Sex work is, and has always been, the most dangerous profession. While logging, fishing, and other male dominated industries have more published reports, the rates of injury and death for prostitutes is exceedingly high. In a study of Vancouver women in prostitution 75% had suffered physical injuries from violence, including beatings, stabbings, and head injuries. Sexually transmitted diseases are another employment risk that no other sector faces. And sadly, due to legal and moral gray areas, much of the violence and abuse goes unreported.
The world of “sugar dating” is a candy-coated version of prostitution. While the exchange of sex for money is not explicitly stated, the expectation is clear. Wealthy, older men (and sometimes women) offer to “spoil” younger women (or sometimes men) with gifts, money, and trips, in exchange for their time and attention. This transactional dating is glamorized on the numerous sites that promote the practice. Photos of beautiful young women on the arms of handsome, silver foxes paint a sexy, enticing picture. But the reality is often far different. And far darker.
The sugar babies I interviewed for my novel, The Arrangement, were not naïve to the hazards. They used terms like “salty” (men who offer money and trips in order to get a baby into bed but don’t follow through) and “Splenda” (men who want to be sugar daddies but lack the financial means). They told me about sex positive, female empowerment groups online that let women share warnings about bad men, and advice like how to spot a fake PayPal account. But sometimes, these precautions are not enough. Sometimes, behind the tantalizing profile of a sugar daddy, there’s a con man. Or a psychopath.
Reported sugar baby Mackenzie Lueck paid the ultimate price when she was tragically murdered in Salt Lake City, allegedly by a man she met through a dating app. A June 2019 segment on 60 Minutes Australia interviewed a young woman who said she was abducted and raped by her sugar daddy. Being pressured into taking drugs or engaging in sexual situations outside of their comfort zone is a common complaint among young women involved in monetized dating. But there are more subtle, insidious ways that a toxic man can wreak havoc on the life of a sugar baby.
In October 2018, the New York Times profiled a young woman named Chandler Fowles who had been scammed by a would-be sugar daddy. This man told her he was an investment banker. He convinced her to pay for a hotel room for their rendezvous and cajoled her into inviting a friend for a threesome. At his insistence, they got their hair professionally blown out (he would obviously pay them back) and wore heavy makeup and sexy clothing. When he got what he wanted, he agreed to reimburse Chandler for the room, the salon, and pay the two of them for sex. He showed them how to request payment from the PayPal app and made a show of accepting the request. It wasn’t until he was long gone that they realized their demand for payment had been ignored.
In an elaborate, and risky sting, they found out the man’s identity. He was not an investment banker but a student at N.Y.U. He was married with children. And he had done this before. When the article ran, more women came forward to say that they’d been conned by the same guy.
But losing money, while upsetting, is getting off easy. Take, for example, Jyoti and Kiran Matharoo, two Toronto sisters who lived a life of luxury in Lagos, Nigeria thanks to the generosity of some of the richest men in Africa. They documented their lavish existence online, gaining Instagram fame. Some people called them the Canadian Kardashians. But when a relationship turned sour, the sisters ended up in a Nigerian prison charged with extortion. They were eventually able to flee the country with the help of Canadian diplomats, but not everyone is so lucky.
Mélina Roberge, one of two Quebec women, dubbed the “Cocaine Babies” by Australian media, is now serving a lengthy jail sentence down under. After receiving money, gifts and trips from her sugar daddy, she was offered a cruise around the world. She jumped at the opportunity, excited to post exotic locales on her beloved Instagram account. There was only one catch . . . she would have to smuggle drugs. At first, Mélina refused but her sugar daddy continued to pressure her. Finally, she agreed, thinking it would be a small amount of cocaine. But Mélina would soon be arrested in one of Australia’s largest drug busts, with the cops seizing nearly 100 kilograms of cocaine worth approximately 45 million US dollars.
Online sugar dating sites create a perfect environment for these types of scams. Men with ulterior motives present themselves as sexy, charming, and generous to a market of naïve, sometimes desperate young women. These girls don’t have the life experience or emotional maturity to spot the red flags. And when men pay women for their time and their bodies, they have a sense of entitlement, often accompanied by a lack of respect. I’m sure there are some honest daddies online who mean what they say. There must be lonely men who simply want the company of a beautiful young woman and are willing to pay for it. But the percentage of wolves in sheep’s clothing is high in this world.
And there is a marked lack of sympathy for young women who end up damaged by the sugar dating experience. The arrangement sites wash their hands of them, claiming that any sexual activity breaks their terms of service. The women are called out on social media and in the press as stupid and greedy; they are judged as whores, and told they got what they deserved for placing themselves in high risk situations. But victim blaming will not stop this abuse. No matter your opinion on the practice of dating for money or “dating up”, no one deserves to be injured, degraded, or scammed. Removing the taboos about sex work and sugar dating, and bringing it into the open, will make it safer and more consensual.
Until then . . . watch out for the wolves.
