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Key points
- Generally, sugar daddy relationships are couched in language that legitimizes them.
- When sugar daddies try to end it, the blackmail starts.
On the surface, Jack is the consummate family man. After 30 years of marriage, he and his wife are well-known, active in their community, and generally well-liked. Jack, however, has a secret life. For much of his marriage, he’s had relationships with other women, though his flings were never serious, and his wife was none the wiser. Except now the doo-doo has hit the fan.
Jack’s latest conquest, met a year ago on a sugar daddy dating site, has compromising sexts and texts documenting their entire affair, during which Jack paid rent on her luxury apartment and a monthly stipend of $5000—money he secretly siphoned from his retirement account. After a year of the affair, Jack is ready to move on. He likes the sugar baby experience, which makes him feel important and special, but he is ready for someone new.
For Jack, the relationship was always a side thing, something to enrich but not impinge upon his “real” life, and he sees no problem breaking it off. For the sugar baby, however, the relationship was a business arrangement, and, in her mind, she now deserves what she calls a “buyout.” Her terms: $100,000 or she shares the evidence with Jack’s wife. Along with the threat comes a reminder that a divorce will cost Jack a lot more than what the sugar baby is asking for.
Jack’s story is hardly a one-off. In today’s world, there are numerous sugar daddy dating sites, including Wealthymen.com, Sugardaddy.com, Establishedmen.com, and Seeking.com, along with less traditional setups like the social media site OnlyFans.com. Even a cursory glance at these sites is enough to persuade a person that there’s a whole lot of scamming going on: Lots of male wannabes pretending to be rich, with just as many females (or pretend females) catfishing for the almighty dollar. Of course, that same cursory glance will also suggest that plenty of people on these sites are serious and sugar daddy dating is a real thing.
Generally, these relationships are couched in language that legitimizes them. Basically, rich men are expected to either mentor or spoil a student, a struggling actress, a young entrepreneur, a secret lover, or whatever. So, even though the relationship is mostly financial and sexual (older men paying younger women for sex), it’s easy to pretend that the arrangements are not prostitution. In fact, they would be difficult to prosecute under most prostitution statutes.
The simple truth is that it is not unlawful to pay for companionship. In most jurisdictions, it is unlawful to pay for sex, but companionship and sex are not the same thing. So, as long as a sugar daddy relationship involves an element of companionship, it is not entirely a money-for-sex transaction. This muddies the waters of legal vs. illegal just enough to prevent arrest and prosecution.
Skating around the law, however, does not prevent blackmail or any other form of scamming.
The simple, sad truth is that internet dating sites are rife with predators. Anyone, not just sugar daddies, can be taken. In traditional scams, an online relationship begins often with someone who lives in a foreign country (or at least far away) and, as things get serious, the scammer wants to come visit but can’t afford the plane ticket or has a family member needing emergency surgery, or whatever.
On sugar daddy sites, the stakes are higher, and the game is nastier. Just ask Jack.
These relationships are, by nature, highly sexual. Often, the sugar baby sends sexualized pictures or videos and asks for similar pictures or videos in return. As the relationship progresses, the sugar baby learns where the sugar daddy works, whether he’s married, whether he has kids, where he lives, and more. The imagery and information are usually willingly shared by the sugar daddy, who believes that his sugar baby is truly as loving and kind and benevolent as she seems.
Meanwhile, the sugar baby blackmailer is saving it all up so she can use it if/when her sugar daddy decides to move on from her. When he does end things, no matter the reason, the extortion starts. She threatens to share her information with the betrayed wife, or to go public, or to otherwise ruin the sugar daddy’s life unless he buys her silence.
In case you’ve not watched the news over the last several years, at least a few of these high-profile men have been willing to pay up. And I can assure you, based on my professional experience as a sex and intimacy therapist, the men whose payoffs we hear about are only a small fraction of the men who face this type of blackmail.
My advice to any man who’s thinking of becoming a sugar daddy: Don’t. Sure, sugar daddy dating websites say they vet their members to prevent prostitution, scams, and blackmail, but I personally doubt those efforts. If those efforts even occur, which seems unlikely, their efficacy would be minimal at best, because the internet is a very difficult venue to police. Any person who is even moderately tech-savvy can “become” whoever they want to be online. Including an innocent-appearing blackmailer preying on the sexual desires of wealthy men.
If you are already a victim of a sugar baby blackmailer, you should cut off all contact with that person, document evidence of your communication with that person (especially the extortion threats), and change every login and password you’ve got. Then you should consult with an attorney, preferably one who’s dealt with blackmail. You should also consider reporting your situation to law enforcement, as blackmail is a felony crime at both the state and federal levels, though that is a decision that should not be undertaken lightly as it may turn your case public.
