Two words have struck a chord with people over the last year - 'sugar baby'. A sugar baby usually dates a sugar daddy and receives profit in the form of gifts from the relationship. Earlier this year we reported that over 10,000 Irish students were using a dating website called SeekingArrangement.com to pay off student debts. The site offers young women, aka sugar babies, financial stability from their 'sugar daddies', older and richer men. It transpired that UCD and Trinity College Dublin had the highest amounts of users from the dating site.
Last nights RTÉ 2 documentary Vogue: For Love Or Money? saw Vogue Willaims interview sugar babies and sugar baby coach Brook Urick. Urick 'teaches' women how to be a sugar baby which leaves Williams physically upset, specifically after she interviews a young 19-year-old girl. In one clip the coach announces that "there's always going to be a financial component to relationships but sugar relationships are more honest about that":
Well it seems Brooke has ruffled quite a few of your feathers! Tonight on @RTE2 "For Love Or Money" pic.twitter.com/av7UJaLA2P
— Vogue Williams (@VogueWilliams) October 17, 2017
At a coaching session in Ireland, Williams learns that all the women at the event are from Irish universities who are looking to pay their way through school. One sugar baby, in particular, upset Williams and caused her to confront the sugar baby coach:
I honestly feel upset after talking to her. She is a really young, 19. She currently has a sugar daddy. She is a virgin so she hasn’t slept with anyone yet. She has told me she is really worried, she does not really want to sleep with a man over twice her age for the first time and ruin something special...He told her, ‘I know you’. It turns out he is one of her uncle’s friends. I think she is lost. She says she has got no money, she is in college. I can’t believe I’m sitting through this, it is so wrong...These are such young girls and they are being targeted by older men.
When Vogue challenges Urick about how she feels the young women are being preyed upon and how sugar dating is idealized Urick replies “Any 19-year-old girl coming to SeekingArrangement we didn't target her, she came to us. We can’t control what you do off the site.” Vogue reveals in the documentary that she was offered €20,000 to go on a date but would not feel comfortable. Speaking in the documentary "it would make me feel like an escort" to which her friend replies "that's the choice you've been allowed to make".
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One woman claimed she wanted to be a sugar baby to reach a new level of society. Urick explains that sugar babies shouldn't look for money but should have a long-standing relationship with their daddies as they can help you through college and if you're discussing money straight off the bat then you're a "sex worker... sugar babies are not paid, they are gifted" - money should be discussed at the end of the third date. One journalist discusses with Vogue how they uncovered that one sugar baby was actually 15 and not 18: "We had no way of telling if she had met anyone but she had an active profile from the age of 15".
Twitter reacted strongly to the documentary with some questioning if the documentary was too conservative about sex work and sex in general:
"I had to surrender, many times."#Sugarbaby Olivia speaking to Vogue Williams about sleeping with a #SugarDaddy to whom she was not attracted. #ForLoveOrMoney
— Ciara Plunkett (@PlunkettCiara) October 17, 2017
Those kinds of sexually explicit messages are common on Tinder & POF too. That's just online dating in general... no? #forloveormoney
— selflovewsarah (@selflovewsarah) October 17, 2017
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"Sugar dating"?? Never actually knew this was a thing, sugar coating Prostitution me thinks.#forloveormoney
— L. NíHéineacháin (@LaobhaoiseNihE) October 17, 2017
Really disappointed by how conservative #forloveormoney is tonight. Wouldn't have expected that of @VogueWilliams tbh.
— selflovewsarah (@selflovewsarah) October 17, 2017
After watching @VogueWilliams #forloveormoney I have NEVER been so grateful for the part-time shop work that funded my way through college!
— Sarah Cremin (@sarahcremin_26) October 18, 2017
Why focus on whether it's sex work or not? Who cares? As long as the girls are of age & free will what's the effing problem? #forloveormoney
— selflovewsarah (@selflovewsarah) October 17, 2017
If you missed the episode click here to catch up on the RTÉ 2 player.
