They get into this lifestyle of making quick money,
you know, and then they get hooked on that money,
they get hooked on that fast money.
The most I've ever gotten in one month was 30 grand.
Rashid: And is it all cash?
It's all cash, all the time.
Has that dating structure, has it evolved? Yeah.
Three hours of my time that most people would spend
on like, Facebook, I spend on the site,
and then confirming a lunch date
and then getting money for it, which is baller.
Wade: SeekingArrangement is extremely empowering to women.
It tells women, you know, you can date up,
you can move upwards in your life.
But doesn't that come at a price?
When the money and sex mix, it can get complicated,
as Tania Rashid found out.
Man: Can you stand up so I can see
what you look like, please?
Okay.
¶¶
Michael: Our goal is just to simply show the world a window
as to why people do the things they do,
where that desperation comes from.
¶¶
It's like they say, when the system fails you...
you create your own system.
¶¶
I'm at a conference being put on by SeekingArrangement.com.
It's a website that connects older, wealthy men
to young, attractive girls.
SeekingArrangement works like any dating site,
except here the men pay for the women's companionship.
These men call themselves Sugar Daddies
and the girls their Sugar Babies.
I asked one of the Sugar Babies
what attracted her to these relationships.
It's mostly I want to experience, I want to travel,
and I want to be able to go into ballet
and someone around my age can't really do that.
Unless you're making a certain amount,
honestly, you're really skating by.
Sugar Daddies pay a monthly fee to search the site for dates.
They meet up in person, and if it works out,
the Sugar Babies receive anything from money,
to gifts, to rent.
The site claims to have over four million
registered Sugar Babies alone.
But I wanted to sign up myself
to find out what the true costs are when your dating life
starts to look a lot like prostitution.
My first stop
was SeekingArrangement's Vegas headquarters,
where I met with the site's PR and marketing team.
It's all about the quality of companionship
that a Sugar Baby provides.
Instead of being kind of like in your typical relationship
where the girl is asking,
"Oh, why aren't you asking me about like, how my day was?"
she's the one asking you about how your day was.
She's being mild-mannered, she's being entertaining.
Obviously, you're giving him a reason to give you these things.
If you're being a spoiled brat, he's not going to buy you,
you know, new shoes or help you pay for school
if you're being a brat.
Rashid: They told me their target audience
is young women with student loans to pay off.
And with the average graduate saddled with $35,000 in debt
and most entry-level jobs barely covering the rent,
it's not hard to see the attraction.
So with some student debt myself, I wanted to learn more.
You would never go out on a date like that.
Angela invited me back to her home
to help me create a Sugar Baby profile.
I'll fix you up so that
you can look definitely Sugar Daddy date-ready.
As a Sugar Daddy,
you can set rules in your relationship,
like you can never get fat,
you can never be jealous if I do decide to date other women,
you have to talk to me about these topics when we see each other.
This only works if both of you agree to the terms.
A Sugar Baby is a person
I'm going to be in a relationship with.
I'm not looking for someone who's trying to sell services.
What they're paying for is a companionship.
Think of how you would describe yourself in about five words.
Complicated.
Hmm. I would avoid a word like that.
Why? 'Cause I'm complicated.
Means baggage.
Exotic.
Yeah, that's where I was going.
Exotic. Ivy. And bold.
I'm exotic. A lot of old white men call me exotic.
Oh, goodness.
You're...
Divorced.
We'll go with single. Okay.
And you're probably not somebody
who's looking for five grand every month
deposited in your bank account. All or none, baby.
If -- if I'm going to go on this,
I'm going to go hard.
Yeah. So, we'll go with "high,"
and high means that you're expecting
more than $10K every month.
All-or-none. Do you think this is outlandish?
I would say "negotiable,"
because Sugar Daddies are attracted to negotiable,
because they see that as being open.
You have this down to a science.
Um, well, there's a reason why we're Sugar Baby experts.
So far, it seemed harmless,
but how do you get from here
to actually having cash in your hands?
I met up with Kandy who's staying at a condo
in Downtown L.A.
The site's very obvious. It's like, yeah, it's like rich or wealthier men,
you know what I mean, who are willing to like, help you out.
I don't have the ability to, like,
go to a parent or a relative,
you know, whenever I'm in a financial situation,
like a bad situation financially.
There's nothing much different than the moms of Beverly Hills
who seek out the rich men
and have their kids without loving them.
I think that's worse.
This is my friend's place
and I'm staying here right now for a little while
until I can fully move down here from Oregon.
