Editor’s Note: The names in this story have been altered.
Anna takes a long drag of her cigarette and flicks the ash away. The wind picks up and it carries along the ash and smell of tobacco.
“You’re not supposed to smoke this close to the buildings on campus really. I just paid off a fine for doing that with cash that I got from a date last week,” she said.
She puts out a half-smoked Marlboro Red, and says she’s going to save the rest for later. She starts walking down the road away from campus. It’s slightly drizzling and she doesn’t have an umbrella, yet she’s still walking slowly and with poise.
“Henry said he could give me $400 tonight for some late night drinks at the Cheesecake Factory. I like showing up a little late though, I wouldn’t usually walk this slow in the rain,” she said, with a laugh.
About an hour prior, Henry, a 53-year-old accountant, called Anna, a 21-year-old junior at Goucher College, to say goodnight. After Anna told him that she was in need of a new computer, he offered her cash for her company.
“Henry is the kind of guy who thinks I love him because I listen to him talk for hours and I don’t talk about myself,” she said.
Photo by Alisa Sonsev
The Business of Sugaring
Henry is just one of the many men that Anna has met on the website Seeking Arrangement, that sets up young, beautiful women— sugar babies—with affluent, and usually older, men—sugar daddies. According to the website, these relationships are “mutually beneficial arrangements that are upfront and honest.”
The sugar baby’s “job” is to shower the man with attention, and the sugar daddy reciprocates by providing the young woman with gifts, nice vacations, fancy dinners, and some sort of financial compensation.
The wealthiest men get the most attention from the sugar babies. Sugar daddies pay $50 a month for access to the site, or $200 to be a “Diamond User” with verified income. Sugar babies get to join the site for free. Men who have an annual income in the millions get the most responses to their messages, according to Brandon Wade, CEO of Seeking Arrangement.
Sex is not mentioned on the website, and Wade has said that he is “not promoting prostitution,” according to an interview with The Daily Beast. Not all men expect sex from their sugar babies, but some want it in order to feel as though the relationship is real, according to Anna.
In 2013, Seeking Arrangement announced that about 44 percent of its sugar babies are currently enrolled in college or university. And Wade highly encourages this trend. Sugar babies that register with an .edu email account receive a free premium membership, which sugar daddies would have to pay up to $1200 to access.
“Of course looks matter, but the guys don’t want a dumb girl. They want a girl who they can talk to about their work and someone who understands their humor,” Anna said. “It’s all part of the idea that the relationship is real and organic.”
When Christina, a sugar baby who just graduated from MICA, first signed up for Seeking Arrangement, she didn’t think she would get many messages being a short, curvy redhead. A lot of the men commented on how intelligent and funny she sounds in her profile. She said most of the men who message her are either lawyers or business executives.
“A lot of them don’t want a hot blonde sorority girl. They just know they wouldn’t be interested in them, and that shatters the illusion,” Christina said.
The Meet Up
Anna walks into the restaurant, and sees Henry sitting at the bar with a drink in front of him. She waves and walks over to him, taking the seat beside him.
He awkwardly hugs her, while both of them are sitting down, and Anna rolls her eyes as he holds her in his embrace.
“How are you? I missed you, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. I was thinking about you all day at work today,” Henry said.
The bartender comes over and Anna orders a diet soda with two lemons and no ice. She smiles at the young male bartender as she makes her drink.
“Did you forget your ID?,” Henry asked. “I can order you something, it’s not a big deal. It’s a Monday night, I really doubt they’re going to be strict on ID’s.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m just not in the mood for alcohol. Like you said, it’s a Monday night,” Anna said.
Henry grabs Anna’s hand and kisses it. She smiles coyly and takes a small sip of her drink. She looks around the restaurant. There’s only a few people, and most of them are near the bar. She looks at Henry.
“I can’t stay for long.” she said. “I have to start doing research for a paper about the Armenian genocide. Cheery, right?”
Henry laughs loudly and grabs her hand again. He pushes his finished drink to the side and the bartender comes to pick it up. Henry quickly whips around to the bartender and puts his hand on the glass.
“Woah, buddy. I like to drink the ice water after it melts, so just leave it,” Henry said to the bartender.
Again, Anna rolls her eyes.
The Price of Sugaring
Although the sugar babies are showered with expensive gifts and lavish vacations, many girls join the website because they can’t afford to pay for rent, tuition, college textbooks and sometimes even food.
“Obviously I love the free stuff,” Christina said. “But I mostly use the money to pay off my $100,000 of student debt.”
Christina lives in a small studio apartment in Baltimore. Her rent is $600 a month, including utilities. She said she could probably afford a better place with the money from being a sugar baby, but she wants to pay off the majority of her debt first.
According to prweb.com, the fastest growing sugar baby school is NYU, followed by University of Georgia and Tulane. With average tuition alone at these schools being upwards of $20,000 per academic year, it makes sense that an unpaid internship or a low paid entry level job doesn’t hold the same appeal.
“A lot of people blame the girls for doing something gross, but isn’t it more gross that we are part of a system that makes us feel like we have to do this in order to pay for education and housing?” Christina said.
Anna said that she feels mostly comfortable with herself being a sugar baby, and doesn’t mind telling talking about it. However, she tends to have uneasy feelings about the sugar daddies. Most of the men she has met are married and have children.
“Let’s put it this way: I don’t mind being the supply, I’m just weary of the people with the demand. I can’t respect anyone who sees me as some sort of sexy young therapist,” she said.
Anna said that the men she has been with have gone to great lengths in order to hide what they are doing. Some have separate phones just to interact with their sugar babies.
“Of course they want to hide it from their families. They’re basically cowards, which is why I think they can’t handle being with women their own age,” she said.
Christina said she prefers that it’s all kept hush hush. She has a boyfriend of two years who doesn’t know about her sugar babying. When she has to spend the night at her sugar daddy’s house, she tells him that she is staying at a friend’s house nearby because she likes to have “space and independence in a relationship.”
The Goodbye
Photo by Alisa Sonsev
Henry smiles and hands Anna an unmarked envelope. She folds it in half and puts it in her jacket pocket with one hand, and touches Henry’s arm with the other.
Henry calls over the bartender to pay for the drinks. He puts down a $20 on the counter, and gestures to the bartender to keep the change. The bartender thanks him.
He gets up and touches the small of Anna’s back, but Anna shrugs it off.
“You don’t have to walk me out, I’m going to go to the ladies room,” she said.
“Are you sure? I know it’s last minute but this is still technically a date and I’m still going to be your gentleman,” he said.
“Really, it’s okay. Call me,” she said as she kisses him on the cheek.
Henry leaves the restaurant, looking back at Anna a few time as he walks away. As soon as he is out of sight, she orders another diet soda with two lemons and no ice.
“Henry is such a tool,” she said.
