'Sugar Daddy' Sites Push Line on Paid Sex

By K. Aleisha Fetters

WeNews correspondent

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Matchmaking sites for wealthy men and younger women have been multiplying since SugarDaddie.com launched eight years ago. They adopt varying procedures for separating themselves from prostitution sites, which are illegal.

(WOMENSENEWS)--First came SugarDaddie.com in 2002.

Then, in the next eight years, came numerous other sites to connect wealthy men and attractive, usually younger women, or "sugarbabes."

Now there's SugarDaddyForMe.com, SugarSugar.com, WealthyMen.com, and MutualArrangements.com.

"Men don't go into this looking for the missionary position," a 52-year-old man in New York City said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's an opportunity to be indulged … like an extended vacation."

Like the millions of other affluent men using these sites, he is looking for a relationship with a young, attractive woman for whom he can financially provide.

Most sites require men to earn at least $100,000 a year and classify themselves within various income brackets and levels of "financial provider" prowess. A man can check "Will Cover Basic Needs" or "Lavish Lifestyle." There is no income requirement for women.

The sites boast memberships ranging from 1 million to several hundred thousand and all claim to be gaining members steadily.

About 1-in-10 adult Internet users, or 16 million people, have used an online dating service, according to the Internet and American Life Project of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, a public opinion research organization in Washington.

While financial "arrangements" are less commonly part of the transaction on general dating sites, they do still exist, said Rich Gosse, executive director of the International Association of Dating Websites. "There's a lot of illegality going on all over the Internet. Arrangements and even prostitution can happen on any site," he said, pointing to information exchanged in forums on sites such as Craigslist.org.

| More

DONATE

2 COMMENTS | Login or Sign Up to post comments

Wealth controlled by unscrupulous men is always a serious problem, in this case for poor women or teens who feel sufficiently helpless to accept slavery to improve their financial situation. Unfortunately, most of such men would not allow the slave to really benefit financially, as this might decrease the men's power. Thus, it is in the twisted interests of such men to keep poverty real. Governments and compassionate organizations traditionally work to help people overcome such temptations and experiences and their depressing sequelae. Now, an argument by the unscrupulous, to those needing such help, is given as criticizing and trivializing such helpful organizations, including demeaning those who seek their help. This is to keep the slave believing that his form of slavery for her is preferable to the humility of seeking sensible help.
A prelude to this problem was a movie in 1997 with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, where her poverty placed her in subjection to him, especially when he gave money to help her son obtain effective medical care, which she could not afford on her own. He made it clear, after she accepted the help and her son's illness improved, that she owed him for this, and that there was not another way to think about it. The movie wants us to believe that she naturally fell in love with him, which is that sort of man's dream, to completely subjugate a woman for a reason she cannot refuse, then make her believe she 'loves it'. Very perverse and debilitating, as these websites are!