As my birthday approaches, I must face the truth: I am getting old. There are many signs: my metabolism isn't quite what it used to be, I can barely make it to midnight, and shots of tequila are no longer a good idea. Oh- and on Friday nights, I watch Dateline and 20/20.
Despite the fact that I am aging rapidly, I like to think that in terms of average-Dateline-watcher-age-range, I fall somewhere near the bottom. So, when I heard that this week's edition was about a crazy new culture of sex, I assumed I would not be shocked. Yes, teenagers and politicians sext and suburbanites have crazy sex parties. There are furries and fuzzies. There are large groups of swingers in the Midwest, and I even heard they let men marry men in some places. Tell me something I didn't know, old folks.
Well, they did.. and the fact that I found myself in on a Friday night, mouth agape, learning about the bizarre sexual practices of kidsthesedays from a middle-aged reporter is another sign that I'm aging. AARP card is in the mail.
I'll start by saying that when I was in college, I briefly considered donating my eggs. Yes, THOSE eggs. Based on the number of signs littered around campus, I'd assume that where there's a large number of college girls with designer handbags, there's great potential for recruiting designer baby-makers. At one point I responded to one of the trillion ads on campus. It turned out that according to the magic baby-making formula -based on a combination of things like my height, weight, and SAT score- my eggs were worth about $20,000. Although there were plenty of girls at Vanderbilt with premium and likely organic, free-range, very fancy eggs - I, apparently, was one of the few who would actually consider parting with mine for 20 grand.
When I discussed this with my friends, no one took me seriously . After all, I tend to be a bit of a stupid idea machine - and that same year, I toyed with the idea of posing nude in art classes for cash (what?! it's ART). Most people wondered if I thought it would be weird to know I had kids out there in the universe. Others asked if I would really want to facilitate the procreation process for the designer baby types. Frankly, neither of those things had occurred to me, and neither idea fazed me once they were considered. Ultimately, the only thing that stopped me was the realization that donating eggs was not exactly as simple as donating sperm. Instead of a little alone time and some nudie mags, egg donation involves several rounds of hormone shots and a rather painful egg retrieval process. Ehhhh, no thanks.
Anyway, 20/20 introduced me to some chicks who made me feel better about myself last night. (and let's be honest, isn't that why we all love tv train wrecks?)
Enter, the sugar babies. Let's not kid ourselves- it's been awhile since I though of a Sugar Daddy as a piece of chewy candy on a stick. I'm familiar with the concept. I had a female client once who referred me to sugardaddy.com. I'd be a big liar if I didn't admit to perusing the website after I saw what kind of cars she and her friends drove. I had to create a username to browse and it was Lori6969. There, I admitted it.
Either way, I get that people do these things. People like my clients. I did not realize that Ivy League students did.
They are called sugar babies and they search for their daddies online. It's kind of like a match.com where people are honest about what they're really looking for. There are websites that specialize in helping creepy old rich dudes find young, college-educated arm candy. On the list of the top ten schools participating, number one was NYU - and Ohio State and Harvard both made the list. Apparently some men offer 20 grand a month for companionship. I wonder if I'm too old to be a sugar baby... kidding... sort of.
There was discussion about whether this was prostitution. I guess there's a legal question in there somewhere. But, more than anything, it's probably something most important to the girls who are doing it. Most people don't want to be placed in the hooker category. The lines are blurred, really. Women accept free drinks every day from men at bars who want - companionship. Personally, I've always said I wouldn't date a guy who didn't pay for me on the first date. So, what is my date paying for? Uh, companionship?
Let's be honest: when a man buys a woman food or alcohol, he is essentially buying a raffle ticket for her vagina. There's no guarantees (generally), but it certainly improves the odds. So, the men on websites like sugardaddy.com just aren't big gamblers.
We are used to the idea of the stripper who does what she does to get through law school... Pretty sure every poor college student would rather date one old creepy guy for cash than strip for a thousand of them. Sounds classier too. And, who am I to judge? I almost sold my eggs (which, by the way- now that I'm old, I'm so glad I didn't). And, for real, if there was ever a reason for schools to stop raising tuition...
This post is long so I'll tell you the other half of the story tomorrow. Until then, friends-
No comments:
Post a Comment