I think there’s a pretty significant portion of escorts who tried their hand first at ‘sugaring’, before coming over to escorting. Dipping our toes in a little hoping not to get tainted with the label of a 'whore'. Bless.
My entry into sex work was a complicated and not very healthy one, and started in an illegal brothel with a man who subsequently went to prison for pimping underage girls. Sex work is decriminalised in NZ, so if you’re jailed for prostitution-related offences, you were probably a really bad person. He was.
That experience tarred my image of sex work, and there was a lot of internalised stigma there for me. But I was still in need of money - I got kicked out before finishing high school and there was a lot of financial stress happening. So, naturally I did what any young person who kinda wants to do sex work but thinks sex work is ‘yucky’ does - I tried getting a sugar daddy.
Cue eye rolls, I know.
This is a traumatic period of time in my life, so the timeline is a bit confused, but there are some interesting stories in there that I do remember, and have strongly influenced my opinions about sugaring (spoiler: it’s bad).
I’m not sure if the famous sugaring sites were around yet at that point, if they were then I didn’t know about them. At that point I trawled dating websites instead, setting my preferences for an age group much older than I was, and reeling people in that way. Look, I wasn’t very good at it. I have tried my hand at all number of hustle jobs in my poor youth - door-knocking for Greenpeace, telemarketing hotel packages etc, and let me tell you that I’m terrible at hustling people. I have tried. I once got fired from a call centre for calling my partner repeatedly and reading the script, because I couldn’t bear to cold call one more Grandma. But I was definitely pretty desperate in those days, and my $11hr job was barely covering the rent on my overcrowded, mouldy student flat.
I met maybe a dozen men in this time, most of whom I don’t remember, before I eventually threw in the towel and went to a legal brothel.
I remember three of these men well, and most not for good reasons.
I think the most memorable is Anton. Anton had quite a lot of money, but he was also extremely cheap. I think this sums up most sugar daddies I’ve ever met or heard of, but Anton was an especially awful case. Anton lived out of town - and the first time I met him, I took the risk of driving myself and spending my own fuel money to go and meet him, hoping he was real. And he was. Anton was a much older man, whose children were at home when I’d go and meet him. Each time I came to see him, he gave me less and less money, and brought bigger and bigger toys I was expected to use on myself. But if I came, he got very jealous and angry. He kept a picture of me, and showed it to his ex wife, saying I was his new girlfriend. He once took me on a fancy day trip WITH his children, acting like I was his new girlfriend, lots of embarrassing PDA and everything. He promised me a lot of money all the time, constant carrot dangling. That day I wasn’t paid, and I cried for hours. I think why I remember him so negatively was because he played a lot of mind games. I was 18 and desperate, and he dangled his massive house and wealth at me, but would pay me at best a couple hundred for several hours of intense play with his kids in the next room. One time he wrote a cheque for a bond on a new place for me, and he cancelled the cheque because I didn't txt him back fast enough. He made me momentarily homeless because he was insecure. Ugh.
I also remember Todd, Todd was not a wealthy man. But he told me how he had sold his house and had a lot of money in the bank (lies, obviously). The reason I remember Todd so negatively was because he was the guy who promised me the money AFTER we had sex, and naïve me never got paid. I asked for fuel money home, and instead he gave me some petrol from his shed, and whatever it was destroyed my car - the only asset I had. I had to catch the bus and walk everywhere for 2 years after that. Asshole.
It isn’t all bad, I also remember Lee. Lee was a well dressed, polite Asian man in his late twenties who was too nervous to touch me. We would sit awkwardly in silence, he’d give me some money and basically run away. We met three times, and each time was the same. He confused me. Thankfully I have a lot more skills in my toolkit for dealing with nervous people these days!
Finally swallowing my pride, after yet another promise with no follow-through, I tried a legal brothel that I found online which saved me from more of these experiences. I had so many preconceived ideas about brothels from my fairly traumatic introduction and they had kept me away for a few years. I attached a lot of gross stereotypes to ‘prostitutes’ and somehow felt that I was different. But in the end, the women I met in the brothel were inspiring. They had so much more control in these transactions, they were fierce and sexy and weren’t being strung along by promises. Granted, there was the awful problematic brothel manager, there always is, and it was not exactly 'executive' like it's name - we did $60 quickies and the sheets were threadbare, but in spite of myself, I found myself actually liking it. The clients didn’t play games, we all knew the terms, and I made more money. I didn't have to text them all the time to keep them interested - hell they wanted my discretion, not an annoying sidepiece. I found myself wishing I’d tried a brothel again sooner, rather than letting sugardaddies play power games and ruin my car. I absolutely believe most sugar daddies pray on the vulnerable, because they don't want the price tag or boundaries of a more astute professional. It's still sex work though, and I was kidding myself to think differently.
I enjoy the simplicity of the escorting dynamic. Sure, sometimes people get attached, but they know the terms. All of my eggs aren’t in one or two baskets, which gives me the power to wave goodbye if someone is treating me poorly. The clients know they’re going to get a professional, not a naive young thing making things up as they go along. I barely got paid but I’m also certain I wasn’t being as safe as I should’ve been and I probably was terrible and clumsy at everything too.
Years on, I'm an astute professional with a variety of lovely clients who respect me, which keeps me content. I get joy from my work, which makes me better at it. I went independent shortly after trying brothel work and getting the hang of it, and have been a completely autonomous happy hooker ever since. There’s no tears, no games, no implications on people’s families or lives. It’s the beauty of it. And anyone who dangles ‘arrangements’ or sugaring at me is doing so to someone who knows the alternative and prefers to keep the power of her independence - more valuable than any one man's wallet and promises.
*no real names, obviously
PETRA FOX
Twitter: @foxandthefeline
Instagram: @foxandthefeline
Web: petrafox.com.au
Tips/Beem: @petrafoxbne
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