The internet is a weird place.
At this point, we're all used to that weirdness, at least to some extent. Shitposting meme lords taking credit for the election of a predatory president who has strong links to Russian powers? There was a time - as difficult to recall as it may be - when that sentence would not only have been nonsensical, it would have been absurd. But in a world that's seen the rise and fall of LiveJournal and MySpace, and the rise and corruption of Facebook - a world that encompasses furries, fandoms, podcasts, the resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons, and music like vaporwave and shoegaze - in this world, believing just about anything is easier, because the unspeakably absurd is eminently plausible.
So, with all this in mind, stumbling face-first into the financial domination and sugar daddy segment of Twitter didn't surprise me as much as it would have, say, ten years ago. It started with a few retweets of SugarDad1's content - the user conceals his identity, but generously sends money to randomly selected followers who retweet his posts. He appears to be genuine, at least from the size of his following and the screenshots in his feed. And if he's the real deal - who else might also be a genuinely altruistic person with more money than they know what to do with?
That's not to say I'm naive or unaware that people are sometimes keen to exploit others. Not everyone, but enough people. And isn't it always just enough people? I'm no stranger to the concept of scams. Podcasts like "The Dream" and "Sounds Like MLM, But OK" have done important and useful work in offering public access to information about multi-level marketing. It's inherently exploitative and nearly impossible to make lucrative, but social pressure and millions of dollars in lobbying have done their best to remedy that. We have all heard that "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is," but it's always difficult to avoid the temptation. After all, what if, this time...it's real?
A brief disclaimer
Before I go any further, I should mention that this article series will deal with some very adult language and concepts. If you're not comfortable with sexuality and associated concepts from the BDSM and sex work communities, this might not be the series for you to read. If you're ignorant but intrigued, or comfortable and curious, then read on.
Wait, what's a sugar baby?
Back to the topic at hand. A sugar baby is someone who benefits from the financial and sometimes emotional resources of a sugar daddy or sugar mommy (a dearth of info about nonbinary parents exists). This is not to say that sugar babies don't do any work - the effort of replying to messages and various forms of emotional labor, sometimes with a sexual component and sometimes without it, definitely adds up. If it didn't, mainstream employment opportunities wouldn't have to pay people to man their customer contact and chat channels.
A more extreme and aggressive version of this is the financial domination subculture, which does overlap with the sugar parent world. "Paypigs" clean themselves out to fund their dominatrixes and Doms. Interestingly, "alpha," "beta," and "cuck" language has leaked into this subculture. Sometimes, tweets from the paypigs have an almost sarcastic tone when they refer to being cleaned out, being exploited, and etcetera. Many also appear to have foot fetishes and associated humiliation-based kinks.
However, it's important to remember that as with other BDSM and lifestyle posts, the apparent callousness and cruelty of these financial Doms is an act, part of the scene that is consensual - and probably not applicable to the rest of a Dom's life. (I mean, it might be, but I know a Domme or two, and apart from having strong personalities, they certainly aren't "on stage" at all times.) Ultimately, it's just another form of fetish and lifestyle escapism - if a particularly meta fetish in some ways.
Is it real?
Here's where it gets complicated. There's a surprising number of posts on Twitter from people who claim to be sugar daddies that don't want/need sex, nudes, or videos, "just chat." Being a fiscally-disadvantaged Millennial, I couldn't help being intrigued. But the more I clicked on associated accounts, the more it became clear that investigating this on my main Twitter profile would, ah, contaminate my work profile.
I set up a secondary Twitter account so I could start talking to these alleged sugar daddies and find out what their deals were - and whether everything was as enticingly easy as it seemed.
Throughout this series, I'm going to share what I've learned - and most importantly, relay the byzantine and obtuse strategies that scammers are using to entice potential sugar babies into yielding up their info. Get ready for a wild ride and a dip into some very unique subcultures, and hold that credit card close - because even when it's maxed out, lot of people want it.
The irony!
One of the things that caught my attention was that people tend to demean sugar babies and refer to them dismissively. As a sex work rights nerd, I'm accustomed to seeing that kind of talk directed at femmes and people in such realms - but I'm not used to seeing people scam said folks. While sugar babies - who straightforwardly admit that they're looking for financially-advantageous relationships - often get accused of being "gold diggers" and such, it would appear that the real scammers are on the other side of the equation.
I'm going to explain both the world of financial fetishism and the people looking to make a profit. This one's going to be short, but get ready for the next installments in this series. In the meantime, you can learn more about the world of sugar babies from the links already included in my article.
***
Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people's manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.
So many creeps, but a few nice people. All the nice ones seem taken! ~hunts like a leopardess in the savannah~
ReplyDelete