Sugar Babies Think They Have Power. Here's Why They Don't.
Sugar Babies Think They Have Power. Here's Why They Don't.
Late one night, after finishing another chapter of Anna and Christian's story — yes, Fifty Shades of Grey — I sat in front of my laptop. The blue light on my face in a dark apartment. And I hovered, hesitated, over the link.
What was I really looking for? Money? Experiences? Or something deeper. Someone who would take the lead.
I had spent years being the adult, the caretaker, long before I was ready. Maybe now I just wanted to be looked after. So I clicked.
That click put me on a sugar baby website at 22 years old. And everything I learned there is the reason I can say this with a straight face: sugar babies are prostitutes with better branding.
What a sugar baby actually is
Let's define it before we criticize it. A sugar baby is a woman who finds herself a sugar daddy. He's supposed to provide money in exchange for companionship. You bring the girl to a restaurant, you pay her a load of cash, and that's it. Just for her to smile at you. Maybe have a good conversation.
That money can pay tuition, rent, groceries. You throw cash at a girl and she does not have to do anything but be pretty and smile.
That's the basics, according to the websites. Nothing more is supposed to happen.
And honestly? That fantasy is exactly what gets women in the door. Because somebody — always a girlfriend — tells them about it.
"Why is it always a girlfriend that told you who's patient zero?" — Master
It's true. It's always a girlfriend who tells you that one of her friends is making a whole bunch of money doing nothing. Always a lot of money doing nothing. You go out on a date, you make 300 bucks, you don't sleep with the guy. That's the pitch.
But the pitch is a lie. And women are the ones telling it to each other.
The penthouse, the champagne, the ring
I had a real sugar baby experience. I write about it in the book, chapter three. The man was a CEO, had his own company, had money. He was a lot older. And he was nice. Always nice to me.
First "date," we don't go out, because I was kind of his mistress. We go to a penthouse on Nuns Island in Montreal — if you're from there, you know it's a rich place. We get inside and there's nothing in the fridge. Just champagne and sushi. There was bedding, toilet paper, but nobody lived there. It didn't look like his. A bachelor pad he kept for when he was in town.
Then I saw the ring on his finger.
"When I read that part, you look at the ring and all he said is, it's complicated." — Master
It's complicated. Like Facebook. Are you in a relationship? Yes, no, it's complicated. And I'm a 22-year-old with champagne in a penthouse that, back then, was probably worth four million dollars, and he still has his ring on. Couldn't you take some soap and slip it off before? But no. It's complicated.
"They should replace 'it's complicated' by 'I love prostitutes.'" — Master
That would be more honest. And honesty is the whole point here.
That first night, we had sex. Of course we did. Because that is what it is for. I got into it thinking, from what I'd been told, that I didn't have to. But I was young, I had a libido, I wanted to. Nobody forced me. It was fine.
But here is the truth nobody tells the new girls. Sugar babies say, no, no, it's just companionship, just talking, he helps me out, we have this relationship. No. You sleep with the guy. If you don't, he ditches you. And if he strings you along super long without it, it's because he's grooming you. So it's one or the other. And you don't want either.
"It is so foolish and so wrong of women to bring other women into sugar babying and telling them it's, oh no, this guy's just going to wine and dine you and look at each other and that's it." — Marian
When does a service become a prostitute
I had a bigger plan for my life than being a mistress. So I cut it off. Hotels, secrecy, money exchange — this was not for me. I am not a prostitute. And after being on those sites at 22, I realized sugar babying and prostitution are one and the same.
There's a clean test for it. The first thing you check on those sites is the date someone joined.
"If it's 2018 and you're in 2024, this is her job." — Master
You know what she'll say. "I'm just new here, I registered a long time ago and decided to go back." All bullshit. Or, "I'm in school, it's taking a long time to finish." It's funny how many of them study neuroscience. So many neuroscience girls. So many MBAs who somehow can't make the rent.
The honest version is much simpler. The question that settles all of it is this: with what money do you pay your rent?
"If it's drug money, you're into drugs. If it's pornography, you're a pornographer. If it's prostitution, you're a prostitute. If it's striptease, you're a stripteaser. With what money do you pay your rent? That's it." — Marian
You don't get to launder the label. You can call it companionship, you can call it sugar, you can call it an arrangement. The rent doesn't care what you call it.
Who is really in control
Here is the part that the women on those sites have backwards, and it's why this whole episode exists.
Prostitutes and sex workers think they're dominating men. They think being paid means they hold the power. It's the same logic as a sugar baby: I'm getting the money, so I'm the boss.
But follow the money one step further.
"If there's no more men with money, then women cannot sell their bodies. They have no buyers, no offers. The man offers. So they are submitting to the men." — Marian
You only make money when the man makes money. You don't make money when you sleep — it's not recurring, it's a very ephemeral business model with an expiry date, a bit like the porn industry, or the milk you buy. You always have to go back out and sleep with another person to get more. That is not power. That is being at his whims with extra steps.
So they believe they are the ones in control. But if you don't have the money, you're not the one in control.
Conscious submission is the honest version
This is why I keep coming back to submission, and to the book. People hear the word and think collar and scene. It's so much bigger than that.
A sugar baby arrangement and a conscious submissive relationship can look similar from the outside — older man, younger woman, he provides. Master helped me out at the beginning too. He took me in, paid for food, paid for everything, and we worked together. The difference isn't the money. The difference is honesty.
In a sugar arrangement, everyone is pretending. She pretends she's in control because she's paid. He pretends it's complicated. Nobody says the true thing.
In conscious submission, nobody is pretending the woman is in control. That's the whole bet. You consciously decide what is good for you and you submit to it — the right partner, the right mentor, the right authority. I didn't want a girl who'd just say yes to everything and then ditch you, and neither did Master. That prostitute attitude — I love you, I love you, yes to everything, until the money stops, and then she hates you — that's not power either. It's just a performance with a price tag.
I went on a sugar baby website lost, poor, looking for an older man who could teach me something. I found Master there. It worked, and it does work for some other couples — we're not the only married couple to meet that way. But it worked because we were honest about what we were, not because I convinced myself I was running the show.
So if you want power, stop pretending the paycheck is the power. Find power in choosing, consciously, who and what is worth submitting to. That's the part I lived. That's the part I wrote a whole book about.
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