Sweet Capitalism

You may have already seen this story making the rounds (thanks to Erica for sending this one along), a website called seekingarrangement.com, a site that aims to connect “prospective sugar daddies and the people who want them”. Depending on your perspective, this is either a disgusting form of prostitution or a remarkably elegant expression of capitalism. “Sugar daddies” have to categorize their net worth (the popular range seems to be somewhere between $10 and $50 million) and “sugar babies” (most of them pretty attractive models who don’t like to be weighed down with lots of heavy clothes) specify their expected monthly budget/allowance, in some cases over $20,000 a month. Gender roles go both ways, although I suspect the male sugar daddy/female sugar baby comprises the majority of the site, which you can partially browse for free.

Browsing the site is pretty funny – the girls mostly use modeling photos, and fill their profiles with lines like “You spoil me and I’ll spoil you”. Some are even more explicit than that, promising to take care of “manly needs”. A lot of these girls seem to be college students looking to make (a lot of) extra money, and ask that you pay their tuition in addition to vacations and shopping. Back in my college days, the socially taboo way to pay your tuition was to sell your eggs at a price commensurate with your SAT score and overall athleticism/blondness. Now you can cash in $15 grand a month without any invasive surgery! Times sure have changed in these last 3 years.

The men on the site are even funnier, declaring that “If you’re willing to play, I’m willing to pay.” They tend to take photos of themselves at charity fundraisers, on yachts, or in one notably hysterical example, shaking Bill Clinton’s hand. That creepy-looking dude has as his tagline “Handsome Safe Gentleman”. It’s my guess that he had to include the word “safe” because he looks so damn creepy. No one would advertise themselves as “safe” unless there was some serious risk that you would assume otherwise. Whereas the women tend to be ages 18-29 (“I may be 18, but I can carry a conversation like someone much older. I’m on the varsity pep squad!”) the men tend to be age 35-50. I didn’t see any dudes over 50, even though judging by the pictures, some of those guys are much older than 50. I guess they figure that grandpas get no love.

I imagine many of you think this is simply disgusting, and amounts to legalized prostitution. Well, “Michael”, a frequent site-user, has this eloquent reply. “Hookers for the most part don't go rollerblading with their clients like I just did last weekend with someone I met from the site.” That’s right guys – your monthly payments could potentially lead to rollerblading, the oldest profession of them all.

Is it just me, or is our society slowly embracing the concept of dating-as-economic-trade (like the well-known Craigslist girl)? When I was still living in New York, a few of my co-workers at the investment bank (male and female) received solicitations to join the “Natural Selection Speed Date”, a speed dating event where guys have to earn $300K+, have invested assets over a million, or a trust fund over $4 million to apply. For women to apply, they needed to submit 5 photographs, and in case you were unclear why they want that, the site explicitly stated “pictures are judged for beauty.” That clarification was helpful, I thought maybe they would be judged on resolution. Even better, the site explicitly tells women that “no additional information will be accepted” outside of the 5 photos. The event was $500 for men, $50 for women. I don’t think any of my co-workers ended up going to this thing, but you never know. I had some shady co-workers.