Hi! I’m, well… I’ll call myself Claire. I grew up in LA, but I currently live in New York, where I work in a gallery. I’m 26, and have been a sugar baby for three years now. I suppose my years as a sugar baby have resulted in some pretty interesting experiences–everything from you’re average upscale, mundane dinners where I pretend to care about the stock market for the sake of my date, to ridiculous penthouse orgies, to awkwardly hot Swedish-maid role-plays. I’m used to it now, so it all seems pretty standard to me. However, Karley recently interviewed me, and seemed to think my stories are interesting enough to support an ongoing diary-style column, so, here we go!
This isn’t technically my first column; I just wanted to introduce myself. In an attempt to make a good impression, I want to share some screengrabs I took recently, while watching this beautiful vintage porno. It’s a French porn from the 70s starring Brigitte Lahaie. I found it accidentally the other night, and now am obsessed. If you want to watch the whole film you can find it HERE.
Nice to meet you. You can expect my first official “diary entry” soon!
xo Claire
I’m so happy/laughing that the link just takes you to redtube.
Hey Karley, I am a loyal reader of your blog, have been reading it I think for five years now. However, growing up, my perspective changed. I understand it’s a sex blog, but find it appalling that you are still posting such posts about sex workers, or sugar babies, I don’t care how you want to call it. You are responsible for glamorising such jobs, and remember – there is a large community of young girls who are reading your blog.
Yeah, I know its a blog about sex, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But this is ridiculous- you call yourself a feminist and at the same time supportive of the oldest profession? I know you say that feminism is the right of a woman to do what she wishes with her body, including making money from it, but this is the wrong viewpoint- actually it’s called the oldest profession because it was always an option for women to make money from her body.
In the old times women didn’t have access to education and career, so they only had two choices to make it- either through a marriage or through selling their body. Now girls can study and become surgeons, architects and aero-engineers. What do you think was the whole point of feminism? So females have choices and economic power. But gaining economic power through sex is an illusory power.
The other reason is that all kinds of sex work carried on for a considerate amount of time deeply damage the woman. Firstly, she continuously learns to rely on her sexuality to earn money, big money becomes easy, she becomes used to a certain lifestyle and reliant on her income through the bed. It is addictive- let’s face it. And what is wrong with that, you ask?
As the woman constantly derives her value from sexuality, that becomes her self-esteem. She is becoming a men-pleaser, reliant on making impressions, charming guys, flirting, constantly massaging men’s egos, sustaining the excitement and the degree of sexuality. This process repeated over and over again becomes automatic for her and she comes to faking it. She no longer sees men in the same way, she sees all men as “potential money objects”. She objectifies herself also. She cannot afford to allow real feelings, to let her guard down, and to allow authenticity in such exchanges, so she is less and less in touch with her real feelings, she numbs them. In her mind she is “the smart one, making money”, but at the same time during all this time she looses sight of reality. She has to lead a double life, because the society doesn’t encourage this kind of work. She cannot have a real relationship. She doesn’t even have a career progress. She becomes reliant on high income, all the while in reality she drops out of a real career-progression track. She is comfortable where she is, but she is not moving forward. And if she keeps at it, the years will pass, she won’t notice how she will loose her main value – sexuality and looks, what will she be left with? No real career, no real relationship, no authenticity, some savings probably. But a damaged self-esteem and a distorted view of herself and the human interactions.
This is just to bring your attention to some issues and to make you think…
I support all women, I am a woman myself, I love women and I want them to be strong, healthy, independent, functioning members and contributors to the society. I do not want more women falling into the “easy” way of making money through their sexuality. This is a very dangerous path that damages women. You may not see it now, but it will have long-term detrimental effects to your mental health later in life.
Please stop. Develop some real skills, work hard at the gallery, or whatever industry, get promotions, open your own gallery! Have ambition! Realise your privilege of being an educated professional women. Many women in this world don’t have opportunities that you have. Feminists didn’t fight so long and hard for women’s rights of education and work for you to pick the easy route of being some rich guy’s plaything. Every such interaction damages you. Think about what I wrote, confront yourself and really evaluate if this path is the one you want to be continuing.
