- INSIDER spoke with Kyle (not his real name) about what it's like to be a sugar baby.
- He was a sugar baby for years and was paid in everything from clothes to his rent.
- Kyle said that being a sugar baby was eye-opening, but the experience is not for everyone.
- He eventually stopped being a sugar baby when he was financially independent.
Creating a profile on Seeking Arrangement, which boasts itself as the "world's largest sugar daddy dating website," practically seemed like a rite-of-passage for everyone I knew in college. Seriously, profiles on the sugar baby dating site were almost as common as Tinder or Bumble profiles.
Obviously, the other, more quintessentially "college" activities — kegs, finals, and Ramen noodles, of course – are still alive and well, but combining the rising costs of student loan debt with our ever-changing attitudes about relationships and traditions means more and more millennials have gotten resourceful when it comes to planning for the future, or at least making enough extra cash to skip the Ramen.
According to USA Today, Google Trends shows a huge increase in interest for those seeking sugar daddies over the last few years, partially due to the rise of sugar-based dating practices on college campuses. New York City sugar baby mixers pull in some high-profile, wealthy attendees as well as young, attractive women seeking older counterparts. But not every sugar baby is the stereotypically "hot girl" and in fact, the phenomenon has led to filling Seeking Arrangement with over 3.25 million active members, of varying sexualities and gender identities, in the United States alone.
One of those sugar babies is Kyle.
22-year-old Kyle's experience as a sugar baby was a long-lasting one, but it actually began in a very casual way.
Kyle, whose real name has been withheld to protect his identity but has been independently verified by INSIDER, says that his "experience is far from the norm." He said he started when he was lacking "resources" to do things like pay bills or afford rent in a new city while working as a server. One day, he got a message on Grindr, a gay dating app, that piqued his interest.
"I was receiving monetary offers and one day started taking men up on them," he said. "From there, I gleaned I could do more and began to pursue it. Over time it had been recommended as well by peers and friends who weren't yet aware that I was already involved."
Though he says that these kinds of offers are not "sparse" on dating apps, he has noticed a more concerted effort on the part of the apps to crack down on potential financial dealings.
Kyle says he found being a sugar baby enlightening, and that he learned a lot about himself.
For his part, Kyle said he actually found becoming a sugar baby enlightening, especially because he had recently moved to a new city and hoped to learn more about himself, his identity, and his sexuality.
"It not only allowed me to explore my sexuality through the means of doing things I would have never tried otherwise … I also believe that without certain daddies I wouldn't have survived in this city as long as I did until I could become financially independent," he said. "Something I realized later was that I did become financially dependent on this income for some time."
He told INSIDER that he was sometimes paid in objects like clothes, or would even have the daddies pay his rent.
"One daddy, in particular, was always keen on only providing financial resources through tangible stuff — buying new clothes for work, paying for college art supplies," he said," but doing it to the most — Banana Republic shirts, even though I'm a server and would ruin them."
It wasn't just clothes. His work as a sugar baby meant that Kyle didn't have to worry about bills any longer.
"Life was easier especially because there was always that thought, 'Oh, if I can't make rent or XYZ, I can just send a few texts and someone will step up,'" he said.
Kyle didn't often tell family or friends about being a sugar baby, but he said he felt that he could be more open when he noticed that being a sugar baby became a sort of trend, though there were still some boundaries and stigmas.
"At first, it was my dirty little secret, then my first year of college I found out that it was 'the hip thing' to be on Seeking Arrangement or other similar, 'not sex work' kinds of apps and websites," Kyle said. "I started to be more honest with close friends and as that honesty grew, I quickly realized that those same kids on the websites would quickly differentiate between what I was doing as a job, if you will, and their little fun times to have nice dinners."
Kyle, who identifies as queer, believes that the stigma surrounding sugar babies and sex work comes from classism.
"I believe that the stigma is less associated with types of people and more with classes of people," Kyle said. "There's a surefire socioeconomic component to its acceptance … People who have or who grew up with financial resources just didn't understand the idea that some people come from less than nothing and without proper support systems need extraneous means to dig out of the holes of oppressive systems."
This is especially true when factoring in that many other sugar babies and sex workers are people of color, non-binary, trans, or members of other oppressed, marginalized communities and whose work “can be very different and much more risky, oppressive, and dangerous,” Kyle said.
In his experience, many of Kyle’s pursuers sought "masculine" men and at first, he assumed they were mostly closeted, but he eventually had experiences that expanded his thoughts about relationships, especially with one sugar daddy in particular.
"Martin was married, had children ... He was [polyamorous] with his wife," Kyle said. "His wife and I had dinners, we would vacation in Vermont together, all three of us, and from my understanding, they both had ongoing same-sex partners in addition to their healthy marriage."
Kyle marveled at how in love Martin and his wife were and he said it taught him a valuable lesson about his "personal journey to find what works for me or what I can envision as a healthy relationship outside of strict heterosexual monogamy."
After a few years, he missed the feeling of being financially independent and decided to cut ties for the sake of his own sense of self-efficacy.
He does, however, still have contact and maintain friendly relationships with two sugar daddies, years later.
Even though it's no longer a source of supplemental income for him, Kyle wants to emphasize that "this kind of stuff is legitimate, should be decriminalized, and is a legit profession."
He hopes to dispel the myth that sugar babies are simply given money.
"These guys are not just paying for the dates or sex or whatever, they're paying actors to play the part and that takes work and skill," Kyle said. "It also takes a nuanced understanding of being able to read people and what they're really asking for under the cloaked intonations of not saying what they really want or asking for something else."
Kyle does warn that to be a sugar baby, healthy boundaries are necessary. He also said that being a sugar baby is not for the naive, warning that safety, introspection, and emotional health are all key to success.
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