Paying for a post-secondary education is super easy, right? As someone with a mountain of disposable income lying on my bedroom floor, paying for rent and living expenses while in Iâm in school full-time has never been less stressful.
Seriously, though. Every student I know is struggling to balance at least one (thought usually more) job with their academia. Itâs easy to fall into the trap of proclaiming that students of today have it harder than the generations before us, but letâs just all agree that juggling everything at once can be demanding for anyone. With financial reprieve from the government or post-secondary institutions becoming more and more unlikely, I guess we should be thankful there are still people out there looking out for us students.
Like sugar daddies.
No, this isnât a type of parent who showers their children in sweets and cavities. A sugar daddy is an older, financially secure male who engages in relations with younger women in exchange for money. Itâs been compared to prostitution, but the two vary in the type of relationship the sugar daddy and baby share, the longevity it has, and the expectations that come with it. And contrary to what you might think, a sugar baby isnât actually required to have sex with a sugar daddyâthough they usually are.
Think no one would ever consider being in one of these pairings? The 2.7 million people who are currently registered to SeekingArrangements.com would disagree with you. Now considered to be the largest sugar daddy website on the web, SeekingArrangements is hardly alone. Type âsugar daddiesâ into any search engine and youâll be welcomed by pages upon pages of similar sites, including SugarDaddie.com, SugarSugar.com, and SugarDaddyCanada.com.
Itâs not like the concept of having a sugar daddy is a modern one either. Years ago, a friend of mine was lamenting to me about how badly she wanted a money slaveâsomeone who becomes sexually aroused by giving another person money. A costly kink, but if both parties are satisfied, then whereâs the harm? If weâre being honest here, some ânormalâ relationships operate in the exact same way, with one person paying for everything anyways. Pouring copious amounts of money into a partner whoâs just not that into you isnât a new thing; sugar daddy websites have just found a way to institutionalize it.
Does the world of sugar daddies seem like a far-off one? Think again. In terms of new students registering last year, both Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia were in the top 20âat #7 and #15, respectively. In 2013, 174 people between the two institutions signed up to be paired with a sugar daddy. Douglas Collegeâeither thankfully or regretfully, depending on your feelings towards sugar daddiesâdid not make the top 20 list.
While I would never myself be involved in one of the relationships (I am neither financially sound nor an attractive female), I support the rise in sugar daddies 100 per cent.
First off, letâs remember that to be eligible for this type of arrangement, the sugar baby must be at least 18 years old. These are relationships between two grown, consenting adults. No one is being forced into signing up and no one is forcing them to continue doing it. Assumedly these individuals are using protection too during any extracurriculars, so there should be no danger to the sugar babyâs health.
In my experience, the most common reaction to sugar daddies is how degrading it must be for the women who sign up. Iâm glad the war on slut shaming has become so prominent in recent years because thatâs exactly what these reactions are fostering. There is nothing shameful about consensual sex and as much as you want to pass judgment, that right doesnât belong to you. If a woman wants to use her body to help pay for her education or even just so she has some extra chedâ in the bank, then itâs her decision to make.
Instead of focussing on things like sugar daddies, how about looking at one of the reasons why they exist? A driving force for students is the encumbering cost of post-secondary (which, according to SeekingArrangements, will have tripled between 1990 and 2017). If an alternative exists where someone can graduate from post-secondary without incurring this sort of outrageous debt, then let people pursue it without unsolicited criticism.
So it goes,
Jacey Gibb
