My Conversation With: Two Internet Sugar Daddies

Monday afternoon: reports have been sent; reports have been ignored; things that require any brain power have been surreptitiously filed away. The mind is full of memories: beautiful, sun-kissed, prosecco-hazy memories of the summer that lead to that inevitable, millennial question: "Can’t I just have someone pay my way through life?" 

Once, as a student, I signed up to an escort service because I wanted money to buy shoes (sorry Mum) but only got as far as one uncomfortable phone call with an elderly man during which he asked me what services I provide and I gave him the classic, and classically unsexy, "I can do whatever you want me to do". I am a poor man’s Julia Roberts.

I swiftly removed my profile and my escort career was over as quickly as the phone call had been. But what about people who do manage to do this successfully? I get the motivation for a "Sugar Baby" but what, besides the obvious, is in it for the daddy?

Unsurprisingly my investigation got off to a slow start but a few unanswered tweets, some questionable profile pictures and two days later, I had a couple of cautious but willing participants. Both handles were @SugarDaddy so let’s call them Daddy One and Daddy Two because that also sounds extra naughty.

"I have been contacted by several playboy models and porn stars" Daddy One boasts; all traces of nervousness gone after initial protestation of inexperience.

I should add, for context, that this conversation is happening in my Twitter DMs against a backdrop of noisy tourist children running around the British Museum.

Did he take them up on the offer?

"One of the playboy models was out of her mind asking for $50,000 if I'd like to meet her."

That’s a no, then?

I'm curious as to how two young men found themselves in this line of work, when I’d always attributed Sugar Daddies to lonely, rich widowers and bachelors-who-left-it-too-late.

Daddy Two, a guy in his 20s from Detroit, is also relatively new to the scene, having explored it for about a year. He talks about his experience as if he fell into it like a grad job: “It wasn’t really me thinking of myself as a sugar daddy at first,” he says. “I found a woman attractive on social media and simply gave her money.”

While Findom (a portmanteau of Financial Domination) is a fetish that's starting to creep into mainstream conversation, both Daddies insist that it's not what drives them: "It's not a fetish. I do this because I like spoiling ladies but don't like the relationship commitments," Daddy One tells me; a Middle Eastern guy in his mid 20s.

What I've seen so far on the internet is a mix between a fetishized and professional relationship but when I put the question of motives to the guys they both talk about wanting to help people, choosing ladies they feel "deserve" their lavish gifts and Daddy One even goes so far as to say he "hate(s) girls who ask for things. I will spoil you if I want to."

"I'm not lonely or anything it's just that I do make a lot of money," expands Daddy Two. "It's more of a habit than a fetish, I just really enjoy making them happy. Knowing they have someone if they need help."

I don't think you could quite call it a God complex but a Good Samaritan complex seems accurate. These men both get off – either sexually or non-sexually – on being needed, not wanted.

Daddy One's bravado is back as he continues to tell me he's "not [an] ordinary bloke", as if for a second I thought he was: "I am not the mainstream guy who wants the attention and will pay for it.

"I just like to spoil girls that I think deserve it. 

"Most of the time I also help them if they have a legitimate Go Fund Me account to help with surgeries/school."

So, what about the sex? To my surprise and confusion, both say they’ve never actually met a woman they’ve paid gifts and money to due to small issues like security, time, or the fact they live on the other side of the world. 

Daddy One claims he doesn’t care about sex; with ladies in his personal life who take care of those kicks. 

I suggest they’re just internet relationships with money, but Daddy Two is vehement: “The answer is no, I do not use the internet for sexual desires.”

I can feel Daddy One pulling away as we continue to chat and, deciding that delving into the question of Middle Eastern attitudes towards women was unwise over Twitter with a stranger, I go for my theory of unrequited love:

"In terms of relationships then, have you had them in the past?"

"What do you mean relationships?"

"So, girlfriends. Or dating exclusively without financial reward."

"Never had that."


My conversations with these guys followed very similar patterns in that neither one pays for sex; they just spend copious amounts of money on Amazon wish lists and surgery bills to feel needed. Is this the new Hugh for the internet age? Or, being amateur in my search, have I just stumbled upon the amateurs of the industry? I did find them on Twitter, after all.

It must be so easy for Sugar Babies to play on, knowing the Daddy would struggle to catch up with them if they took the money and ran. "Well of course there are those that like to run off after sending a big amount," Daddy Two laments.

I saved the burning question that most people ask until last: "How DO you have the money to splash on ladies?"

Daddy Two: "All I can say is that I am self-employed."

No need to dwell on that one, I think we get it.

Daddy One: "Family business."

Ah, so Daddy One has a Sugar Daddy of his own.

Gay Twitter: Should We Be Exclusive?

What is it about that phrase "apply for membership" that is simultaneously repugnant and intriguing? It's like my personality splits instantly; one half goes "urgh" and walks away, the other is halfway through typing an application form detailing why it is I would be great for this club and frantically trying to find 'cool' photos to upload to Instagram.

But those clubs make money from being exclusive; “Gay Twitter™", however, does and should not.

So why, oh why, are gays still trying to siphon themselves off from the rest of life? Why do people include an ACTUAL TRADEMARK after 'Gay Twitter'? These are all questions I ask myself as I scroll through my Twitter feed each morning.
Still, my issue isn’t with the idea of the name ‘Gay Twitter’ itself; that’s just the title for a demographic of Twitter users, really. My issue is with some of the influential members of ‘Gay Twitter’ and the damage I feel they’re doing to what we strive to keep an open, encompassing community.

