.” I wanted to get over and interview him, but by now the auction was in full swing.
Once the bidders turn in their paddle number, a handler introduces them to their bachelor, and they huddle over a clipboard exchanging info and reading about their evening on the town. It’s a weird moment, and nosy bodies like me were always crowding in to watch the interaction. Was there a love connection?
I finally cornered a couple, Alex and Lorna. Alex was the tennis guy, I think. He was polite. They had a choice of restaurant for their date; I suggested Masa. I asked Alex if he had ever been a paid-for date before. He had not. I asked him how he felt about the auction. He said it was “fun.” What made him do it? “It’s a really good cause.”
A little more probing, equally scintillating, made it clear that he really didn’t know that much about the cause, but by then I’d already given up the ghost about trying to uncover why an organization that is trying to stop child sex trafficking uses an escort auction to raise money. Clearly nobody gave a rat’s ass about possible charges of hypocrisy. There were dates to be set up.
Lorna, clearly smitten with Alex, agreed to be interviewed on the record. That was until it came up in our interview, in front of auction prize Alex, that Lorna had also been a successful bidder the year before. How had it gone? Where did they go? Lorna said that she just did it for a “friend” (these friends and their ghost dating policies…) and hot footed it away, but not before telling Alex she thought he was adorable.
Then I chatted with Yaniv, an Isreali-born son of French parents who plays in a band in his free time “although not that much free time.” Bearded and flirtatious, Yaniv was eating up the evening’s adulation with a spoon. His write-up promised that he intended to be “an old-fashioned gentleman.” I asked him if that entailed picking up his date. He thought for a moment. “Sure why not, pick her up, the whole thing.” What about the end of the date, did he have any expectations? “You know how it is,” he said, winking, “You never know.”
