On Sugaring

On a facetious whim, I once asked my father how many camels he thought I was worth. Without really thinking, he said ten. I was fairly pleased to be worth an abstract twenty humps until he added, ‘So about half a pack.’ 

It’s probably important to have an idea of self-worth, and more pragmatically, self-value. When most consider sugaring, they think of Du Barry tinted success. They think of Zahia Dehar, and the hourglass family friend by marriage who everyone called a gold-digger. At school it was raised as a backup option, said with half a sneer and half a smile. It would be the simplest, littlest, thing, it practically happened anyway, and anyway, it wouldn’t be like that. It was an easy little math exercise, adding large sums and taking away hardly any work. And then to go back to last period math class, and keep the pleasant thought that this was all an impressive waste of time. 

It’s easy enough to learn. Becoming a Covent Garden nun, a Fulham virgin, a calico queen or a Dutch widow requires only a short stack of books and an amusing naivete. Countless websites recruit with the same acronyms—SB, SD, PPM—and broadcast the same mix of practical advice and surreal private details. There are guides written by both sugar babies and sugar daddies, converging most frequently on the subject of monthly wages. 

In early summer I was mildly disgusted, but curious. At a private members club in London, I met women who sat on their phones at midnight, looking bored and then suddenly slackening under the gaze of their host. They all looked similar, and I had to admit they seemed to understand What Men Wanted. I saw girls anxious to join their ranks who stuttered when trying to solicit drinks and looked clumsy applying spontaneous suggestions. It’s very uncomfortable to stand behind a buyer and a product at the bar. Especially when the product seems unsure of what its actually selling.  Online, I found one of them posing in Dubai with those gauche rose boxes, and felt sure it was heartless, and sad, but probably a terribly good way to foot a monthly bill from the florist. 

I wondered what had bought them, in the end. They were all agelessly beautiful with a practiced coquettishness, speaking with untraceable accents and moving with calculated intention. Every movement seemed instinctual, and every response equally so. I wondered if their extensive investment portfolios of cosmetic alterations would be profitable outside the dimly lit sugar bowl. I wondered whether, in their tactical metamorphosis into the image of what men desire, they have attained what women want. If it’s sovereignty, they don’t have it. Instead, they orbited like subsatellites, cold, pure, and pitifully dependent on the pull of something stronger. 

Regardless of their effort and money spent, many women find themselves easily exchanged and carelessly kept. In this relentless flow of trade, perhaps those who      fence off their market size for the sake of monogamy have found something invaluable. Though with higher promises of return, those who gamble themselves away against equally high stakes do so with only value in mind. Maintaining their figures must be tiring. 

In reality, most people have no idea what they are worth. It should be possible to isolate your features and make a value judgement with the objectivity of an eBay seller. Nose—lightly used. Three freckles–not noticeable in movement. Smoke-abundant home. But when tempered with charm, or something close, it all becomes much blurrier. Despite gold-digging accusations implying an effortless buck, the unromantic fact is that many invest without recompense, and have to live on limited returns in hopes of a pending profit. And after all that, they only have about ten years of use in them. 

Most men browsing the market for a sugar relationship are on the lookout for something better. They wear Loro Piana, but do not whisper, and smell too strongly of Penhaligon’s aftershave. Perhaps they are right to behave as though they do not owe their women attractiveness or desirability. They  don’t. The money is tasteful enough for both. 

What men want is something feminine in the way a perfume advert is. They want something constantly in motion, perhaps in a pink dress, looking over one shoulder and pouting her way out of the ocean. They want a piece of arm candy to shrug on and off. Both sides forsake personal attraction for mass produced appeal. Should anyone feel honoured to be invited into those ranks? 

Visible through the plastic window of her cardboard box, Barbie is nothing if not a beautiful woman. To have market value is a gift, and  an obvious advantage when auctioning yourself off to. But where does that leave sugar babies? Going once; to Annabel’s. Going twice; to Raffles. Gone (perhaps finally); to St Tropez.

 

Words by Frieda Cookson. Artwork by Maya Todd