So, ok, there’s a website called “Seeking Arrangement.” You can trivially log on and find that there in fact are a large number of women, many of them young and skinny, “seeking arrangements”. Most of them show their faces on their profiles.
So, allegedly, according to news articles about the site, there are in fact more women on the site seeking “arrangements” than there are men on the site seeking women. Allegedly, the average “arrangement” costs about 3 grand a month, which would put it within reach for a large number of men.
News articles on it say that disclaimers notwithstanding, pretty much all of these arrangements involve the young women having sex with men they would otherwise not give the time of day to.
Unlike escorts, it’s not guaranteed. I’m uncertain how the typical arrangement actually goes…do the 2 parties meet in public for an initial meeting where they evaluate the other party in the transaction and negotiate a deal? Or do many arrangements take place behind closed doors where it’s more like a typical prostitute<->John arrangement…
Moreover, why are there so many women on the site? Are the profiles real? There seem to be roughly 10 to 100 times as many profiles as there are unique profiles of prostitutes in my city at least…
What’s the straight dope? Inquiring minds must know…
I’m not familiar with this site (and I’m not going to look, thanks), but there have always been services that connect women willing to trade regular sex - and other domestic favors, like dinner - for a “retainer” or paying for an apartment’s rent. I’d guess $3k buys you one night a week with dinner, the evening, boinky-boink and sleepover if you want.
Yes, it’s prostitution. No, these women don’t think it is or that they are. They just close their eyes and do it for the rent.
Well, I don’t have credible sources to say one way or another what the typical ratio of price vs service is. However, the numbers you quote are not any cheaper than regular hookers and substantially more than just booking a trip to Thailand, Germany, or other international whore-monger destinations.
The sources that I have read say it’s a lot more favorable to the gentleman visitors than that. I think 3k is typically 2-3 meetups a week. My source is some message board posts and a news article than interviewed some of the women and men involved. Allegedly, the reason it’s cheaper is the internet has made it possible for many more women to quietly get into these “unseemly” arrangements. Presumably, in the 50s-90s, you had to know someone than knew someone, and becoming someone’s mistress was harder.
So, supply and demand, too many women chasing too few wallets…
The other interesting thing about the site is that, allegedly, many of these meetups are a lot closer to regular dating - just guys who would not have been able to “pull” women of this caliber gets dates above their level…
And as I said before, it isn’t guaranteed and these women frequently have to be enticed into “closing the deal”, similar to standard relationships…
Anyways, it sounds like someone will have to take on the dangerous and thankless task of messaging some of these women over the internet and risking actual encounters…
I hope we can find a brave enough field researcher willing to get down and dirty and get that empirical first hand data…
The other interesting thing is that, allegedly, the cost of these relationships factors in the overall attractiveness of both parties.
So if we had empirical numbers, and Women-Man attactiveness = 2 (woman is 2 higher than man), the $$$ paid is a smaller amount than if Woman-Man = 4. I know that such numbers are difficult to calibrate - the latest research does actually show that the majority of men do prefer certain body types more than others - but actually computing it is tough.
When Malcom Gladwell sent out a grad student into the dangerous world of researching prostitution, both street and escort style, he discovered that prostitutes don’t vary their hourly rate by the attractiveness of the other partner - only by service performed.
So this is a qualitative difference - *if *it works that way. Need further research to confirm this phenomenon…
Sex-worker advocates say it’s not guaranteed with escorts either, though I think even they acknowledge it’s the way to bet.
In sugar-baby/sugar-daddy, ah, relationships, it’s technically not guaranteed, but I imagine only the most desperate or gullible men would shell out $3K/month for the possibility of sex, at least, not for more than a month or two. Though not every man wants sex out of the deal.
What I mean is, with escorts, you basically walk into the hotel room, hand over the cash, and start the porno music.
With a “Sugar Baby”, you allegedly meet up at Starbucks for a brief initial meet and greet. If the parties initially find each other appealing, they set a date for perhaps a dinner date, also in public. If that passes, maybe meeting 3 is in private and possibly sexy stuff happens. Not the same as escorts.
Apparently, it is common for one party or the other to back out of the deal.
It’s an interesting legal question as to whether this is technically prostitution or not. See, you can pretty easily say that the normal escort business is prostitution. The “money is for companionship” disclaimer is paper thin. What actually happens is the guy shows up, hands over some cash, and the porno music starts playing. Pretty clear-cut.
Now, with these sugar-baby relationships, some money is paid electronically for the sugar baby showing up. Or cash, whatever. The 2 parties have dinner, talk, meet up. Sex may or may not happen. It’s more that if sex doesn’t happen, it is unlikely that the sugar baby will be invited back. Not sure if that’s legally the same thing.
The girl’s selling herself for $3k/mo. and the guy has to be the buyer. Not that many men can afford that, and even if they could, not that many men would want/need to whore out a girlfriend. So, you’ll get a huge disproportion. I’m sure most of those men that do sign up are charmers, too.
*assuming it’s real
In my skimming of the forum, I read this thread as: Who on the dope is “seeking arrangement”.
I would expect that a large number of the women’s profiles on sites like these are scammers trolling for some sort of fee arrangement upfront. Or they are fake profiles put up by the site owners to attract men to pay to put up profiles.