Rashid: Kandy hopes to make it as a model
and she's using the money she makes on SeekingArrangement
to support herself while she chases the dream.
[ Laughs ]
All right. We have furniture. [ Laughs ]
Kandy: Being on the site's, like, my little secret,
my little hustle, because people just don't understand,
people aren't willing to understand you
and what we do sometimes just to make it,
you know, just to get to where
we need to be to follow our dreams.
Like being in Oregon, I was stuck.
[ Sighs ]
Rashid: Laurie Essig is a professor of feminist studies.
She says SeekingArrangement is a sign of the times.
There's all sorts of forms of capital.
There's money, economic capital,
there's who you know, social capital,
and erotic capital is something that,
because we live in a sexist culture,
young, normatively gendered women have the most of.
And so women between 18 and 30
who are capitalizing on this understand
that this is their moment to do that.
And that's the dilemma you face.
If I just meet Mr. Right, it'll be okay.
If I just meet the right Sugar Daddy, it'll be okay.
Rashid: Kandy agreed to take us
back to her home in Portland, Oregon,
to show us how she makes money off the site.
Kandy: It was really easy, actually.
Three hours of my time that most people would spend
on, like, Facebook, I spend on the site,
and then confirming a lunch date
and then getting money for it, which is baller.
Baller.
I just spent the last hour with an author
and this was on the table for me.
So, 140 bucks for an hour of my time
and a free book. [ Laughs ]
This is the -- the smallest amount
that I've pretty much ever received.
2, 4, 6, 8, 10,
500 bucks! [ Laughs ]
I knew how much he had given me,
because I know what this feels like in 20s.
Dinner was amazing and the guy was super-young.
He was actually the youngest guy
I think I've ever met from the site.
Thank you, adorable, generous men
for helping me live my life.
[ Laughs ]
Rashid: Kandy made over $1,000 in cash
in just three dates.
She's figured out she can make money
just by going out to dinner
and then never seeing them again.
But for most Sugar Babies,
dinner is just the beginning.
¶¶
Rashid: SeekingArrangement.com is a dating site
that helps young women find Sugar Daddies
who are willing to pay to date them
and even though the service sounds like prostitution,
a lot of women say the site allows them
to date on their own terms.
In Las Vegas, I met up with Chelsea,
who's made a career out of being a Sugar Baby.
This apartment is amazing.
It's 100% taken care of by a Sugar Daddy.
So you got a car out of this guy, too?
Yeah. It's a Mercedes-Benz.
-Isn't this so cool? -Amazing.
I'm right in downtown, living the downtown life.
I wake up every morning and I'm like, where am I?
It's like I'm in heaven or something.
Why do you have a picture of Nixon on the wall?
That is a question that I would love to know the answer to myself.
My Sugar Daddy wanted that on the wall.
When did you move here?
Um, literally like six days ago.
It's a lot different dating men and living,
like, this glamorous lifestyle
when you were married in Montana.
I was like the stay-at-home mom before,
so it's a lot different.
What made you aim so high?
I came across this girl's blog and she had the --
this great car and this great life and all these clothes.
And I was like, I want that.
So I spend all my time
putting into these relationships as if they were a job.
Why are you speaking in the plural about it?
Because I have multiple Sugar Daddies.
How many?
I have a dozen full-time Sugar Daddies.
I wouldn't even say this guy is my main Sugar Daddy.
There has to be some sexual strings attached.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I'm like open to like, being like, kinky
and trying different things.
Like what? What's the weirdest?
[ Laughs ] It's so gross.
Just tell me. The weirdest thing
that I've ever encountered is one of my Sugar Daddies
has this thing about drinking his own semen,
and it's so disgusting for me to even, like, handle it.
If you want to be a serial Sugar Dater,
then that's kind of what you're doing.
Like, props to the girls that find one guy
that gives them 10 grand a month and they're happy with that.
That's awesome.
How much do you get per month?
The most I've ever gotten in one month was 30 grand.
And is it all cash?
It's all cash, all the time.
Do you feel like you're selling your body?
Yeah. I do.
That's why I would go as far as to say that,
if you are a Sugar Baby, then you are in the sex industry.
These guys think that if they're giving us something,
that we're going to play that submissive role.
They want to spank you?
Sometimes it's way beyond that.
Gag you?
Tie you up, choke you.
It's...yeah.
Then what keeps you going?
The addiction to the money.
Got to look your best when you go out with these guys,
whether you really want to go or not.
Um, that's kind of the name of the game
is looking good, so...
