One woman shares her story about one of the most infamous industries in the world.

When people hear the words ‘Sugar Daddy’, there’s an instant, and at times almost visceral, reaction that follows. The majority of it is varying levels of disgust or repulsion (‘Ew, you sleep with old men?’), while curiosity (‘Oh my god, does he pay you for sex?’) and confusion (‘How does that work?’) also come into play. No one knows that better than Eva. A 21-year-old student from Brisbane finishing out two degrees in Arts and Education, Eva is whip-smart, funny and charismatic. She’s friendly, ambitious and wants to take on a Masters of Education, with a focus in regional Indigenous education. She’s also, unapologetically, a Sugar Baby. In the modern context, a Sugar Baby is someone who enters into both an emotional and physical relationship with a (generally older) companion in exchange for money and gifts—something that has been on a historic rise in Australia, with some 100,000 Australian students throwing their hat into the ring. Eva agreed to have a long-distance chat with ELLE about Sugar Baby-ing, something she stumbled into a while ago while she was looking for alternate ways to pay her tuition and uni fees. “I thought I’d give it a go,” she tells me, explaining that, after working herself to the bone in three jobs, she thought she “might as well give it a try”. The rest, of course, is history. And also a little bit of present. Eva found a way to navigate the sometimes-murky waters of SeekingArrangement.com —the biggest sugaring site in Australia, which allows you to create a profile and message potential sugar daddies—and eventually linked up with a handsome thirty-something who was, by all accounts, smitten with her. She and “her partner” (her words, not mine—‘Sugar Daddy’ wasn’t a term that often entered into our conversation, except at my mention) enjoyed a healthy relationship for around eight months, before ending things a few months prior to our interview. She told me he asked her to move to Europe with him so they could really be together and make a go of things—the subject of marriage was even thrown in! (Something she refused in order to focus on her education.)

Despite the stereotypes put forth about Sugaring from pop culture (I myself was guilty of this, and had come into the interview armed with my research about ‘SDs (Sugar Daddies),’ ‘allowances,’ ‘POT dates (Potential SD Dates),’ and ‘PPMs (Pay-Per-Meets),’ but found little use for them), Eva and her partner enjoyed a relatively normal relationship. “I like to think of it as a normal dating relationship but compressed and simplified,” she tells me. “If I am studying, working (and I do work), doing prac and volunteering, and my partner is working 60 to 80 hours a week in high stress situations, when you do meet up—say you get a day or six hours together at the end of the day or the middle of the week—you go out for dinner or for lunch and aquariums and things like that.” “Whether it was three times a week, once a week, a weekend away, or a month, it’s all about the time you grab together and making that quality time.” That’s what attracted her to the life of Sugaring: the simplicity. After dating casually throughout uni led to a series of dead-end relationships, Eva wanted something more straight-forward. “I find with a lot of people—myself and my friends included—there’s always that awkward ‘defining the relationship’ moment. I read so many little think pieces about when you’re supposed to do that; when do you ask what’s going on, when do you become a ‘thing’,” she said. “It’s so nice to be open and honest and, to an extent, blunt about what you both want and when you’re both official. That was something that drew me to it originally.” And that openness extends to her friends and family, who Eva doesn’t hide her Sugar life from. She’s completely open about her relationships and the judgement factor is little to none. “I don’t keep negativity in my friendship circle. My friends and family are supportive. They’re all very open-minded and progressive—there are no archaic views. They can kind of understand.”

I push her on this, struggling to imagine parents not being concerned about this kind of, let’s say, unconventional way of funding higher education. “Of course there’s curiosity, but there’s no harsh, un-based criticism. My friends see it as going on dates with guys from Tinder, really what’s the difference?” she said. Then, of course, there’s the sex. You can’t quiz somebody about Sugar Baby-ing without ticking that proverbial box; it’s both the most obvious and least obvious thing about the whole concept. Is it sexy? Kinky? Gross? All of the above? From an outsider’s perspective, images of sulking into bed with a 90-year-old with a fat cheque book may flash to mind, or Debbie Jellinsky draped in diamonds and fur in Addams Family Values, but it’s far from the truth. To Eva, sex is not about the money, but more about the connection between her and her partner. “If I’m dating them then I’m obviously comfortable being intimate with them,” she says. “It’s hard to be around somebody you don’t like, so already it’s safe to conclude that on some level I like this person I’m choosing to spend time with. When you have formed some kind of relationship with someone, you care for them, they care for you, and it’s nice.” “When you think about it in more simple terms, how would I be able to spend a weekend away with somebody that I just can’t stand?” Eva adds. “I couldn’t. No amount of money, really, could really push me into that. He could offer me two million dollars, and I would still struggle.” “Taking my past relationship as an example, at the end of it, I was receiving $800 per week, in-hand as allowance,” Eva explains. “If I was travelling, that’s obviously paid for. If I was staying out of state—covered. I went on a holiday with him to the Whitsundays—taken care of.”