Having sex in Amsterdam and getting gifts isn’t what sugar daddies and sugar babies want in their relationships.

Sugar daddies are frequently portrayed as a low-rent, struggling, beautiful, college-going woman who decides to enter into the world of “sugar” relationships through sites like Seeking Arrangements, where a whole host of wealthy, older men are looking for her, willing to pay rent and eat nice dinners for “companionship” on the surface and sexual activity beneath it. This is a common depiction of sugar daddies in the Western world.
It has been portrayed as both an exploitation scheme and a technique for young women to trick predatory older men in a number of films, including a few films with the same name as the concept. This stereotype is exactly what drove many people working in the escorting profession to explore and investigate whether or not all sugar relationships are impacted by so-called exploitative mindsets and demographics. Erik Cruz, owner of W Amsterdam escorts, conducted extensive internet and polling research in Amsterdam and asked escorts for their one-of-a-kind viewpoints. One of the results of this research reveals that our assumptions are not accurate.
Articles regarding “sugar daddies” and “sugar babies”—college students who were starving and desperate to engage in prostitution—often took a sensationalist approach in an attempt to garner reader interest. As someone who was interested in researching this phenomenon, I was aware that the relationships between these things might have more intricate complexities. Sugar prostitution, compensated dating, compensated companionship, sugar dating, sugar friendships, and pragmatic love are the seven sorts of sugar relationships that Palermo discusses.
Sugar babies rely on their sugar daddies for financial support in areas such as paying rent and bills, purchasing luxury products, and going on vacation.
Erik asked twenty sugar babies in Amsterdam about their experiences relating to money, attention, love, and sex for the purpose of a research project that was carried out by W Amsterdam escorts. “I didn’t intend to create a typology, but I knew I had to highlight the various nuances and forms sugar relationships can take because there was so much variety,” Erik said. She added that sixty percent of the women she interviewed did not have a sexual relationship with their sugar daddies; those who did often had connections that did not resemble those commonly promoted in pop culture as exploitative, monetary exchanges. Erik’s research was published in the journal Sexuality and Culture.
According to Erik, sugar prostitution is essentially a transaction between two persons in which commodities and services are traded for one another. A “compensated partnership” is an extension of a “bonus dating” relationship, where a sugar baby is remunerated for activities beyond dates and must take an active role in the sugar daddy’s life. A “paid date” is one in which a date receives gifts, monetary benefits, or a meal for showing up for a date, whether it is coffee, dinner, or a movie. According to Erik, neither “compensated dating” nor “compensated companionship” entails sexual behavior on either side of the relationship.
According to Erik’s definition of what is known as “sugar dating,” a sugar baby is someone who receives a weekly or monthly allowance in exchange for companionship and sex from a wealthy individual in return for the privilege of being in their company, and the duration of the relationship can be rather lengthy. “Sugar friendships,” as described by Erik, are relationships in which the sugar baby considers the sugar daddy a friend, who may have been a part of both of their lives prior to the beginning of the financial relationship between the couple. Sugar friendships with benefits are another name for what are commonly referred to as sugar friendships. Both parties continue to be friends with one another and provide support for one another. Based on their respective preferences, they may also have sexual encounters. Sugar babies who are involved in pragmatic love relationships find it simple to give their sugar daddy the responsibility of looking after them. At the same time, many sugar babies harbor the secret desire that their sugar daddy will one day become their loving, long-term companion.
As Erik said, most of the time, women do not intentionally seek for benefactors; rather, they chance to run into someone who can assist them while they are working or when they are providing catering services. These connections have the potential to endure a lifetime. We failed to recognize the fact that [these] relationships are frequently formed naturally and contain authentic emotional connections; this was an opportunity lost on our part.