This guy, I don't really enjoy time with him at all.
And I'm not really out to make them happy in our transaction.
I -- it's an act, you know?
Um, I manipulate them for money, in a sense.
As terrible as it sounds, I enrapt them with the idea
of, oh, I really care about you.
And it might be fake, but they don't know that.
Rashid: So in some ways, it's a game.
You give me what I want, I'll give you what you want.
But I wanted to find out if these arrangements
ever cross into the realm of prostitution
in the eyes of the law,
so I ask a lawyer with experience in sex work cases.
What do you know about Sugar Babies?
My understand is that it's companionship
in exchange for essentially money.
They're going to pay for, you know, your lifestyle
or activities that you might be interested in
and the exchange is that you provide companionship
for the Sugar Daddy.
You were talking about this gray area.
There is a fine line and that's kind of
what I want to know about.
The fine line is sex.
Essentially if you're paying for touching
or sex or some sort of sexual activity, that's prostitution.
So I think that's where SeekingArrangement
is defining themselves.
So what you're paying for is companionship,
not for the sex. I'm sure that on this site,
there are people that are engaging in prostitution,
the question is, is that the design of the site?
It turns out I got some hits on the profile I set up earlier,
so I set up a call with one of the guys
to see what I was getting myself into.
[ Computer chiming ] Here we go. He's calling.
Man: Hello there, Tania. How are you?
Hi.
Man: Hello there, Tania. How are you?
I'm good. How are you? Sorry, my messy closet is showing.
That's okay.
Rashid: I'm on a Skype call with a Sugar Daddy
I meet on SeekingArrangement.com,
and I'm pretty nervous about it.
So do I have your permission
to be very, very blunt and up front? Absolutely.
What I'm looking for is somebody that can, um,
totally curl my toes, um, pique my interests,
uh, blow me away,
and I have very, very specific sexual needs and likes.
Oral is my hot button.
Need that, like that, want that, have to have it,
but you have to, A, love doing it,
B, truly be gifted in skills.
So how much would you pay for an oral?
[ Laughs ] I'm not looking for a professional or an escort,
I'm looking for somebody I see,
when we get together, she does receive benefits.
I can tell you what I've done in the past
when I was with somebody who was in New York.
It would be a few hundred dollars, $300, $400,
something like that. We would get together.
We would hang out, and she would do that.
Well, I guess I'm good. I mean, we'd have to see.
Can you stand up so I can see what you look like, please?
Okay.
Your very purple dress.
Yes, it's my purple dress. I just came out of yoga class.
How is your Downward Dog doing?
It's good.
Uh, how familiar are you if at all with tantra
or the tantric techniques of lovemaking?
Not that familiar.
You're honest.
Well, nice to talk to you, and...
Nice to talk to you.
Okay. You keep working on that Downward Dog.
I will.
Take care. [ Computer chimes ]
He made me feel really uncomfortable.
Especially when he had me -- had me stand up,
that made me feel really weird.
My first experience in the world of Sugar Daddies
was pretty awkward and I wondered how bad it could get.
So I headed to Colorado Springs to meet with Allie,
a long-time Sugar Baby
who recently moved here from L.A.
It's a culture shock, it really is.
It's a different world.
You go from Hollywood people to preachers,
um, politicians.
The problem is a lot of the guys here
don't understand the monthly allowance thing,
they only think of like pay-for-play,
which is you're paid each time you go out,
which is more like prostitution.
Rashid: So why did you choose this?
I couldn't find a job and somebody offered me this life.
And I could do things I wanted and not worry about money,
which, you know, I grew up very poor, so that was nice.
So my profile, it doesn't say submissive,
but it reads like it is.
Like that girl is very, you know...
"She'll do what I want."
Whatever you want. Exactly.
So most of the relationships I'm in are like
dominant/submissive type things,
'cause they read that part.
And 99.9% of them are very respectful.
How many disrespectful ones have you encountered?
Maybe the one.
I got really intoxicated one night and just --
just bad things happened.
What happened?
[ Sighs ] Um, well,
I awoke to having cigarettes put out on me.
What?
On my arms and my chest. Where?
And...
Oh, my God.
Yeah, so,
they're pretty gnarly.
That one right there is when I woke up.
But you can see that there's tons more on my arms.
So you woke up and you saw what, blisters, sores?
No, I saw a guy putting a cigarette out on me.
He was putting it on you?
Yeah, while I was, like in a -- like, I immediately got --
shot up and was like, "I got to get out of here.
