‘Sugar Daddies’ give their ‘Babies’ financial support. Is this prostitution?
‘Sugar Daddies’ Cover Debts for ‘Sugar Baby’ Dates – ABC News
“Tommy” is proud to have six “sugar babies” on retainer. ABC profiled him and one of his “babies,” “Monte,” who gets $5K/mo and taught to be a “classy woman”—how to golf and cook. In footage, she coos like a baby, shakes her tits, and kisses Tommy on command. They both describe the relationship in businesslike terms, not romantic ones.
Tommy and Monte met at a party, but Tommy’s other five “babies” came from a website that matches young women with older men who expect to pay for the women’s beauty and youth. He makes a clear comparison of the women to candy, rating them from “Walmart” quality on up to “Nieman Marcus” level. “It’s just a matter of which ones you want to shop at,” Tommy says.
Sugar babies also can juggle more than one sugar daddy. All interviewed involved claim they’re not engaged in prostitution, because they offer and seek companionship, not only sex, for the money.
About Justin Cascio
If someone is exchanging sex for money then, yes, that’s prostitution in my book even if “companionship” is part of the deal, there have always been prostitutes who provide “companionship.”. It just depends on what you are willing to pay for.
Of course, some feminists have claimed that marriage is prostitution because men provide financial support in return for sex, companionship, and household services. I’d disagree with that because marriage (ideally) is about creating a partnership for the purpose of building a life together. That said, there are women who view marriage and other relationships in rather mercenary terms, which kind of borders on socially sanctioned prostitution.
But sugar daddies take that a step further and are very upfront about the financial basis of the relationship. It’s hard to argue that’s not prostitution.
I suppose the woman can ask herself if she is with this guy primarily because she enjoys it or because he’s paying her a salary. If she views it as her “job” then, well, I don’t know how you can avoid the conclusion that she’s a sex worker.
Of course it’s prostitution! What’s wrong with that? Everyone involved is over 18 and a willing participant, so enjoy.
The only reason that I take issue with whether this is prostitution is that the interviewees all deny that is what they’re doing. I don’t actually care if consenting adults engage in prostitution. I’m in support of legalizing and regulating a dangerous industry. On a personal level, I feel bad for Monte, who seems to be coming out of the delusion that she’s a sex worker, and who seems to be struggling with issues of identity, purpose, and self-worth.
Then maybe she needs a white knight to come charging to her rescue and save her from her bad life decisions.
That won’t really save her, will it. She still has to start making decisions and identifying her borders, not just hope that the fire is nicer than the frying pan.
Yes. Offering financial or material support in exchange for sexual favors is quite clearly prostitution.
This is a lot more dangerous than simple prostitution, though. Prostitution may undermine inter-gender trust, but it doesn’t represent any serious threat to society. This – one man with several women – does. It is defacto bigamy; something that can’t occur in a society more advanced than a simple tribal one (and then, only in places where large amounts of young males regularly die off) without causing massive problems. The older men (with more power and resources) will end up with most of the women, and the younger ones (bitter and angry from sexual frustration, with no place in society) will go about tearing everything apart. Murder and rape will become commonplace, and in response, those with power will crackdown. Only you can’t really crackdown on an instinctual imperative like you can with simple economic inequality, so rather than tamping things down, that crackdown will cause society to explode.
But hey, we’re probably already heading in that direction anyway.
I think it’s stretching the limits of possibility to say that bigamy will lead to commonplace murder and rape. Prostitution commodifies sex: a natural, renewable, human resource. You can talk about an unequal distribution of a limited resource—the sexual performances of attractive women—or you can acknowledge that the women are not just a commodity, but are also people with equal rights in our society. It’s possible that Monte will grow older and have a harem of boys who she puts through school, deeming it a satisfactory alternative to marriage. It could happen.
I think this is pretty gross! I clicked through to the article and I think the guy “Tommy” looks pretty foolish with a girl young enough to be his daughter.
We need more healthy relationships between consenting, equal partners, not more reasons to condone unequal ones. Systems like this that try to make prostitution look better because there’s “more to it” that just the sex only provide yet another distorting lens through which we view romantic relationships, and cheapen the real thing, in my opinion. I think plain old prostitution or other more short term sex work is less bad than this because it doesn’t run the risk of evolving into an actual relationship built on unequal terms.