Thanks for reading, Z
Hey,
I appreciate your comment but I actually don’t agree with a lot of what you said. A lot of your views on what or who a sex worker is are very cliche–outdated stereotypes. This particularly is what I don’t agree with:
“She has to lead a double life, because the society doesn’t encourage this kind of work. She cannot have a real relationship. She doesn’t even have a career progress. She becomes reliant on high income, all the while in reality she drops out of a real career-progression track. She is comfortable where she is, but she is not moving forward. And if she keeps at it, the years will pass, she won’t notice how she will loose her main value – sexuality and looks, what will she be left with? No real career, no real relationship, no authenticity, some savings probably. But a damaged self-esteem and a distorted view of herself and the human interactions.”
What I’m doing by interviewing sex workers–sugar babies and otherwise–is to show the side of sex work we don’t see in mainstream media. We either see the victim narrative, or the superficial high class escort narrative. In reality, most sugar babies today are extremely ambitious, well educated women who are forming “mutually beneficial” relationships with rich men, to support themselves through college, or while they launch their careers. Also, a lot of sex workers are in relationships! Vivienne is actually in a relationship, and that’s something she’s going to write about in this column. I recommend you read this recent Atlantic article, “Where the Sugar Babies Are.” It’s about the demographic of women on this sites–a lot of them are in good colleges, paying their tuitions with the money. Here’s the link: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/where-the-sugar-babies-are/384547/
The reality is, New York is a gated community for the rich. You can work your ass off in a gallery 60 hours a week and still not make enough money to live comfortably in this city–that is a straight up fact. You either are being funded by your rich parents, or you have a side hustle, and for a lot of smart, sex-positive, ambitious young women, this is a very lucrative side hustle. I’m not saying everyone should do this AT ALL. Most people would not be able to handle this psychologically or emotionally. But on Slutever I want to give voice to the smart, ambitious women who DO do this, and enjoy it, so we can rid society of the cliched victim narrative that surrounds sex workers.
Thanks a lot for your great words, Karley.
I thought like Zoey for a long time until I got in contact with sexworkers and saw that it’s so not on me to argue about their work.
xoxoxo
so excited for this! and so happy your links now open up a new tab :)
OMG! I took me literally 7 years to figure out how to open pages in a new tab! It’s honestly tragic. Thanks for noticing though!
Hey Karley, thanks for the link to the Atlantic article. So I read it and basically it says that the number of sugar babes in American universities is rising as the tuition fees become more unaffordable. That is horrific, if you ask me. It does not confirm that , as you put it- they choose this path out of choice. They choose it out of need to pay outrageous tuition fees, and the whole extreme capitalist system of your country exploits them.
I liked and agree with this comment: “As a contemporary feminist, I do not consider sugar baby/daddy relationships equal and I empathize with any woman who sees being bought in exchange for her education as a viable option. It is horrible that any person seeking education might resort to selling themselves to get it. As a feminist, women selling themselves to achieve any goal is not a choice I support.”
Exactly, what is there to glorify about these desperate measures of survival? You American people should all be outraged with the way your system treats you, and the way education system pushes less privileged people into the sex industry. Your education fees are rising every year, you should all go out and protest!
And I do not agree with the stereotype of the “victim” as well. These girls are definitely smart and ambitious, I just argue that it’s not emotionally healthy to sell your body. You can be smart and ambitious and work other jobs to support yourself through your education. Sex is a wonderful and magical thing, I do not think it should be sold or industries made out of it. There’s many outspoken porn industry celebrities now, and I enjoy reading their interviews, but it seems like you have to be extremely tough as a woman to participate in this kind of work and not damage your mental health.
I do not like the American society’s view on sex workers either, its outdated, I think it should be more like in Germany or Netherlands where sex workers have pension and trade unions. I do not think it’s shameful or anything like that. I have friends who have done sex work at some points of university. I just see how it damaged them and I want to raise this topic to balance out opinions on this blog.
But sounds like Vivienne found the healthy balance in her life with her relationship, work and sugar work.
I can only applaud that and hope for her that she is happy and stable in her choices.
Thanks for the debate and all the best,
z
Claire,
May we have the link to your blog please?
I’m looking forward to your diary entry also!