GETTING a new £9,000 Chanel handbag, an all-inclusive trip to the Maldives and a £350 shopping budget is a typical week in the life of a sugar baby.
These young women date richer, older men for their own personal gain. Most earn an extra £27,000 per year through the arrangement and some of them have even had their £60,000 student loan debt cleared in one swipe.
A sugar baby is a young woman who receives financial support or gifts from a wealthier, older man in exchange for companionship [stock image][/caption]
Being a sugar baby is a glamorous proposition that lures in hundreds of thousands of British women every year.
But in a sensational exposé, one former companion has lifted the lid on what it’s really like to have a wealthy benefactor – and it’s not nightly dinners at Nobu, a designer handbag a week and regular cash injections.
Professionally known as Carramello, the 27-year-old once struck up relationships with older and wealthier men for financial gain, known as her “sugar daddies”.
The content creator has had three benefactors in the past – two of which were long term arrangements, and one which only lasted for a few months.
In these types of relationships, the younger woman typically receives financial support, gifts, holidays and other perks in exchange for companionship, affection and intimacy.
The main motivator for sugar babies entering these arrangements is money, while sugar daddies are seeking a ‘partner’ who is out of their league in conventional dating scenarios, a 2024 study found.
Those who proudly share their experiences online are branded as “gold diggers” and “desperate”, but silence the criticism with their financial gains.
However, having your rent paid and being whisked away on an all-expenses-paid tropical holiday by a rich man isn’t as enchanting as it might sound, warns Carramello.
She claims that sugar baby relationships are “only fun when they give you the money and leave you alone”.
“From my personal experience, you have to make yourself small a lot – and the more you’re around your sugar daddy, you start to see that a lot of them don’t have a choice but to pay someone to put up with them,” she penned on X (formerly Twitter).
Sugar baby relationships are controversial because they involve a significant age and financial disparity, which can lead to exploitation or manipulation.
This is something Carramello knows all too well.
Among the trouble she’s had with her former sugar daddies is disrespectful language, controlling behaviour and threatening to cut off the money they are paying her.
She also branded a large portion of these men as “very misogynistic”, and claims “the vast majority of them are divorced”.
Sugar Baby Statistics
- There is an average age gap of 19 years between a sugar baby and a sugar daddy
- Sugar babies engage in an average of four arrangements, while benefactors average over six arrangements
- Over one-third of sugar babies have experience in other forms of transactional sex work, such as stripping
- The hashtag #SugarBaby has a whopping 282,000 videos tagged to it on TikTok
Carramello now wants to warn aspiring sugar babies that the supposedly ‘easy’ career route isn’t a walk in the park.
She said that it takes a long time for the young women in these dynamics to level up through pay grades and see significant financial benefits.
“A lot of [sugar daddies] will buy you designer and spend thousands on trips before they invest in things to help you better yourself, like school,” she explained.
“A lot of them ask for so much of you, but don’t want to upgrade the pay.
A lot of them ask for so much of you, but don’t want to upgrade the pay. They’re astronomically freaky and think because they give you money, you’re supposed to be a 24/7 f**k toy
former sugar baby
“They try to manipulate you into doing labour for them instead of hiring people.”
It doesn’t stop there, though. As a number of sugar daddies expect sex as part of the conditional relationship, Carramello detailed how this can blur the lines of consent.
“They’re astronomically freaky and think because they give you money, you’re supposed to be a 24/7 f**k toy,” she said.
“It’s constantly, ‘send me pics’ and ‘give me that’.”
Loud and proud sugar babies are often trolled on social media “selling themselves”[/caption]
Loud and proud sugar babies are often trolled on social media “selling themselves” in exchange for money or gifts.
A study published by The Journal of Sex Research in 2024 found that the average sugar baby was aged just under 29-years-old, while the average sugar benefactor was aged 48-years-old.
“There seems to be an increase in attention surrounding sugar daddies, sugar babies and the arrangements they form in the media and in conversations,” explained study author Kate Metcalfe, a clinical psychology PhD student.
“The widely-promoted view that having a sugar daddy provides a solution to financial difficulties or a type of protection from the perils of dating these days was something I frequently heard from my peers, but there is so little research that actually examined sugar dating.
From my personal experience, you have to make yourself small a lot – and the more you’re around your sugar daddy, you start to see that a lot of them don’t have a choice but to pay someone to put up with them
former sugar baby
“It made researchers in our lab (Sex Meets Relationships) wonder what sugar arrangements really entail.
“How they work and whether there are risks associated with engaging in age-disparate relationships that involve transactions for intimacy and sex.”
Some people view sugar baby relationships as morally questionable, believing that they commodify intimacy or reduce relationships to transactions based on financial gain, rather than genuine emotional or romantic connection.
But that’s an ethical dilemma that sugar baby Jess* doesn’t care about.
Jess* used to be ”the broke one” in her group of friends before she became a sugar baby [stock image][/caption]
She used to be ”the broke one” in her group of friends – but the tables turned once she became a sugar baby.
The sugar baby says she started chatting online with wealthy blokes as a side hustle – but it’s since become a full time job for her.
She chats with her sugar daddies on a site called Private Sugar Club, and claims that she’s never met any of them in person.
Despite this, they are apparently happily to fund her lifestyle and she can secure £2,000 in one day simply through some messages.
While some sugar babies engage in these relationships consensually and feel empowered by the dynamic, it’s not a quick cash grab for most.
As a result, Jess gets trolled with comments like: “‘Not all money is good money.”