Looking for inspiration, guidance and I'll be honest some networking opportunities, I started following a few of the editors, sub-editors, contributors etc of certain successful flagship LGBT+ publications on Twitter. While I was expecting to be inspired as a wannabe-editor, I’m continually disappointed by what I can see is just one big clique. “Unfollow them!” you say? Why? I’d have nothing to write about.

I watch these intelligent, prominent writers spend all day @ing each other in tweets; usually about an in joke and/or anal sex. And when their followers try to chime in? Oh, don’t expect a response unless you’re someone they have/want to/are going to shag. Didn't we grow out of that somewhere after GCSEs? Haven't we gays all had enough of feeling left out of a social group when we were at school?

What upsets me the most is that some of these are the people running the publications that I looked up to when I was desperate to get out of small town life and be one of them. For example, Gay Times has a print readership of 170,000 people; 869,411 web page views and a social media following of 13,348,700 people. In total, their reach is two million!* That's two million people in their sphere of influence that they’re either peacocking in front of or ignoring completely.


Now don’t get me wrong, the beauty of Twitter is that it’s an unfiltered stream of consciousness and it’s your own personal account but they cannot deny that they're in the public eye (hello? You have a big blue tick next to your handle!) These guys are writers after all; write something that young gays will look up to! When there's so much out there with the potential to damage young minds and yet even more channels for them to reach out through, how about show the next generation how to be dignified LGBT+ people by tweeting something that doesn't involve you being a bitch? How about using your high profile for charitable good, or to highlight issues from the community? I'd love to hear a voice that isn't just cynicism and sycophantism.

The private members’ clubs I get: being exclusive is literally their business, it's in the title. But 'Gay Twitter' needs a wakeup call: engage, inspire, broaden some knowledge - because the elitism is hurtful.

While I'm at it, dear publishing Lords, give me a man topless on the cover of a gay lifestyle magazine who doesn't have abs! But that rant is for another day when I haven’t eaten a Five Guys straight after the gym.



*Gay Times Publishers Statement July 2015

Mortified!

Mortified Live; London Saturday, 22nd July 2017 Leicester Square Theatre

https://getmortified.com/live/

Like most of us, my teenage years can be reddening to recount.

I started watching Sex and the City at age 13 and wanted to be Carrie Bradshaw so much that I spent most of my remaining teens casually slipping her pearls of wisdom into conversation, thinking it made me sound smart and worldly to tell my fellow classmates that "men are like cabs" or that "sometimes a woman really does need to be rescued"

And like many others, I kept diaries. Hilarious, pathetic, Carrie Bradshaw inspired capsules of my most cringe-worthy thoughts and feelings, chronicling the trauma of M.I.A classmates; "Josh hasn't been in school for three days...I hope he's not dead!", or the eternal support I had for my friends; "omg Lily dumped Matt and he's just wandering around crying... But luckily me and Abi are SO strong."

Luckily, I am yet to share those with an audience on a Saturday night in Leicester Square (watch this space) however props to the six hilarious women we witnessed do so as part of Mortified.

I'm not going to attempt to review this brilliant piece of theatre because it's just too funny to try to sell. Watch the documentary on Netflix (Mortified Nation) then imagine crying with laughter seeing it live on stage with a beer in hand; you'll get the jist.

At the interval, we were told the London "chapter" of Mortified were running a competition. Tell them your most embarrassing teenage anecdote and you can win tickets to their next show. And so I shared...

For once this isn't a lamentation on my "colourful" school days. This is, in lieu of standing on a stage, my catharsis. You know... behind a keyboard... the cowardly way.

Year 10 Sports day at Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys.

Dreaded, dreaded sports day.

As it was the last mandatory year to take part, we all ended up getting assigned competitions. Never one for sports, or girls, or anything else that would equal conformity in an all-boys school, the whole day filled me with fear.

My assigned competition: the 400m. Just once around the track. Unfortunately I was stationed on the inside lane - thus at the back of the race - and though I knew the lanes were all the same length, I automatically felt paranoid that I would finish last! Worst.Outcome.Ever.

So off I sprinted, not caring where I ended up just determined not to be at the end so that I can avoid further torment! A little while into running as fast as I possibly could, I took the opportunity to make the fatal mistake of having a little glance around me...to see the rest of the race at least 150m behind! Spurred on by the crowds, that one blue Powerade I had for breakfast and my own tragic desperation for this to be the thing that finally made me cool, I upped the ante and full on legged it towards the finish line.

100m from the end, that beautiful white line in sight, teachers shouting "he's breaking the school record!" over the tannoy, that one friend I had feeling proud by association for once, thoughts of proudly going home to tell my family of my success... Then my vision started going a little funny. And by funny I mean black.

75m away and my legs started to turn nice and jellified. My eyes started prickling.

50m from the finish line I started to stumble. And then, like a tragic, desperate Bambi, my legs completely gave way and just short of the finish line, in front the entire boys school, I passed clean out.

Cue: being carried off the field by a teacher, hysterical laughter from the audience and another year of humiliation; including one charming teenager turning the lockers into a pop-up photo gallery that boasted only repetitions of the various stages of me on my way down to the ground as I fainted on the sports field.

Ah, to be young again.