Women on Sugar Daddy sites aren't prostitutes - they're entrepreneurs

So feminism happened and not much really changed. Women still cannot do what men can do without receiving some kind of condescending pat on the rack back for their efforts. Women cannot have promiscuous sex without being called whores, and sluts, and jezebels (the misogynistic list goes on), and now women cannot date men in exchange for money and/or gifts without being called prostitutes.

Let’s talk about those sugar daddy websites that have been in the press recently for a second. Actually, let’s talk about these websites from now until the end of this article. Now these websites have been huge in the US for years but only now have they began to blossom in the UK, with the press insinuating that girls as young as eighteen are being exploited for their beauty and youth by men old enough to know better.

Do I agree with sites like these? The simple answer is no. Do I think that this is prostitution? The not so simple answer is no. The debate that has been sparked by these controversial websites isn’t whether or not the websites are ethically right, the debate is about whether or not these websites promote and thrive on prostitution.

Let’s take a brief walk back in time and explore the world’s oldest profession. (Rey) 1851 describes a prostitute as a woman who allows the use of her body by any man without distinction for a payment made or expected. Practically the same thing is said by Havelock Ellis. He refers to a prostitute as “One who openly abandons her body to a number of men without choice, for money.”

History lesson over, let’s get back to the task at hand: are woman who date sugar daddies (aka ‘sugar babies’) prostitutes? Again I stand firmly behind my convictions, these sugar babies are not prostitutes and I am going to use Ellis’ definition to make my point.

These women do not abandon their bodies without choosing the man in question; in fact they do not abandon their bodies at all - their bodies are always within their grasp, along with their mind, their personality and their conversation. If they do let go of their body, they have chosen to do so with a particular man. Yes some of these women use their bodies, but who can honestly say that they haven’t tried or succeeded at flirting to get what they want?

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So you’re going on a date with a guy, it’s a first date, you like this guy, you want to look good, better than you have ever looked before. You glam yourself up, paying attention to each detail of your personal appearance, ensuring that there isn’t a hair out of place and if there is, you did it on purpose. So you meet at a nice restaurant, you share a meal and a few bottles of wine and then he pays - that is what is expected right? That was what all that glamming up was for. A girl’s got to eat, right?

Now I know in our modern society, women boost about having it all - but when it comes to being wooed, most women are very much traditional. They want to feel special, looked after, wanted and adored -and why shouldn’t they? The thing that no one seems to recognise is that men like to feel these things too.

Most of these sugar daddies live a nomadic existence travelling from place to place for business or working long hours. For them there just isn’t time to meet an attractive, intelligent woman. Sugar babies are the girlfriend experience that they crave during their little leisure time. No one wants to be alone and these men are willing to pay handsomely to evade loneliness.

Okay so some sugar daddies are repulsively old, old to enough to have fathered and grandfathered some of the women they date. But older women date younger men too - in fact there are websites for cougars who pay to date younger men. Are these men being exploited? It’s exactly the same scenario with a role reversal.

Do some of these dates end with sexual intercourse? Well it’s a date; if both parties are attracted to each other, the conversation and the alcohol is flowing and the mood is right then of course sex is inevitable. If making the choice to have sex with a man who paid for your company, your meal and awarded you with extravagant gifts is prostitution then a very large percentage of the female population have prostituted themselves.

There going to be instances where exploitation will take place. Capitalism thrives on exploiting the weak, but these women were not forced into being sugar babies - and more crucially they chose the men themselves. These women know exactly what they are doing when they decide to become sugar babies and if they feel exploited they can leave at anytime. They are not prostitutes, they are entrepreneurs and the product that they are selling is their time and company.

Do you agree? Read the other side of the argument here.

Women on Sugar Daddy sites aren't prostitutes - they're entrepreneurs

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