‘Sugar daddy’ websites – which match young women with older men in financial arrangements that often involve sex – are targeting cash-strapped students.
According to The Times, the websites are using internet search-based advertising to promote their sites to people who use search phrases that suggest they are struggling to pay their university bills.
Brandon Wade, the founder of one of the biggest sugar-daddy websites, said: “College students are one of the biggest segments of our sugar babies, and the number is growing all the time”.
Exploitation
He added: “With the UK economy not doing so well, we’ve seen a rise in the numbers of students on our UK site, which is the second largest market after North America.”
“Most of the sugar babies are looking for a monthly allowance, and there is usually sex involved,” Mr Wade says. But he claims it is not an escort service.
Sue Harrison, founder of student recruitment website studentgems.com, worries about the risks of exploitation.
Naïve
She said: “Eighteen-year-olds, away from home for the first time, can be naïve. As a parent myself, I would hate to think that students are finding themselves compromised or pushed into situations they are not happy with.”
But Elizabeth Nistico, a researcher from George Washington University in America, celebrates sugar daddy relationships as “extremely modern”.
She has been studying the ‘sugar scene’ in New York. She claims: “Personally, I consider the relationships to be extremely modern because, ideally, participants negotiate what they want before they jump into the arrangement.”
Sexualisation
Earlier this year Dame Joan Bakewell, a leading advocate of sexual liberalisation, criticised the current commercial attitude towards sex.
Dame Joan said: “The liberal mood back in the 60s was that sex was pleasurable and wholesome and shouldn’t be seen as dirty and wicked. The Pill allowed women to make choices for themselves.
“Of course, that meant the risk of making the wrong choice. But we all hoped girls would grow to handle the new freedoms wisely.
Corrupt
“Then everything came to be about money: so now sex is about money, too.
“Why else sexualise the clothes of little girls, run TV channels of naked wives, have sex magazines edging out the serious stuff on newsagents’ shelves? It’s money that’s corrupted us and women are being used and are even collaborating.
“I never thought I would hear myself say as much, but ‘I’m with Mrs Whitehouse on this one’.”