It’s a classic tale: a student struggles to pay their tuition, rent, and basic living expenses.
To avoid leaving school buried in debt, some students will compromise their grades for more hours at work. Some students will suck it up and graduate with thousands of dollars in debt.
Minimum wage has increased to $14 an hour as of January 2018, but with estimates suggesting the average student debt is sitting at about $25,000, that won’t even make a dent.
For full-time female students, who received over $150 million in loans, pursuing a post-secondary education is leaving them in the red when compared to their male counterparts.
For comparison, full-time male students were granted just over a million dollars in student loans, according to a 2015 Statistics Canada report.
What are sugar relationships?
Some students are turning to a whole new source of paying off their loans: sugar relationships, otherwise known as ‘mutually beneficial relationships,’ which involve the gifting of large sums of money by a wealthy sugar parent in exchange for the company of a sugar baby. With over 6.5 million single women and 7.7 million single men in Canada according to a 2017 Statistics Canada report, some people may find it difficult to navigate the dating world.
As dating apps like Tinder and Bumble become increasingly popular with millennials, some Gen Xers are gravitating towards sites like Seeking Arrangement that are tailored towards sugar relationships.
However, like any other relationship, sugar relationships vary from couple to couple.
People usually think of them as being between a wealthy older man (the sugar daddy), and a younger woman (the sugar baby). This is the most commonly seen relationship, according to Seeking Arrangement, an online sugar dating service.
According to the site’s statistics, the average American sugar daddy is 40-years-old, while the average American sugar baby is about 25, however, these ages do vary.
As the site explains, there are also sugar mommies and male sugar babies. Sugar relationships are also not all heterosexual relationships, they are not inherently monogamous (exclusive), and they are not veiled prostitution—a common misconception.
“Prostitution is when someone is paid for sex,” Brook Urick, a spokesperson and event planner for Seeking Arrangement, said in a 2017 interview with the Charlatan. “Being a sugar baby is something different.”
He added that sugar babies are looking for a relationship and mentorship, rather than just being paid for their time and services.
However, sugar babies often receive monetary ‘gifts’ from their sugar daddy or mommy.
In most cases though, it is about the money.
“Sugar babies are not paid. They don’t, you know, file taxes on money they receive from sugar daddies because it’s a gift [from] someone who they’re in a relationship with,” Urick said.
As tuition costs continue to climb, Ottawa has become a hotspot for sugar relationships in Canada.
According to Seeking Arrangement’s report on sugar babies, the University of Ottawa (U of O) is 2018’s number one fastest-growing sugar baby school in Canada.
With 206 new sign-ups in 2017, and a total number of 703 sugar babies as of the new year, many U of O students are seeking non-traditional ways of paying their student debt.
Sugar babies in the capital
Jennifer, a fourth-year marketing student and sugar baby at the U of O, whose name has been changed to ensure anonymity, said her initial reason for becoming a sugar baby was because she was strapped for cash.
She added that she is paying for all her schooling without help from her parents and she does not qualify for the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) .
“My parents make so much money that I just don’t qualify,” Jennifer said.
Then, one day her friend told her about sugar relationships.
“I’m super outgoing, and thought ‘why not give this a shot,’ ” she said.
She added that she didn’t have much success at first, but now she makes an average of $6,000 a month, through numerous sugar relationships, receiving about $500 per date, which usually consists of dinner and drinks or sometimes movies, concerts, and other events.
“Not all of them sleep over, some of them do. There’s obviously intimacy involved too,” she said.
On top of her usual dates, she also said she has been paid to travel throughout North America to meet with different sugar parents.
Aside from her sugar baby endeavors, Jennifer said she still holds a part-time job.
Emma, a first-year outdoor adventure student at Algonquin College, had a different experience with sugar relationships.
Like Jennifer, she said she heard about sugar dating services through a friend, but that she didn’t pursue it right away.
“Recently this year, I got asked by a random older gentleman at a bar if I would be interested in being his sugar baby,” Emma said.
Although she didn’t pursue the relationship, she said she started searching online for different opportunities, and came across Seeking Arrangement.
