If you only had an insight to sugar baby life through watching TikToks, you’d be under the impression that it’s a total breeze. Three hours of your day spent at a fancy restaurant followed by cocktails, with no sex whatsoever involved and receiving 2k for it at the end? Too good to be true. Sugaring isn’t as simple or as perfect as that and many people in the sex work community have been loud about the falsity of Sugar Tok. But that’s not to say that sugaring doesn’t have its moments. Here’s a truthful account of its best aspects.
The thrill
Perhaps a vapid point, but if you get your kicks from little adventures that make life feel a lot less mundane, then the feeling of thrill is an important one. The craziness of the things you do make you feel like you’re really living- as cringe as it sounds, it feels like you’re in a film. Jumping in a taxi late at night and being taken to a dimly lit bar where you’ll meet a total stranger and sip on cocktails and share secrets. You’re on a flight to a country you’ve never been before to live extravagantly for a weekend and your parents know nothing about it and probably never will. Sugar dating is a great form of escapism and although the secrecy and scandal can have negative effects at times, these elements also undeniably make sugaring a thrill seeker’s dream.
The least transactional sex work
Unlike other forms of sex work, with sugaring you are focused on just one person (at least traditionally). You have the time to get to know each other, and the time spent together is not solely focused around sex, but going on dates, travelling, helping each other grow. It’s sex work, but in the form of an emotional relationship. One of the reasons why it’s become so popular and slowly more normalised is because it’s an easier pill to swallow. New sugar babies don’t consider what they do as ‘real’ sex work because it’s so similar to what modern dating has become anyway. Swiping right to someone on Tinder, meeting them in a bar and hooking up feels very similar to a sugar date, but at the end of it, you don’t get any money.
And if you do happen to hit it off with someone on Tinder, and you grow a genuine relationship together, the fact that you met on Tinder becomes very small and forgettable. Any of that initial feeling of your date feeling clinical or arranged is dispelled. This is the same for sugaring. Once you do meet someone you connect with and spend the time to get to know them well enough, you manage to build a relationship in which you want to give what you have to the other person. Any transactional element is lost once a sugar baby truly wants to share intimacy with the daddy/mummy, and in turn when the daddy/mummy truly wants to share their wealth and support with the sugar baby. This element of genuine sentimentality is what separates sugaring from most forms of sex work- and makes it feel a grey area between sex work and a supportive relationship. Of course, the reality of sugaring isn’t that you constantly find connections like this. But if you try to treat it like a dating site, and be selective with who you meet, you are more likely to have meaningful sugar relationships.
Low maintenance sex work
Many sex workers claim that they could never be a sugar baby because it’s too time consuming having to message back and forth, negotiate, and go on dates with no fixed time limits. It’s true that in the beginning, sugaring can be frustrating in how long it can take to sieve through profiles, meet people, until you finally find someone who you connect with. However, once you do find what you’re looking for, it becomes dramatically easier, because you don’t have to keep looking. In escorting and online sex work, there is a lot of upkeep in regards to organisation, preparation, processing bookings. Whereas once you have a close relationship with a sugar daddy/mummy, it’s smoother, and falls into your personal life more than ‘work’. Your mind is put at rest and you feel not just financially able but mentally able to focus on other aspects of your life.
A focus on your personal growth
Just as in a normal relationship you find yourself learning things from one another and growing together, this is the same in a sugar dating situation. Sometimes, you grow even more than usual in a sugar relationship, because of the likely large difference in age and background, not to mention that a sugar daddy/mummy is often more than keen to help you grow and find your feet in life- it’s part of what they want to offer someone. So although sugaring and relying on someone else is a short term solution for financial stability, you might come out the other end out of a healthy sugar relationship in a much stronger mental position for you to start achieving your own goals in life.
Iso
Iso is a writer and filmmaker based in East London. She is passionate about all things erotic and leads a sexy, shame-free life in hope that she can inspire others to do the same. Originally from a Northern seaside town, she is naturally drawn to the best things in life: candyfloss, trashy karaoke bars and heart-shaped sunglasses.
