Introduction: Why and How College Students Enter Sex Work
A common stereotype of prostitutes is of them coming from lower-class backgrounds. They are portrayed as being poor addicts who use their salaries for ‘dirty’ causes such as drugs. However, a subset of prostitutes that does not fit into this category exists. College student sex workers tend to come from comparatively privileged socioeconomic backgrounds, but willingly choose to enter prostitution in order to attain prestige.
For busy college students, prostitution is often viewed as an efficient way to earn money. Working regular part-time jobs is very time-consuming and distracting from schoolwork, on top of earning them much less. Profits from sex work are used not only to support worker’s educations -- such as to pay for tuition, books and rent --, but also so that they can partake in conspicuous consumption (a sociological term coined by Thorstein Veblen, referring to the purchasing luxry goods to display socioeconomic power) and live lavish social lives.
Because very little academic research has been done on this topic, most of the information for this exhibit comes from anonymous blogs and news articles. While there are sensational aspects and not everything may be accurate, this scarcity of information also suggests the taboo nature of prostitution. In addition, it is also a reflection of how success-oriented college student sex workers tend to be, as, on top of wanting to live more comfortably, they also don’t want to risk future employers finding out about their involvement in sex work and have their reputations tarnished.
One form that sex work exists among college students is through sugar relationships. “Sugar babies” and “sugar daddies” form “arrangements”, through which the “daddy” gives his “baby” an “allowance” for her company. Such transactions are legal because they are fundamentally like other relationships in which partners support each other financially, as long as there are no direct monetary or material transactions for sex. While sugar arrangements are not technically prostitution, sex is often a huge part of these relationships. In fact, one sugar baby, Suzanne, does not identify as a prostitute, but does admit that “if this isn’t what prostitution is called, [she] doesn’t know what is” [1]. In addition, sociologist Ronald Weitzer says that there may be many cases in which prostitution is taking place disguised as sugar relationships [1].
College students are targeted by businesses such as Seeking Arrangements because “sugar daddies” find them to be desirable. They defy the stereotype that sex workers are uneducated, poor, and going to use their money for activities such as drug consumption. The men feel that their money is going to less dirty purposes, and as if they’re “helping [sugar babies] to get [better lives]” [1]. Furthermore, the fact that these “sugar babies” are educated on top of being young makes them highly appealing [1].
Sugar daddy businesses are currently booming, with more female members than male ones, unlike traditional dating sites. While college students were not the original targets of services like Seeking Arrangements, when many college students started to sign up for them during times of desperation to escape debt from tuition, these companies started viewing that as a tremendous business opportunity. Now, they strategically target poor college students by having their advertisements show up when they make Google searches for terms like “tuition” “debt” and “money for school”. In addition, users who sign up with .edu e-mail addresses are granted access to exclusive premium features that other users typically have to pay for [1]. In fact, the number of college sugar babies on Seeking Arrangements increased by 350 percent between 2007 and 2011 [1].
[1] Fairbanks, A. M. (2011, July 31). Seeking Arrangement: College Students Using 'Sugar
Daddies' To Pay Off Loan Debt. Retrieved March 03, 2016, from http://www.huff
ingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/seeking-arrangement-college-students_n_913373.html