In scoping out sex worker friends to interview, I realized that I myself have stories to tell. At first, the thought of sharing my own sugar baby experiences with the world seemed daunting. I was afraid of being vulnerable and opening myself up to criticism. But then I had a reckoning of sorts — one where I realized the hypocrisy of going around as this woke feminist declaring a war on shame culture when I myself didn’t have the balls to open up and be honest about my life. So here goes nothing:
Hailing from a family of hippie intellectuals, I was always encouraged to be curious in life. But the humdrum of American suburbia took its toll, fostering conformity and basic bitch-ness galore. For most of my youth, I was the archetypal “good girl,” who excelled academically and regulated her emotions through an eating disorder, as all the best young ballerinas do. At some point in high school, a fuse just snapped. I could no longer pretend to be perfect. I continued playing the role of nerd during the day but started exploring a darker side of myself by night, binge drinking, molly popping and blacking out at house parties. By the time university started, I was seeking out anyone and anything that could facilitate my unbridled hedonism. One codependent relationship and a felony charge later, I found myself in inpatient rehab for drug and alcohol abuse. My world had been turned upside down. For years, I had managed to keep up the facade of normalcy. But there was no fooling anyone now. I was officially a fuckup.
One thing rehab doesn’t do very well is rehabilitate. While you are there, of course, most people are able to stay sober. But once you’re out, you have this whole new network of total sketch balls, who seem to “get” you more than your own family does — talk about trauma bonding. Drug use and debauchery become normalized and you find yourself mixing with a cast of characters far more on the fringes of society than any of the trust fund baby coke heads whose dicks you were sucking back in college. As eager as I was to put everything behind me and finish my degree, my parents wisely refused to pay for the rest of my schooling unless I took a gap year to clean up my act. That’s how I ended up in San Francisco at the age of 20.
Completely oblivious to the tech boom, which had driven up the cost of living in the Bay Area to outrageous new heights, I arrived with less than $1,000 in my bank account. Luckily I still had my mom and dad footing the rent bill, but even with that plus a minimum wage job at a boutique in the posh Haight Ashbury neighborhood, I found myself struggling to live the life I wanted. Tired of scraping together quarters just to buy an iced coffee, my ears perked up one day when I overheard some customers talking about a sugar daddy website. The second I got home, I made a profile. I had grown up fantasizing about being a high end escort. But up until that point, it had always felt like just that — a fantasy. And the one serious boyfriend I had dated had not reacted well when I brought up having a rape fantasy. If he couldn’t handle a little BDSM, how the hell was he going to react to hearing that his girlfriend was turned on by the idea of having sex for money?
But here I was, living this new life, deep in the shadows and far away from anyone I had ever known. I was no longer little-miss-goody-two-shoes. All expectations of what I should and could be had fallen to the wayside. It was a terrifying place to be, but looking back I revel in that sense of freedom. When you have no one to answer to but yourself, life has a way of opening up and taking you places you never thought possible. It took a few awkward meetups, but within a week I had found my first daddy. His name was Jean Claude but he went by the more American sounding Eric. A raging sex-fanatic with a weakness for vodka and a thick French accent, Eric was quite the character. He had just split from his third baby mama and was new to the sugar daddy thing himself. He was a self-made man with an astounding lack of pretentiousness who simply wanted to have fun. No games, just honesty and openness.
People often talk about past relationships or life decisions with regret. “If only I had done X instead of Y,” they lament. There was definitely a time I played that game. “If only I hadn’t started sugaring, I would have leaned more into my career and been financially independent earlier on” or “If only I had focused on dating guys my own age, I wouldn’t feel so alienated from my peers.” But eventually I came to realize that doing so is pointless. Things happen the way they happen for a reason. Dating Eric was the exact right thing for me to do because it’s what I did. Along the way, I learned a lot about myself, how I relate to others, and the way I want to show up in this world. My descent into darkness made me who I am today, and while I certainly have my fair share of battle scars, I wouldn’t change that for anything. As I like to say, fear not the rabbit hole. Worst case, you lose yourself in oblivion, meet your shadow, and hit rock bottom. Best case, you dive into something that brings you joy and make it your own. Either way you grow.
