KISS OFF: Sugar Babies are on a diet, getting an average of $4,357 per month compared to $6,231 before the financial crisis. (
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Everything has been affected by the bad economy, and I mean everything.
And that includes Sugar Daddies (think wealthy guy, not caramel on a stick), who are now less wealthy and less generous than they used to be. It’s just the economic law of supply and demand — or at least that’s what I told my editors when I proposed this as the subject for a financial column.
More women are apparently trying to survive hard economic times by having a good time, and men are still willing to help them do that — as long as the price is right.
Some Sugar Daddies are even timesharing their Sugar Babies. (But honestly, I can’t even start to imagine how that arrangement works and still get my focus back to the business side of this.)
Could Groupons for this sort of thing be next? “For the next 24 hours, Sherry is willing to sit with you in the balcony and not in the orchestra. Savings: 50 percent.”
OK, some of you have no idea what I’m talking about. And that’s a good thing because you probably live a decent life. To you, a Sugar Daddy is just a hard caramel candy bar that you can suck all day. I’m not going to take that analogy any further, either.
Those of you who do know what this is about may have to go to church if you continue reading.
I asked SeekingArrangement.com to do some exclusive research for me, although the word “exclusive” isn’t really popular in this area of dating.
But first I need to explain SeekingArrangement. It’s like those Internet sites you would go to if you were looking for a used car, only what you get at SeekingArrangement might be a little used, but it’s not a car. Understand?
My question was: What is the state of Sugar-Daddying these days? Is it as bad as, say, the housing industry? Or is this the ultimate in recession-proof business?
According to SeekingArrangement, the average net worth of a Sugar Daddy today is $5.6 million, down from $7.1 million in 2007.
And the average annual income has fallen by 18 percent to $263,589 from $321,482 in 2007.
But these tough times are mostly hurting the Sugar Babies, who are now being given only $4,357 on average each month by their Sugar Daddies, compared with $6,231 before the financial crisis.
In other words, the gals have taken a 30 percent pay cut. (And, as far as I can tell, they don’t get any of the usual benefits or unemployment insurance.)
As I said, it’s all about supply and demand. Right now, there are 14.2 potential Sugar Babies for each guy; five years ago the ratio was only 9.8 to 1.
“On average, the guy spends roughly $4,000 to $5,000 a month,” says Brandon Wade, founder and CEO of SeekingArrangement, who added that the men filling the Sugar Daddy roles have also gotten younger.
In 2007, for instance, the average age of a Sugar Daddy in the US was 44. Now it’s 39. And Wade says there is a growing trend among guys under 35 to become Sugar Daddies.
And more women who’d be considered average in looks are signing up today.
Let me be clear here: I think all women are above average and superior to men in every way, and they should not be objectified. So I was appalled by SeekingArrangement’s objectification of the ladies.
After I got over being appalled, I pushed on.
SeekingArrangements says that women who are a 10 in looks — on the Bo Derek scale — get as much as $15,817 a month in support, while 3-rated gals get only $1,320. Nobody apparently would admit to being a 1 or 2 — or dating one — so data on that group is too scarce to be scientifically accurate.
The biggest disparity seems to be between Sugar Babies of the 7 and 6 quality. Sevens get $6,222 a month in support; 6’s just $4,534.
What do the Sugar Babies do for that money? Well, it’s safer to say what they don’t do. They don’t make beds, although 80 percent will help the Sugar Daddy mess the sheets up. (A different survey once suggested that 20 percent of the such arrangements didn’t involve sex, although I find that difficult to believe.)
A young woman I’ll call Lucy, a college student in the Northeast, says she’s in a Sugar arrangement with a much older professional man that doesn’t include intimacy. “He helps me out with tuition. He helps me out with everything,” says Lucy. “He’s a very nice guy. It’s really a lot of fun.”
Lucy helps his ego, especially when Mr. Sugar is around colleagues who now think he’s a stud.
She says the arrangement is worth about $20,000 a year to her and will help her get out of college with no debt. “It’s a big part of my life. It’s a full-time job,” says Lucy, who added, “I have to keep this relationship going until I get out of school.”
Lucy says she’s on her third Sugar Daddy.
Another woman I’ll call Ethel is a little different. (I apologize to “I Love Lucy” fans, but I saw the chocolate factory episode just before coming up with these names.) Ethel is a 23-year-old waitress who relies on her Sugar Daddies for extra money.
“They help me out. They pay my rent. They pay my bills. They give me allowances,” she tells me over the phone while she walks along a Manhattan street with construction workers howling in the background. (Ethel tells me she’s wearing short shorts.)
Her allowance is about $300 a day, and she likes older guys. “The older the better. The older guys treat younger women better than younger guys,” she says.
Oh yeah, and Ethel does have sex with the guys. In fact, she chuckles when I suggest that some Sugar Babies don’t.
The stats I gave you before are national figures. Naturally, New York City’s figures are different.
SeekingArrangement says New Yorkers are the second-most generous Sugar Daddies (hooray for us!), behind only LA. But we are ninth in the number of Sugar Daddies, with only 2.10 out of every 1,000 adult men dating in this way.
New York City Sugar Daddies earn an average of $312,738 a year, are worth about $6.96 million and spend $4,991 a month on their Sugar habit. So they are richer and earn more than the national average for this sort of thing.
Not surprisingly, Manhattan Sugar Daddies are dumber (ah, richer) than those in other boroughs. They spend an average of $6,511 a month, with Staten Island second (yes, I was also surprised) at $5,525.
Ricky is a middle-aged professional who lives in Washington, DC. He has just started interviewing Sugar Babies. “Having these attractive young women in my life is my midlife crisis,” he tells me.
Or you can just buy a convertible and save money.