“If You’ve Got Some Sugar For Me, Sugar Daddy, Bring It Home”

Is it more fun to work at the Atlantic and report stories like this one — about how many “sugar daddies” are putting their “sugar babies” through college — or to work here and shake our heads at the Atlantic?

In 2013, Seeking Arrangement announced that approximately 44 percent of its 2.3 million “babies” are in college. This is a trend that the website encourages — if babies register with a .edu email account, they receive a free premium membership(something the guys have to shell out as much as $1,200 for). Seeking Arrangement creates the illusion that the sexual element of these relationships isn’t forced, but organic. No one associated with the website wants to admit that what it’s doing is facilitating sex-for-money exchanges. The large number of college women on the site helps preserve this illusion, for both the daddies and the babies.

“Dating a college woman fulfills these guys’ wildest dreams. They want someone highly educated who is eager to learn,” said Parinda Wanitwat, director of the documentary Daddies Date Babies, which profiles several college sugar babies living in New York City.

In related news, “women are most attracted to men in a similar age bracket to them. On the other side of the spectrum are men, who pointedly prefer women in their 20s, even when they are quite old themselves.”

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