Of the many lessons Eric taught me, turning lemons into lemonade was an important one. Having come to the states in his early twenties, he had actually done sex work at one point as a means of supporting himself. Though he wasn’t into dicks, he would massage older guys in the nude and let them jerk off in front of him. Eventually, Eric enrolled in college with hopes of becoming a computer engineer but fate had other plans. He wound up in a coma for 6 months after getting into a terrible motorcycle accident. His then girlfriend nursed him back to health and the two went on to get married and have three kids together. Rather than returning to school, Eric decided to take a gamble with his settlement check and buy a real fixer-upper-of-a-building. He did all the renovations himself and began renting it out. With the income he generated from the first building, he invested in another. And then another. Flash forward thirty years and he’s become somewhat of a real estate tycoon, although you would never guess it based on how casual his casual wear is. “That motorcycle accident was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he once confessed: “Without it, I’d just be another boring tech guy crunching numbers in front of a computer all day.”
Of course it’s easy for a rich old white man making hella passive income to look back on his hardships with such fondness. Not everyone has that privilege. But at that point, it really did feel like my life was over – all because I had gotten into some legal troubles and was on track to graduate a year later than expected. To have someone in my orbit who had found success not just outside the conventions of society but in the face of adversity gave me some much needed perspective. Not only did I have my whole life ahead of me, but I was getting the chance to live this wild child adventure – one that the basic Beckies bound for white picket fences and mid-life crises could only dream of. And so adventure I did.
From going to swing clubs to hosting our own sex parties – where me, Eric, and a bunch of super fit, affluent techies in their forties would have orgies in one of Eric’s super boujee houses – it was all a bit surreal. Here I was, this waifish 20 year old hipster discovering her pussy power amongst these high rolling adults. I pretended I was into it because I wanted to be into it. I wanted to be this super edgy, boundary pushing, femme fatale. I wanted to be the ultimate male fantasy. But deep down, I was still this insecure, little girl. Despite Eric’s thorough sex education, which involved teaching me about female pleasure (for the hundreds of times I had made love to my previous boyfriend, he had given me maybe 5 orgasms) and showering me with dozens of vibrators and dildos, something was off. It was around this time that I taught myself to disassociate from my body when having sex. In doing so, I could enjoy the physical pleasure without ever having to feel emotionally attached. It wasn’t that I hated having sex with Eric. He just wanted it non-stop and I was in a weird headspace, dealing with undiagnosed PTSD (related to past traumas). So rather than honoring my body, I put his needs above my own. It was a pattern that started before him and would continue for years to come.
I don’t blame Eric for any of it though. He always went out of his way to make me feel safe and respected. The only reason I mention any of this at all is because I’m not here to paint some romanticized version of sugar babying. Of course it has its moments, but it’s important to hold space for the not so great moments – and in a way that doesn’t villainize sex work as a whole. Like a lot of sugar babies I’ve talked to, a big part of what drew me into the lifestyle was heartbreak. You find yourself wondering: “Why am I having shitty sex with insecure, young guys who treat me like crap and leave me with nothing, when I can get paid to have sex on my own terms?” But it’s a lot easier said than done, especially when past trauma is involved. Sex work and the shadow world it lives in can easily lead to a path of self-destruction, if one isn’t careful. Though my sugar babying career ended up morphing into something much more empowering and sexually gratifying later on in life, I would be lying if I said I never used it as a not-so-healthy means to escape. Moreover, I lived in denial of doing so because I felt that I had to be in constant defense mode when it came to my lifestyle. People are always trying to make you feel some type of way for your decision to be a sex worker, which makes it nearly impossible to talk about the downsides without being met with a lecture on morality and self-respect and blah blah blah.
To any sex worker who has conflicting feelings about their line of work, I see you. To anyone who struggles with mental health issues, I see you. To anyone who has been the victim of sexual assault or domestic violence, I see you. Your experiences matter. Your emotions – whatever they may be – are valid. You are worthy. Never let anyone try to convince you otherwise.
Jules
Based in Brooklyn, Jules has dedicated her twenties towards harnessing her pussy power, exploring the muse, whore, and wild woman archetypes along the way. When not blogging, you can find her sweating the toxins out in a hot yoga class or sipping a matcha latte at a pretentious coffee shop, whilst she scribbles away in her journal.
