To those engaging in transactional relationships with wealthier people, also known as sugar babies.
I started my experiences in sex work with sugaring, so I say this with the full knowledge of what it’s like and how sugar babies tend to view it: you need to accept that sugaring is a form of sex work. I do not contend with the idea that it’s safer to publicly present sugaring as being different to escorting, to avoid criminalization and stigma, and so I am not asking you to change what you call it when speaking to others. What I am saying is that accepting what you do as sex work to yourself is vital to avoiding internalized whorephobia and undervaluing yourself.
Allow yourself the freedom of acknowledging you are a very specific kind of escort, providing a semblance of a relationship alongside sex and companionship, and that your fees cover services in addition to the sex.
Ignore the depictions of sugar babies on TV or in sensationalized articles, where you’ll see claims that they make thousands or millions without ever being expected to provide sex. These relationships almost always include sex as a key element, and are almost never so well-paid.
Look at the prices that other sex workers are charging for an hour of their time, and calculate how much you’re being paid in comparison. Perhaps less of your time is taken up by sex than someone who is explicitly paid by the hour, but you should still determine a minimum social rate for any outings and consider the number of hours you do spend having sex. Think about the minimum rate you’d be willing to accept if you were to put up an advert on an escorting website, then make sure you’re earning at least that much once your allowance is divided by every time you meet.
Some people hit the jackpot with their sugar daddies and sugar mommies, but most don’t. Unless you’ve bagged a whale who gives you free reign with their credit card, your allowance should be viewed as a salary and any large expenses being covered should be treated as benefits. Instead of getting dental from your workplace, you might get your tuition fees or rent paid, and even a job with decent benefits could be underpaying you for services rendered.
Sugaring websites taught me to accept less money in return for my work than I later charged on escorting sites, because I didn’t know better. My intent to separate myself from other sex workers meant that I didn’t realize that overnight bookings were considered high-value and that I had no idea how much I was being underpaid. I also didn’t know about punter forums, with threads where they post links to profiles on sugar dating sites and discuss what sex acts they can get the sugar baby to perform for how little money.
Look up discussions about using sugar dating sites on forums, so you can learn the red flags to avoid clients who want to take advantage of you to the worst degree. Read about what’s happening to your data and personal information if you’ve verified your identity with these sites, too.
Consider why you’re sugaring rather than just escorting. It involves extra emotional work and entanglement with your personal life, having a smaller number of clients who provide more of your income and are harder to end things with, and frequently doesn’t pay as well. Sugaring isn’t necessarily the wrong choice, but you should be able to answer why you’re making it. Do you hope to find a mentor, who will support a project of yours in addition to paying to see you? Is the client pool more to your liking on these sites? Are you protecting yourself from social stigma, or are you in denial about what you’re doing?
Viewing sex as a service you offer also allows you to make plans and have firmer boundaries about how often you have sex with your clients and what acts you are willing to perform. It’s a lot harder to say no in the heat of the moment, especially if you try to treat any sex as being incidental. How often is your benefactor going to expect sex, before he’d want to lower your allowance or stop paying you? What frequency and type of sex would be a dealbreaker for you, and what would require higher pay for you to be willing to consider it?
There’s this spark of excitement that comes with imagining a lifestyle where rich people buy you things and cover your bills just for existing. The sugar baby lifestyle is not that. We both know the money comes with effort and an emotional toll, and that it most often requires sex. The money doesn’t fall out of their wallets and purses – you’re earning it.
Spare yourself the future pain and the added time you’ll need to untangle your internalized whorephobia if you remain in denial for too long. Look at the sugar lifestyle from a judgement-free perspective and accept that you’re a sex worker like the rest of us.
The separation of your work and personal life might just allow you to avoid developing the sense that you always owe people something if they help you out or give you a gift, which is a feeling from my sugaring days that I haven’t been able to shake in the years since I moved towards traditional escorting. I felt like it was just a fact of how I lived my life that if people gave me things then I owed them sex, until I learned not to blur the line between a client and someone I knew in my personal life. The culture around sugaring blurs these lines intentionally, and you can’t let it.
Sugar babies are no better than whores, and there’s nothing wrong with being a whore.
Jack Talks About Sex Work 