Surely the correct question is ‘why does it matter if it’s prostitution?’
Anything else is just an attempt to criticize other people’s sexual arrangements, which, if they’re between consenting adults, is none of our business.
Exactly. A reporter once asked a wealthy old geezer marrying a young hottie: “You know she’s only marrying you for your money, right?”
The geezer’s reply: “What would be the other reasons to have money?”
” What do you think?” I think that all involved are consenting adults.
“Would you be proud to be a “sugar daddy”?” I don’t know. I’ve been single and sexless for most of my 40+ years, but I’ve never paid someone to have sex with me. Not that it’s something I’m proud of, it’s just is what it is.
If I were attractive to someone, whether for my appearance, an achievement or a skill I have performed, that might be something to be proud about. But for being a source of money? I don’t think so.
“Is this prostitution?”
It is what it is. Is the label important? Is it important whether or not sex is involved? Then, why?
“Would you enter a relationship like the ones described in this report?”
See above.
Loneliness can make people do odd things. I can’t tell where or what person I’ll be 10 years from now. Neither can you or anyone else.
A prostitute offering me a good deal on magazine subscriptions doesn’t mean they’re not a prostitute anymore. That’s silly.
@Druk
This morning I am a guitar player. It’s my favourite thing to do, (with my clothes on) and I soemtimes get paid for doing it.
On Monday Morning I will be providing professional advice on a project with a six figure budget that will save lives. Should I be referred to at that meeting as ‘the guitar player’?
Your point only makes sense if you think there’s a special meaning to the word prostitute, a special status, that persists even when the person involved isn’t engaged in prostitution. So, try this question out. When a prostitute takes flowers to his mother, is he being a prostitute or a son?
You are conflating the noun and the verb. I haven’t been asking whether Monte is a prostitute and remains one when she visits her mother. I think most of us agree that the relationship described in the video and news item I linked to are engaged in prostitution, because even when you add companionship or a magazine subscription to the package, you’re still most importantly selling sex. When you show up to play guitar for a paying gig, you wear clothes for that. They don’t pay you primarily to wear clothes, but it goes with the job. Like companionship with prostitution, and not like, usually, magazine subscriptions.
Guitarists and gynecologists and prostitutes are people who do these things for a living and do not necessarily identify themselves by what they do, even while they’re doing it. So whether Monte is “a prostitute” is up to her; I think what she’s doing is prostitution.
@Justin
Unless you are also Druk I haven’t a clue why you are addressing your remarks to me. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say either – but I think we share that experience.
I’m not Druk, but I don’t have to be to respond to your comment.
OK Justin, one last try at this.
Druk said that even if a prostitute is offering him a magazine subscription she is still a prostitute. I was responding to him, not you. So taking issue with what I had said, as if i was responding to you, is confusing, and suggests you have missed my point,. That’s OK,. I’m not always as clear as I would like to be.
If I were responding to you I would take issue with your remark ‘ I’m in support of legalizing and regulating a dangerous industry. ‘ Prostitution is legal where I live, and the sex workers I know desire no more regulation than necessary, which basically means none as all the likely crimes that might arise during a prostitution transaction are already covered by existing laws.. There are dangerous ways of being a sex worker, but there are dangerous ways of being a building worker if you choose to work in the casualized end of the business, and, as the Suzy Lamplugh Trust will tell you, there are dangerous ways of being an estate agent if you don’t follow good practice on lone working. You’re making the mistake of assuming prostitution is a special case – it’s not.
I’m sorry you find it confusing to have a threaded conversation with hundreds of people on the internet, Carter, but thanks for persisting. If you pretend we’re all sitting around a bowl of nachos having this conversation, it makes more sense for me to jump in while Druk isn’t answering your question. Maybe his mouth is full of nachos. At any rate, anyone could answer your remark: it’s the nature of comments on articles on the internet.
But back to the subject. You’re free to take issue with supporting the legalization and regulation of dangerous industry. No more regulation than necessary sounds like a perfectly reasonable limit, doesn’t it? None at all is clearly not enough. I’m not assuming that prostitution is the only industry that would benefit from more of a safety net. Of course construction and real estate and many other industries are regulated, and there are people who operate in the gray or black ends of these legal markets. That is no argument against regulation, IMO.