Sites like these are a growing business. The site Ashleymadison.com is for married men and women that want to have affairs is extremely popular, with over 50% of their users in the US. It’s parent company is considering doing an IPO on the London stock exchange. Their model is men pay and women are free.
I worked for a guy who, on business trips to NYC, Atlanta and LA, would hire very expensive escorts for evenings out. No sex. Many of these were “almost known” names in modeling and acting. Four hours of dinner, show and being seen in public with her was worth his $2k or so (this was mid-1990s).
When I go to the “browse sugar babies” page, the first picture that comes up is Kendra from Los Angeles, California. But when I do an image search I find a strikingly similar picture belonging to a woman who has a strong interest in British politics. Maybe Kendra has a twin in London.
I also notice that on the sample page, all but two of the women appear to be of Asian/Pacific ethnicity. Makes you wonder.
I am uncertain if the “teaser” page is from real profiles or not. However, you can trivially create an account using a throw-away email address and browse profiles of women the site claims are near you, based on whatever zip code you enter.
There are a lot more women, and you can view some information about them, although of course you have to subscribe in order to message them.
I’ve seen more than one documentary on that site and once it was the topic of a Radio call in show I heard. It is just what it sounds like. Young, Pretty Girls, hook up with Rich dudes. It seems icky and sad to me but both sides seem happy enough so who am I to judge?
I’m on the site and I have seen both, though I do not pay for sex. I’m in my early 30s and attractive and successful especially for my age. Most of the guys on this site are as you’d expect them to look - old/fat/bald/creepy though there’s some exceptions. The high entry fee (up to $70/mo) to make full use of the site and send messages weeds out a lot of the more attractive or younger men, and results in a very strong female:male ratio - a ratio the site would be useless without. I even saw one time a younger man used Craigslist to try to get a girl from SA to contact him because he didn’t want to pay the $70/mo fee.
Some of the women on here are just prostitutes and won’t vary their rate because I’m young and cute. They don’t give a fuck, they want their $600 for 2 hours or they’ll get it from a 60 year old obese man. I’ve never paid for sex and it would take something truly special before I’d give in. Something I didn’t think i could ever get for free. Other things, like sensual massage, I might pay for to try it and I’ve seen it offered.
The ones that are more like college girls who are on here because their friend did it, or she’s in their 20s and works at a Starbucks and wants the ‘finer things’, those will be more flexible because they’ll take a cut in compensation to spend the time with a guy they actually like. In these cases, you still have to compete with other guys just to be the one who gets to pay her! Some want an allowance (i don’t do that), others just use the site like Tinder where all the dudes are supposed to be rich.
But there’s a 3rd category as well, and that’s just girls that want to fuck mostly older men. I met one who is a 19 year old college student, said i was borderline too young for her (she only likes 30-50). She was very submissive and never asked me for money. We’d go to a burger place and i spent $20 each time. Only saw her twice and just didn’t feel like continuing it plus it’s an hour drive and she wanted me to start spending the night. She also had no car and couldn’t drive to my place. This is where a ‘real’ sugar daddy unlike me might have stepped up and bought her a car but I’m just not desperate for meaningless sex, I’m just using the site as a way to get it sometime.
Category 4 are the ones who just want go marry a rich guy. Age could be all over the place. You got the 20 year olds that don’t want to enter the real world and dream of being taken care of. You got the 35 year olds tired of the corporate world that want to quit and be taken care of.
The last group are the same girls with the same photos you see on OkCupid/Tinder/Match, just with a tweaked profile. This time she’s telling you how great it would be if you just had a no strings attached relationship and went to exotic places together, as long as you pay her or something. Oh and speaking of the allowance levels listed on that site, I have no fucking clue who is getting $10k a month. I’m sure somewhere some 10/10 finds a truly rich guy who doesn’t give a shit and keeps her around at any cost. But most girls on there are going to struggle to pull an average of more than $300 per lay - whether that compensation is in the form of dinner, cash, gifts, travel etc.
My experience is from using the site in a smaller city that has a couple universities nearby. When I was in a large city (Atlanta) there were way more women of all kinds, but the compensation expected was definitely higher and more women came off as professional escorts.
Overall I’ve had an interesting experience on the site and I feel it’s a way to let off some steam when things are dry in the land of finding a real woman to spend a life with. In some ways it’s addicting and evil. It’s been like a ‘super Tinder’ where the girls are all hot and will fuck you but you know it’s because they want money or they get off on old dudes. Yet you just can’t stop looking at it because you never know what bombshell is going to sign up next and what she’ll be asking for.
I used to think Charlie Sheen was funny way back when; he’s Very talented. Stuff like this Destroyed him.
You don’t have a great body of work behind you, a large supportive family, a huge number of very good friends, or an industry that really wants to use you on projects because you make them money (an industry that’s willing to give you lots of chances).
If this stuff can even grind someone as talented as Charlie Sheen into the dirt, it’ll squish you like a bug. Smart men want nothing to do with this stuff. Good luck…
PS- Don’t tell me if you were named in the Ashley Madison hack. Tell me if you want to be named some day in the future when This one gets hacked. Remember: All “transactions” leave a paper trail somehow, the future is a very long time, and it is a very real possibility.
Twenty years from now you might be married… and to someone who might divorce you over this if it becomes public news then.