Sugaring and student debt: Why more students are signing up for sugar relationships

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A growing trend among post-secondary students in order to combat the growing cost of tuition is to get a 'sugar daddy'.

A growing trend with students is entering a sugar relationship to pay their way through school.

The website SeekingArangement.com released a list of the top 20 universities and colleges across Canada with registered members. Western University was in the 13th spot, with 251 total Western students registered and 79 new members joining in 2016. A total of one million students worldwide signed up for the website in the past year.

After looking at the statistics, the web page said, “Student tuition has seen a steady rise, as well as enrollment, which has increased. Becoming a sugar can help you avoid being another statistic.”

The average student debt in Canada has surpassed $25,000.

Alexis Germany, a public relations specialist for Reflex Media, which oversees SeekingArangement. com, said that there are no students registered on the website with their Fanshawe email address.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t have any Fanshawe students on the site,” Germany explained in an email. “It just means that if they are on the site they used a different email address to register so we are unable to track them.”

One student’s experience with sugaring

A London, Ont. student, who requested to stay anonymous, has sugared for three years. “Obviously I needed money, but the other thing was it was really nice being with someone who was older,” she said when asked why she started. “I can go and order a $200 bottle of wine and no one blinks, but if I was to go out with someone my age, like if I were to order a $200 bottle of wine, can that guy pay his rent?”

Although she doesn’t use the money she makes to pay for school, she will use it to fill her car with gas and go out with her friends. She compared it to having a part-time job, but making more money. The student added that it can be more difficult than working part-time.

“You spend hours on end entertaining these men and making sure you’re answering your phone when you wake up. Naps are about the worst thing you can do because you’ll wake up to 75 messages and 10 phone calls of, ‘What are you doing? Where are you?’ ‘I’m bored’, ‘Call me’,” she explained.

“There [are] mornings where I wake up and I say, ‘Wow, I am so tired of this. I don’t want to do this. It’s getting old.’ But at the same time, you get that rush whenever it happens again. It’s like, ‘Wow. I got an e-transfer of $1,000. Woah. This is insane. All I did was just walk or wear something pretty to dinner. I just had a glass of wine’.”

The student took a break, but is getting back into sugaring. She was talking to someone before the interview, and was messaging different men during the interview.

“Taking a break is a lot like closing a business and reopening your business and you have to go looking for your clients all over again, which is complicated, difficult and really annoying,” she explained.

What other students are saying

Due to the nature of the article, two students asked to stay anonymous after they gave their opinions on how they felt about the increase of students signing up for websites like SeekingArrangement.com.

“I don’t agree with it, but whatever people want, that’s their own life,” a student said.

“I think that it’s kind of morally wrong. Like you’re using someone else for their resources, and they get nothing in return,” another student said. “I think students are going about obtaining resources in the wrong way when they should just be working hard like a normal person.”

Another student in London, who also wished to stay anonymous, said that while she is not a sugar baby herself, she considered it. She said that between working parttime, relying on OSAP and having her family financially support her, she is still financially struggling.

“It’s really frustrating. It’s hard to find a job that wants to hire students with the scheduling that we have and OSAP, they say they want you to only work so many hours. If you work too much, they pay you less. It’s just difficult financially to be on your own.”

She was also considering sugaring for the socialization that comes with it. “Part of me thought that it might be nice to have someone who can wine and dine me, that’s a little bit older with a different outlook on life,” she explained.

However, the student said she doesn’t think she could go through with it. “I would be too nervous about what my father would think about the whole situation.”

She added that she doubts she would be sexually involved with anyone in the process. “I don’t think I would be very comfortable with that aspect of it. It’s just more of the companionship.”

What’s the difference between sugaring and sex trafficking?

The student who has been sugaring said that many have a “misconception where it’s like being a prostitute, but it’s such a fine grey line where I don’t see it. Yes, I’m getting money, but I’m not necessarily getting paid for sex. I’m doing it for company and I’m not doing it one time. It’s like I’m seeing just one person all the time.”

Heather Wharram, the program manager for the London Abused Women’s Centre (LAWC), said that she feels sugaring is a form of sexual exploitation and part of the sex trade.

“It’s clearly targeting women who do not have a lot of financial resources typically and are in a vulnerable position to be exploited by rich powerful men,” Wharram said. “Escorting sites have said that in the past, ‘Oh it’s just dating. The sex isn’t expected’, but we all know that’s not the actual reality of the situation and I don’t think this is any different from that.”

She added that the language also implies a sexual relationship.

“Just the whole term ‘baby’ and ‘daddy’, ‘sugar baby’, ‘sugar daddy’, it just outlines how exploitative the relationship is.”

The London Police Service reported an increase in human trafficking related charges in 2016. A total number of 74 charges were laid, compared to 44 in 2015. The London Police have a Human Trafficking Unit to combat sex trafficking in the city.

Detective Mike Hay of the London Police Service’s Human Trafficking Unit explained that it is not illegal to sell sexual services. The few exceptions are if the service is taking place nearby school grounds, a religious institution, a park or any other place where someone under the age of 18-yearsold can be expected to be.

“As a police officer, if a woman is willingly working in the sex trade, I take no issue with it,” Hay said.

“If a ‘sugar baby’ is explicitly looking for sex and is being paid for it, she is not committing a crime. She is willingly working in the sex trade selling her own sexual services or companionship. This is not illegal on her part. The ‘sugar daddy’ would be committing the crime if he communicated for the purpose of obtaining sexual services of a person. This arrangement does not imply exploitation or forced labour.”

He said that there is a possibility that some women using such websites are exploited, but that “it is important to understand the difference and understand the laws that govern Canada”.

Hay noted that in December 2014, Bill C-36 was enacted which changed prostitution laws in Canada and aims to protect communities and people, in particular children, who sell their own sexual services, from harm and to shrink the demand for prostitution.

“To summarize, every time the prostitution transaction takes place, an offence is committed by the purchaser,” he said.