Dating site SeekingArrangments.com has found Australia has one of the fastest growing sugar baby communities in the world.
With the average Australian university fees about to reach $30,000, many students see becoming a sugar baby as a viable financial option when looking to avoid (or get out of) debt.
Parents have been left in the dark when it comes to the growing “alternative dating arrangement”, which sees young women paid an average monthly allowance of $2,800 for spending time with a sugar daddy, or multiple daddies.
The sugar daddies are seen as “sponsors”, who in theory help fund the lifestyle and education of the sugar babies, who in turn are portrayed as empowered, independent women.
Basically, sugar babies begin a relationship – emotional and physical, for the most part – with a (mostly older) partner, for which they are given for money and gifts.
The growth of the “Sugar Bowl” community Down Under is massive, tripling in growth over the last four years.
Check out the Seeking Arrangements stats below.
The top 10 Sugar Baby Universities in Australia.
How easy is it to sign up or become a Sugar Baby?
“Join today and get your education paid for by a generous sponsor,” SeekingArrangements.com say on their website.
It sounds like an enticing and some what impulsive preposition for any young person worried about money.
I signed up myself to understand the process.
With a simple click of a button, you’re asked if you’re a man or a woman, if you’re a sugar baby, sugar daddy or a sugar mumma, what your sexual preference is and then you enter your email address.
The next steps see you creating a profile with personal information and delving a little further into the exact kind of “relationship arrangement” you’d like to be a part of.
No one under 18 is able to join the site, though no proof of age is required to list your birthday year online.
The website shows many forums and blog posts where members can communicate and support one another.
Featured posts on the sugar baby blog section include titles like “subtle cosmetic procedures to ask Daddy for” and “How to host the perfect evening with Daddy”, showing the hard work these sugar babies are putting in to their roles.
There are also a lot of posts defending the sugar baby concept, including sub-heads like “Sugar babies are not gold diggers” and “Sugar babies are not sex workers.”
Users on the site are quick to note that “Sugar babies don’t sell services” and are therefore not sex workers and are not exploited, rather they are empowered, “switched-on women who know their worth and what they deserve”.
While sex is not a an official advertised aspect of the sugar baby lifestyle, it happens and young women thinking about signing up have to understand that.
Sugar babies are usually young women who receive gifts and cash payments from older men, called sugar daddies.
(Credit: Supplied)“I’m Sugar Baby-ing My Way Through University”
In an article published on Elle Australia one woman known only as “Eva” shared her experience as a sugar baby.
“I like to think of it as a normal dating relationship but compressed and simplified,” she told Elle.
“If I am studying, working (and I do work), doing prac and volunteering, and my partner is working 60 to 80 hours a week in high stress situations, when you do meet up – say you get a day or six hours together at the end of the day or the middle of the week – you go out for dinner or for lunch and aquariums and things like that.
“Of course there’s curiosity, but there’s no harsh, un-based criticism. My friends see it as going on dates with guys from Tinder, really what’s the difference?
“If I’m dating them then I’m obviously comfortable being intimate with them,” she explained.
Regardless of where you stand on the issue (exploited or empowered), the massive growth of community means it’s important you talk to your teenagers and explain that becoming a sugar baby means much more than just some high-class wining and dining – it is a commitment and a real relationship.
The repercussions could stay with a sugar baby for years to come.
