Word Whack > In a culture that lives and dies according to the doctrine of neoliberal economics, aren’t teenage sugar babies just claiming their place in the free market, offering the only goods they have that others value – their bodies?
Sugar dating, also called sugaring, is a transactional dating practice typically characterized by an older wealthier person and a younger person in need of financial assistance in a mutually beneficial relationship.
Sugar daddy (slang term), a man who offers support (typically financial and material) to a younger companion.
Sugar Mama was originally produced by the James O. Welch Company in 1965, as a companion candy to the already-produced Sugar Babies and Sugar Daddy.
A Sugar Mama was a chocolate-covered caramel sucker, essentially a Sugar Daddy covered in chocolate.
Denmark poised to ban ‘sugar dating’, which some call a gateway to prostitution.
But the real problem is the ‘free’ market
Most parents would scorn quid-pro-quo ‘sugar dating’ as glorified prostitution – one step from riding the Lolita Express with Jeffrey Epstein. But with the economy circling the drain, neoliberalism leaves girls little choice.
‘Sugar dating’, in which a typically older romantic partner offers financial incentives to woo a usually much-younger paramour, is being threatened with a ban in Denmark. The concept has spiraled out of control in Scandinavian countries, with recent investigations suggesting it has become a gateway to full-on prostitution for girls as young as 13 in Sweden and Finland.
But it could also be argued that the “sugar babies” on the younger end of the equation are just monetizing their most valuable assets. In a culture that lives and dies according to the doctrine of neoliberal economics, aren’t teenage sugar babies just claiming their place in the free market, offering the only goods they have that others value – their bodies?
With economic conditions declining rapidly around the world thanks to catastrophically ill-advised government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, articles praising ‘soft’ prostitution are a dime a dozen in establishment media. 
Men’s magazine GQ, for example, recently featured a fawning interview with the founder of OnlyFans, which lets celebrities and online influencers offer their followers the chance to subscribe to self-made – frequently pornographic – content.
Packaged in the nonthreatening edges-rounded design of Web 2.0, OnlyFans bears no surface resemblance to the gritty peep shows and dingy porn theaters of 1970s Times Square or any of the similarly squalid aesthetics typically associated with desperate women selling themselves on the streets. Indeed, the more successful purveyors of racy photos on the site might even call the experience empowering.
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