Recently Vanity Fair magazine ran an article Desperately Seeking Sugar Daddies Culture” about a young woman who signs up with a dating site that matches women with older, wealthy men aka sugar daddies. The woman is tired of the grind of her job. She aspires to be a freelance writer (financially precarious employment) and wants a “benefactor” to support her Sex and the City ambitions. As the writer straddles the line between dating and prostitution it becomes clear to the reader the high price that women pay for not being financially independent.
The writer quickly finds out that the sugar daddies are not interested in marriage or in giving cash. For these older men, a young woman ’s youth and good looks are her only trading chips. It actually enhances the older man’s cache to have a young, well dressed woman on his arm. Unfortunately the endless supply of young, attractive women means that women don’t have much leverage with wealthy men—particularly those not inclined to marry. At the end of a young woman’s run with sugar daddies, she’ll be slightly older (less desirable) with only some outdated, designer clothing, a few pieces of David Yurman jewelry and some passport stamps to hold onto— no real estate, no stocks, no bonds, not even a car. She’ll have no assets which is no bueno.
Before you scoff—there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting a financially successful man. It’s nice to have someone who can buy you nice gifts and whisk you off for romantic weekends. There however is a downside. Problem A arises when your entire way of life is dependent on someone else’s largesse. You can’t be yourself because you need to always meet his needs and expectations to keep his coffers open. Which leads to Problem B. What do you do when for whatever reason the sugar daddy ends the relationship? In this sugar daddy culture you’re over the hill at 25 yeas old.
There’s no financial certainty even if you marry a wealthy man. For every Elin Woods who stands to reap a billion dollar divorce pay-out there are millions more women like Danielle from The Real Housewives of New Jersey who are in financial limbo (along with her kids) because her ex-husband is withholding money and she has no job.
It’s important that women have a money mentality–meaning that their salaries are more than sufficient to pay for their needs and their wants. If you’re an underearner, a woman who consistently makes less money than is beneficial your first task is to acknowledge that you are in financial peril. Your first task should be to work on the creating a mindset and habits that will support you increasing your income–not outsourcing that to someone else. If you meet Mr. Big then you’re not coming to the table like a beggar, but as a woman of means.
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Yvonne, you are so on point. Those days are over….that was the 80’s. Besides as women we have too many opportunities to create wealth for ourselves, we don’t need sugar daddy’s. That is obvious for the lazy woman!