Emma did say that she has a boyfriend, but that she still pursues sugar relationships. She said she meets up with different men for dinner and movie dates, and she ends communication when a sugar daddy wants intimacy beyond a hug or kiss on the cheek.
In her case, she said she can make about $600 in a month, and is paid a varying amount per date, depending on what the date is.
id, but she added that she enjoys brightening someone else’s day as a benefit of the experience.
Emma also said she takes on other part-time jobs despite earning more through sugar dating.
Like Jennifer, she also said she doesn’t plan on continuing with sugar relationships after she graduates.
The risks of sugar dating
Although dating sugar daddies in exchange for cash can seem like a great idea, there are always risks to meeting new people online. With half of all Canadian women having experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, sugar babies, like most women, are subject to the same staggering statistic.
In February 2017, the Charlatan published an article detailing an alleged sexual assault committed against a Carleton student and sugar baby, where the alleged assailant was a sugar daddy the student met on Seeking Arrangement.
This raises questions for some about how safe sugar relationships are.
Brandon Wade, founder and CEO of Seeking Arrangement said in the article that the service has a variety of safety measures for its users, including an optional third-party background check to verify user accounts.
“We encourage all members to get their background verified,” he said.
The site also has a member complaint reporting system, where all member complaints are individually reviewed.Wade also said they post blogs with general online safety tips, and informational YouTube videos on their channel.
Keeping sugar dating safe
Even though being a sugar baby does pose some risks, Jennifer said she thinks they are about the same as any online dating site.
“If you go for a date on Tinder or something, you just kind of meet the person, see how they are,” she said. “Every person’s different, right?”
Seeking Arrangement’s safety precaution page suggests dating members only after they’ve had their background checked, and doing your own research.
It also says to avoid discussing sex in your description and Seeking Arrangement messages.
According to Jennifer, she doesn’t let anyone pick her up for a first date, doesn’t share her friends’ and family’s names, and doesn’t tell them where she lives, unless the date goes well and she chooses to invite them over.
She also said the service is really made for a certain type of girl.
“Girls that are passive-aggressive or feel guilty [for setting boundaries] can be easily suckered in by guys that are controlling,” she said. “So, you need to be really strong-headed and know what you want. If you have restrictions, lay out what they are right off the bat.”
The psychology of sugar relationships
According to Cheryl Harasymchuk, a psychology professor at Carleton University, sugar relationships can involve a certain “dance of power” that can be attractive to its participants.
“A sugar daddy has something the sugar baby wants [such as money], and the sugar daddy can give it or take it away, which adds an element of coercion,” she said in an email.
Harasymchuk added that the more desirable the options are outside of the relationship, the less sugar daddies are dependent on the relationship at hand, creating a power imbalance.
There are four sugar babies for every sugar parent, according to Seeking Arrangement’s website.
So according to Harasymchuk, sugar babies might feel pressured to please their sugar parent in order to keep them.
“Research suggests we should strive for equality in relationships where both partners’ preferences are given equal weight,” she said. “Relationships where there isn’t a balance in power are more prone to relationship decay.”
Although sugar daddies are often assumed to be the more powerful member of the relationship, Harasymchuk said sugar babies can also gain power based on their ability to give sugar daddies love and closeness.
Emma said she thinks most sugar daddies just want connection, adding that she has been very successful without “looking too amazing” or having sex.
“They’re such workaholics that they don’t have a personal life, and they just want someone cute and friendly to validate that they’re rich and they’re awesome,” she said. “And then some of them have been married men too who are lacking depth in their own relationship.”
Although more and more students are pursuing sugar relationships in Ottawa, Harasymchuk said that at the end of the day, healthy relationships are formed where there is an equality of power.
So whether you’re single, in a relationship or a sugar baby, it’s important to make sure your health and well-being comes first.
As for Emma, she said as long as you and your significant other are in a comfortable spot, sugar relationships can really work.
“Just because I go out for dinner with guys the odd time and they pay me doesn’t mean my boyfriend and I are having a bad relationship . . . I’m actually doing really well and I’m really successful—so just don’t judge people for what they do, because there’s no shame in it, and as long as you’re safe and you’re respectful, there’s nothing wrong,” she said. “It can really work, you just need to be open-minded.”
Graphic by Manoj Thayalan
