This seems clear to me: people like these stories, they buy them and read them. This is at least as old as the very fact it reports, i.e. the exchange of sexual/companionship gifts for money.

Ms Traister, I understand your concern with the apparent reinforcement of old stereotypes about gold-diggers and sugar daddies -- but I don't share it.

Sex/companionship for money is, in principle (at least for me), as 'normal' and understandable a transaction as paying one's therapist for his/her time and advice. Or paying an artist for a performance.

The stereotypes that accompany this activity -- in the case you mention, the sugar daddies and their sugar babies -- are, to me, projection of our own emotions onto the situation. We "don't like" people who enter transactions for sex and/or companionship. We think they feed those haters who claim that "this is all" the other gender always wants: the men who say women are all gold-diggers, the women who think men all want to take advantage of them. We get angry because, maybe, deep inside, we 'agree' a little bit with them: these women are just merciless gold-diggers ('only in it for the money', as you put it, Ms Traister), and those sugar daddies are either naive stupids ('maybe she really loves me?') or exploitative jerks ('I know how much she's worth'). We see such things and think: they're trying to prove I am like that.

It's the stereotypes in our own heads that make them be necessarily like that.

I would want to believe that these young women are simply entrepreneurs, and that their clients are simply clients. That they could make this work in a 'normal' way.

Probably, in many (who knows? most) cases this is not so. Because the stereotypes in our heads, the movies we've seen, the books we've read, want us to follow a different script, to pay attention to a different narrative. And so we get a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy: many, maybe most of them end up looking like what we expected them to.

People reading about these services remind me of people stopping at car accidents to see what happened: curiosity about things that we find 'morbid' or 'despicable'.

I wished they could simply consider it normal, not give it much attention, and get on with their lives. The stereotypes will take care of themselves. And so will these sugar babies and their sugar daddies.

Maybe I'm missing something here...

"The problem here isn't an individual story, it's the recent rash of pieces ... that adds up to a deeply distorted and outmoded look at what sexual and financial life is like for women and men in the midst of a recession."

How is it deeply distorted and outmoded if the stories are TRUE?

Is reporting a true story about people that happen to live up to the stereotypes "clinging" to them?

And who is "forcing" anyone to read these stories? Or is the idea that because the stories are in papers and on the Internet, you're being forced to read them?

(Like mountains and climbing or something...)

At this point, I'd happily indulge my inner sugar baby. I've been a liberated, self-supporting, responsible woman my entire adult life, and I'm tired. Exhausted, really. So I think I'd really enjoy some strings-free sex and a nice check each month so I can pursue all those things I don't have time for now.

But where am I going to find a sugar daddy who wants to support this 53-year old broad, whose boobs and ass are in a race to see which one will hit the floor first? Answer me that, Broadsheet.

Stereotypes be damned. You get to an age where they don't matter anymore, but having a little affection and some free money sound pretty good. Ah, youth is utterly wasted on the young...

I think there might be alot of euphamism here. I think these young women are turning to prostitution in order to pay their tuition bills. They don't say this, but the men give the money for sex, not for a platonic mentoring relationship.

What kind of mentoring relationship would this be anyway?

What are we doing to young people? (I can't tell if these students are truly needy or are they greedy for luxuries. If it is true need, we would be better off giving welfare than having our students pay for school this way.)

"What are we doing to young people? (I can't tell if these students are truly needy or are they greedy for luxuries. If it is true need, we would be better off giving welfare than having our students pay for school this way.)"

I'd call it financial exploitation myself, but I was feeling it almost a decade ago, so it's not just "young people," I don't think.

During the Reagan administration, I think the decision was made that welfare was "bad." It's been mostly downhill from there.

These guys pretend they are lovable to young hot women for reasons other than their money.

Young hot women pretend they are not prostitutes.

I bet these 'short, bald, bad breath' fellows would do far better not being fucktards personality-wise. This sort of thing does nothing to dispel my pet theory that (much of the time) a heavy dose of fear and insecurity are necessary to make really big money. How hard can it possibly be for a rich, charismatic guy to get a date without paying for one?

I wouldn't want a mistress messing up my marriage and family with crazy emotional stuff.

If my wife and I decided to move into a non-exclusive "don't ask don't tell" sexual relationship, a kept woman would be more practical. Much clearer set of expectations than a mistress.

And less cruel in many ways than constantly promising someday "once the kids are settled... just not yet..."

And yes, there is a few subtle differences with classic prostitution. Assumption on both sides is there is an interview process for a relatively long term sexual and monetary relationship. So it's prostitution but the STD/violence risks are probably closer to that of a ordinary casual sexual relationships.

But given the woeful lack of an extra several grand a month, this isn't really an issue. My spouse helps keep our relationship strong by making sure we spend it all every month. :-P