When I interviewed my friend about his experiences in the underground kink scene of Brooklyn, I was struck by the language he used. The idea that two people enter a “contract” before starting a “scene” together makes the whole thing sound very intentional – almost as if a play is being acted out. I mentioned this to another friend in passing and she responded, “I was literally just having this conversation, trying to defend sugaring to my mom. Sex work is an art form.”
It doesn’t take anyone particularly cultured to wrap their head around the fact that sex is art. Like dance, it involves movement and elicits emotion. But sex work takes it a step further. A client isn’t going to hand you a literal script to follow on a date, but there is still an unspoken script – one that is based on previously agreed-upon expectations.
While my sugar baby alter ego was inspired by a somewhat authentic version of myself, I was always in character. Running on four hours of sleep? Too bad – drink some coffee and don’t complain. Not into French food? The reservation has already been made, so it looks like you’re just going to have to suck it up and smile. The sex is terrible? Tell him it was amazing and that you haven’t been dicked down like that in ages.
It’s easy to jump to conclusions about the kind of man who pays for a woman to engage in fake intimacy. Occasionally, you encounter a predatory misogynist who gets off on the control, but most of the time these men are just lonely and want to connect – even if there is an air of transactionality lurking beneath the surface. Sometimes they have no game and too much time – the tech bro incel who spends his weekends at home playing video games. Sometimes they have game but too little time – the jet-setting CEO with three kids and a wife at home.
Whatever the circumstances, my job as a sugar baby was to uplift the spirits of my daddies with my manic pixie energy, in addition to sexually satisfying them in a way that felt safe for me. Sometimes things got awkward. There might be a long pause after a question had been answered or a fumbling of cash when the time came to pay up.
But just as a skilled dancer is able to pass off an error in movement as a creative flare done intentionally, a skilled sex worker is able to mitigate moments of weirdness with their smooth-talking and easygoing nature.
I often wonder what comes first – the chicken or the egg? Do sex workers get into sex work because of their innate ability to put people at ease or does sex work simply foster more empathy and make people more socially adept? Probably some combination of both.
While pretending to be into sex is bound to take an emotional toll on you at some point or another, drawing a clear line between the character you embody when on the job and the real you serves as a protective layer.
Sometimes fantasy is the escape necessary to get through the inevitable unpleasantries of life. An ex of mine used to tell me that my delusional worldview was probably the only thing keeping me from totally imploding. While it hurt at the time, he wasn’t wrong.
Dubbing myself a “muse” and my daddies as “patrons” somehow made exchanging sex for money feel less icky. Similarly, the ritual of putting on makeup and getting into character before going and giving an Oscar-worthy performance to a daddy — in which I went above and beyond to make him feel like God’s gift to earth — created an on / off switch in my brain. Some might deem such compartmentalization as disturbing, but I believe it was what gave me the strength to do sugaring for as long as I did.
As the age old adage goes, “The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.” Being able to channel my creativity into crafting a persona and play-acting various situations and sexual scenarios with nameless men allowed me to keep my head above water.
Without such an outlet, I would have lost myself in the abyss. The best art comes from the rawest of pain, and so I have nothing but gratitude for the sometimes traumatic moments I endured as a sugar baby. Not only was I able to transform my suffering into an art form, but I developed social skills and finesse which continue to serve me well in my post-sugar life and career.
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.
