Sugar Daddies: Why Hot College Women Hook Up With Rich, Older Men

When our grandmothers wanted to use a man for his money, they’d have to dial him on a rotary phone, put on a modest sweater set and knee-length skirt, enjoy an expensive steak, and then be home by college curfew…the good old-fashioned way. 
 
Half a century later, the desire to supplement a modest student budget and hit the town in a fancy (faux) fur remains—but, oh, how the game has changed.
Today, a growing number of strapped-for-cash undergrads are signing up for “Sugar Daddy” websites—sites that make explicit the age old “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” social contract.  Love in exchange for cash.  (Or at least a fabulous pair of Manolo Blahniks.)  It’s a simple equation: beautiful young women post pictures and profiles in the hopes of attracting eligible, wealthy (oftentimes older) men to fund their expensive tastes. 
 
But to skeptics and critics, the most surprising aspect of this growing cyber-trend is the new clientele: smart, attractive, driven women on prestigious college campuses pursuing competitive degrees.  They call themselves “Sugar Babies”—a term that initially sounds more like a sour candy than the class of entrepreneurial businesswomen they claim to be.  They admittedly treat themselves as commodities with market value, to be bought for expensive gifts or a fair price (sometimes listed as up to $10,000 per month). 
 
John Broca, a 37-year-old Sugar Daddy, goes to great lengths to indulge his Babies—women he describes as both romantic partners and friends.  “Expensive nights out are a given, and the occasional lavish gift is fun,” he writes in an email to me, “But most sugar babies are interested in security. It's simpler (for both of us) to agree to an allowance or covering of certain expenses... housing, transportation, school, etc.”
 
A Sugar Baby profile on the site My Sugar Daddy Finder reads, “I have an assoc degree in fashion merchandising, and I am sixteen credits from a bachelors in psychology. I have worked hard my entire life and i think it would be nice to be spoiled for once :)” 
 
For this anonymous user and countless others, the opportunities to indulge in a lifestyle otherwise beyond their means are well worth dating oh, say, Larry King.  It doesn’t matter if a man is in diapers, as long as he can pay for the crib.
 
Yet some take concern when young women like “eyewuvoo”—a twenty-year-old user of My Sugar Daddy Finder—indicate interest in men who range in age from eighteen to eighty years old.
 
“Huge age differentials can cause lots of issues with co-dependency,” warns Preeya Desai, a student of Psychology at Columbia University.  “I worry that young women who seek out financial relationships, especially with older men, will experience psychological withdrawal-type symptoms when they try to foster ‘normal’ romantic relationships later in life with partners closer in age.”
 
However Jason Roberts, PR director at Mutual Arrangement - a website that advertises to be one of the most popular Sugar Daddy sites on the internet – claims that the risks are minimal and the rewards, especially for student Sugar Babies, are great: “We reach out to the younger crowd because younger, smart women respect older, affluent, intelligent men who can help share the burden of their expenses, and at the same time be a quality mentor. We have not heard any members on our site complain of dangerous situations, however as with any online introduction service, it is crucial to all parties to follow the simple rules of being cautious in regard to making online connections.”