Fact: College is expensive.
Fact: Many college students struggle financially.
Fact: There are many solutions for paying one’s way through college.
Fact: One of these solutions is being a sugar baby.
The website is called seekingarrangement.com. It allows young, attractive women to find rich, older men to “supplement” their income in exchange for their “time.” Technically, the arrangement is not assumed to be sexual. Many sugar babies insist they’re only arm candy and spend their time with sugar daddies by going on dates and accompanying them to events. Either way, the relationship is expected to be “mutually beneficial.”
In 2012, USF was reported to have more sugar babies than any other Florida university and seventh most in the nation. According to a story by 10 News, 198 USF students were signed up for the website that year. The Tampa Bay area was said to have had the twelfth highest number of sugar daddy arrangements in the United States.
Right now, a 48-year-old Tampa man, so charmingly calling himself “Mr. Happy,” is looking for a sugar baby. According to the website, he has an average income of $175,000 – $200,000 and a net worth of more than a million dollars.
Men like this are waiting for you. They’ll pay for your cell phone bill, your tuition, maybe even a nose job. And all you have to do is put on some stilettos and hit the town for some free drinks. Sounds like a sweet deal, huh?
But if young women truly feel they will not be pressured into favors that are more than just for show, they’re kidding themselves. A recent Huffington Post article, which discusses the in flux in sugar daddy arrangement in the UK, reports that many sugar babies admit to feeling pressured into sex. Though, legally it is prostitution, we won’t pass judgement on the young women willing to “work hard for the money,” especially in the name of education.
A sugar daddy arrangement is weird and probably an uncomfortable topic for most. There are certainly more “moral” ways to pay for school, but at the same time, there are also less moral ways. At least these young women aren’t doing anything criminal. Though engaging in a sugar daddy relationship seems like a gateway drug to more dangerous activity, we’ll give newbies the benefit of the doubt. And again, especially in the name of education.
Anyway, Seeking Arrangement promises its sugar babies an upstanding, “modern” gentleman who totally just wants you to succeed in life and isn’t trying to get in your pants.
It describes its sugar daddies as “always respectful and generous. You only live once, and you want to date the best. Some call you a mentor, sponsor or benefactor. But no matter what your desires may be, you are brutally honest about who you are, what you expect and what you offer.”
Sounds like a great guy. But just one question. If you’re so great, why are you paying thousands of dollars for a date?
We took it upon ourselves to re-write this description: “You’re getting old. You cheated on your wife through 25 years of marriage and now both she and your three 20-something-year-old children hate your guts. Even the illegitimate child airs your calls. Nobody loves you anymore. You’re scheezy, arrogant and perverted. But you do have one attribute left: your money. So join Seeking Arrangement today!”
It’s gross, but at least these men are doing something somewhat charitable with their money.
So it’s not so much the people who use this service that we have our beef with, but the man who created it, Brandon Wade.
“Calling women ‘prostitutes’ who want something more out of a relationship than just this abstract notion of love is a comment and a stigma that is born from pure jealousy,” Wade said in a 2012 GQ interview.
“The truth is, in my opinion, love is a concept that’s been invented by poor people. These people aren’t wealthy, they aren’t beautiful, they aren’t the cream of the crop # so what do they have? They have love. For everyone else there’s our website.”
Hmm. We won’t waste any space elaborating on how we feel about that statement.
