There are various sites and apps to target different groups of people. Attracting a particular vulnerability and looking to exploit and manipulate them into sexualized content and/or exploration. For example, college students who are struggling with student debt, in order to provide sexual gratification to more socio-economically advantaged men(most often).
Then there are more blatant sexual enticement apps for hook-ups and ‘loose’ dating. Sugar dating is a newer version of being a ‘Call Girl’ or ‘Hooker’ and is a seeing a huge growth and acceptance for too many. It is of course, a version of prostitution.
It has been reported that world-wide exploitive apps/websites have seen a member increases of 74% compared to last year. Increases are do to lock down symptoms: increased financial struggles, extreme loneliness, anxiety overwhelm, etc.
I read a business magazine article promoting a personal story of a woman making her career as a ‘sugar baby’ and proceeded to tell women how & why they should do it themselves. As well as stating all her justifications in selling herself, but including the importance of strong boundaries and protocols to keep herself ‘safe’. Boundaries like using a fake name, and a google telephone number. She also mentions that most often the buyers are married.
I am not surprised these ‘services’ are available. We are still humans after all; same tendencies, same justifications. Just a different year. What did irritate me most was that it was an article in a business magazine, basically promoting this idea.
To clarify for you what sugar dating is..
It is a form of dating in which one partner financially supports the other, often in the form of cash or gifts. As I said, this is just prostitution or what was called being a hooker. And of course to prove my point, they use the same terminology that is used is prostitution and sex trafficking.
Just in case I lost you, I want to connect all the dots for you. This is what exploitation, pornography, prostitution, sex trafficking, strip clubs, hookers, sugar dating all have in common:
- We can find plenty of vulnerable* people (*finance, relationship, connection, dreams). Then we can always find manipulative people looking to see what they can get from others.
- These relationships are how too many end up doing things they never dreamed. (They often are consumed with shame and feel trapped or in a way to elevate the shame make justifications with false empowerment adjustments to continue doing the shameful actions.)
- Realize sexual connection is much more than physical. It connects our emotions, our thoughts, our spirit, and our bodies. Being sexually exploited devalues who you are. It is shattering lives.
Kids, Teen, and even adults are being broken and destroyed by exploitation. And broken people make more broken people. We need to be talking about these things. They need not be hidden in plain sight any longer. Bring the light onto the darkness. LET US TALK HONESTLY about these things. LET US EMPOWER one another!
-Chaplain Krista Hull