Pay me, and I'm leaving."
I was on share.
That's when your SD lends you out to someone.
You were lended out?
Yeah. It's kind of like when you borrow a book from someone
and it comes back and it's all torn up and everything.
You don't want to do that. I have scars on my skin.
I didn't used to have those.
So, for that, I didn't want to be shared anymore
and I haven't been since.
But isn't it a constant reminder to have these?
I stopped looking at them that way.
'Cause you have to or else you're going to get sad.
So I just started looking at 'em and as like, wisdom spots.
'Cause I did learn something from it.
It did make me wiser.
If you could speak to a girl
just starting SeekingArrangement,
what would you tell her?
Don't. [ Chuckles ]
Um, it's incredibly lonely.
A lot of people don't want to be your friend
when they find out what you do.
Even if you pay for everything,
they don't want be your friend.
You know, you take very long showers.
Very long showers, just to, like, get rid of all of it.
And then you just have to remember that --
what you're doing it for.
What are you doing it for?
Survival.
This is what it takes.
And it's a sad reality, but...
You do what you got to do.
Allie's experience was difficult to hear,
but I wanted to see for myself
what it takes to make it in this world.
I'm in the office on a Sunday afternoon,
because I'm about to go on a date with a Sugar Daddy.
He's a 42-year-old man who is worth $10 million.
So I'm going to go in about an hour to see how it goes.
So I get there, I get our table,
and he's this really handsome guy,
but extremely awkward.
So then we finish dinner, go outside,
he pays for my valet,
and then I see some more money coming out of his wallet.
And he looks really awkward and he's like, "Here."
Money!
$80, $100, $120.
$120.
It's so emotionally exhausting.
He asked me all these questions about me,
my life, what I do, what I did today.
It's like being in a relationship,
but then you're not really connected to the person.
It's been two weeks since I first met Chelsea.
She had been living large on the Vegas Strip.
But a few days ago, she broke it off
with one of her Sugar Daddies who was paying for her condo.
Now she's living with a friend.
Chelsea: I left the crazy Sugar Daddy's condo
and the Mercedes and everything and I left that all behind,
because it wasn't worth it with him.
He was really controlling.
The big plan is like, you know,
to network and get somebody
that, you know, changes our life.
I don't always sleep at night over some of the stuff
that I do, but I'm obsessed with it.
I don't know how to stop.
Rashid: Critics of SeekingArrangement say the site takes advantage
of women like Chelsea,
getting them hooked on a life
that is ultimately self-destructive.
But SeekingArrangement founder and CEO Brandon Wade
is quick to defend his company.
SeekingArrangement is extremely empowering to women.
It tells women, you know, you can date up,
you can move upwards in your life.
But doesn't that come at a price?
Everything comes at a price.
I mean, in -- in life, you compromise, right,
but at the same time,
anyone on the website can always say no.
If you're an escort,
you have to sleep with your client,
no matter how disgusted you are with him.
If you're not attracted to him, if he's rude to you,
just say no, walk away.
I think you are selling the dream to me very well.
But then when I'm on the site, I see a very dark world.
Darkness exists in every society.
So really use your common sense, understand what you want,
say no to the people who don't meet your criteria.
If you play by those rules,
you will find the one you're looking for.
Chelsea: It's not the person that I really want to be.
'Cause like, I was raised really, really good.
And like, if somebody said you were going to be doing this,
I would say you're crazy.
I would never go that far for material things.
Essig: We seek it all over our culture
and so it infects all aspects of our intimate lives
that we just think we have to spend more
and more and more, and in fact,
our happiness is less and less and less.
Because what we really need to be happy
are some pretty basic social changes
of taking care of each other.
And that's what we don't have.
And we really don't have it when there are these --
excuse me for saying it, but rich, greedy bastards at the top
who are not only exploiting us at work,
but exploiting us in the bedroom, too,
by creating these relationships
where their money can buy our subservience.
Rashid: But not all Sugar Babies
find these arrangements to be exploitative.
Nothing like some pizza by the pool.
Kandy: Well, our generation,
my generation is not playing by the old rules.
We're doing it how we want now.
And for other people, they're like, oh, you know,
this is wrong or we don't understand it.
Yeah, you don't understand it,
because you're not involving yourself in it.
I've come to conquer L.A.!
Whoo!
¶¶
Rashid: In the past two years,
the number of Sugar Babies on SeekingArrangement
has doubled and every day, more than 4,000 young women
around the world sign up on the site
hoping to offer their companionship
in exchange for some easy money.