There are a lot of things that come to mind when you think of sugar babies. It might mean picturing attractive, young women with the keys to new cars or steady streams of impressive gifts. But in reality, a lot of what we picture are myths and things we tend to get wrong about sugar dating.
We asked two sugar babies about some of the things people get wrong most often about their profession. INSIDER independently verified their identities, but they will be kept anonymous. These are some of the most common myths and misconceptions about sugar babies and their work.
They often work "regular" jobs.
Though people might assume that sugar babies are lazy or looking for ways to circumvent finding and maintaining a regular job, that's not often the case.
In conversations with INSIDER, the sugar babies disclosed that they worked as servers (one at a restaurant and the other as a cocktail waitress in a strip club) while also pursuing a sugar lifestyle. Though some sugar babies don't necessarily need the extra money, it's about the reliability and dependability of paychecks.
They're not always interfering in unhappy or loveless marriages.
Another common trope about sugar babies is that they're enabling infidelity and breaking up marriages. Many assume that sugar daddies are in unhappy or unfulfilled relationships.
One anonymous sugar baby told us about his own experience with a sugar daddy, who he said loved and adored his wife.
"Martin was married, had children ... He was [polyamorous] with his wife," he said. "His wife and I had dinners, we would vacation in Vermont together, all three of us, and from my understanding, they both had ongoing same-sex partners in addition to their healthy marriage."
It's not just about flashy cars, new clothes, or expensive beauty treatments.
Yes, the luxurious $22,000 worth of annual beauty treatments sound extremely nice, but it's not always about the gifts and the fun stuff. In fact, for an increasing amount of people, it's about things like student loans.
For some sugar babies, it's about paying rent or bills. As one sugar baby told INSIDER, his sugar daddy would pay for his art school supplies as well as his housing and other essentials, which helped him survive throughout college.
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