Posted August 1, Reviewed by Gary Drevitch. Now called Seeking. Recently, several research teams have delved into the sugar scene. Their findings show that both sugar daddies and babies have distinct desires and needsβwith everyone involved bending over backward to deny that these relationships are sugar-coated sex work.
A sociologist at the University of Buffalo joined Seeking. To gain access to its listings of sugar daddies and babies, she created two fictitious profiles, one a daddy, the other a baby. Then she analyzed profiles on the siteβ daddies and 90 babies. But only 17 percent of the daddies said they were involved in committed relationships:. Daddies were predominantly white, college educated, affluent, and childless. Eighty percent identified as white, and no other race or ethnicity comprised more than 4 percent of the sample.
Their average age was 44, but contradicting the stereotype that sugar daddies are over 40, many were in their twenties and thirties. Three-quarters were college graduates, with a third claiming graduate degrees. The stereotype is that sugar babies are single women under 25, who purportedly use the support they receive to finance college educations, and, yes, most were in their twenties, but only a minority were enrolled in college:. Babies were predominantly white, and almost nine out of ten 89 percent were single.
Compared with daddies, babies were more racially diverse. Half 54 percent identified as white, 19 percent mixed race, and 15 percent Hispanic. Very few said they were Black. Researchers at Indiana University surveyed 77 sugar babies, and found a broad range of involvement with daddies:.
Compared with women in their age group who did not engage in sugar relationships, sugar babies faced about twice the risk of sexual infections. Reflecting the fact that sugar relationships occupy a middle ground between casual hook-ups and committed relationships, the babies generally insisted that their daddies use condomsβbut sometimes did not enforce that.
