Sugar Baby vs Escort – what’s the difference?

I’ve written about this previously, but I will never ever understand why any woman with sex to sell would risk doing so via sugar baby / sugar daddy arrangement. You only need to browse the various male dominated chat forums to see that being a sugar daddy is considered a bit of game. A game where the guy (who is often lacking in any serious funds) sets out to see how many young women he can manipulate into sex, while parting with as small amount of money as possible. Ladies – sugar daddies admit to this stuff on public forums, and yet here you all are, signing up to arrangement websites and agreeing to meet up with a guy, spend hours in his company at lunch, back to his room and leave with what? Nothing? A pair of shoes? Some perfume? Or a fraction of the fee you would have commanded if you’d done things properly. I respect all hustles when it comes to sex work, but I just cannot get my head around sugaring.

Having met many former sugar babies over the years who have inevitably wised up and transitioned over to escorting, I wanted to write this post so I could really set things out side by side. Many of the women entering the industry as sugar babies are young and it’s a predators playground. And while I am not suggesting for one second that escorting is a silver bullet (it is not), if you do escorting right, it’s safer and a hell of lot more lucrative that sugaring could ever be. Let me explain.

An escort booking is a business transaction

This means you have a set fee scale and these fees are non-negotiable. Your fees are public, the guy sees them before he contacts you. He wants 5 hours inc lunch? The price is there – but you remind him of it anyway because that’s what businesses do. If you’re smart, you’ll be taking a deposit via bank transfer with the remainder in cash. The cash, of course, is put in your hand within 5 minutes of meeting the guy. If it isn’t, a gentle nudge means it soon will be. There’s no getting away from what he needs to provide in order for you to complete the booking. Escort clients understand the deal.

I have yet to meet a sugar baby that got a deposit prior to a first meeting. In reality, and probably more times than they care to admit, many sugar babies turn up to meetings not knowing how long they will be there for or if they will be remunerated at all. They sure as hell won’t get any money until the end – and that’s something an escort would never allow. That sugar daddy is out to get as much from you as he can by paying as little as he can. That is his number one goal in life, he is a walking red flag.

Escorts screen the men they meet

Yep, we do. I personally take ID for every booking. The deposit that is paid to me must match the name on the ID. Many escorts now operate with this policy, so much so that it meets little resistance from genuine escort clients. Men without nefarious intent generally do not mind being vetted.

Do sugar babies get ID from their daddies? No they do not. Jim, a self proclaimed multi-millionaire playboy from Slough, is far too important to hand over personal information. The sugar baby not knowing who Jim really is means he feels far more confident in pushing boundaries in the bedroom (committing sexual assault), taking up excessive amounts of time and generally taking the absolute piss out of you.

Sex work is hard work

If you want to be a winner in the sex industry, you have got to be prepared to work hard for it. I often wonder if the appeal of sugaring is that, outwardly, it’s marketed as easy money. You hook up with rich guys, they take you to luxe destinations and give you a monthly allowance. But as we’ve already discussed, those pretend-rich sugar daddies do not really want to pay you. They want to manipulate you, and they are targeting what they see as a stupid, naive and greedy young women. Suddenly that cushy little job becomes a fucking nightmare and you become beholden to an abusive man for far less money than you should be paid for your time. A man who suddenly tells you he doesn’t like the transactional nature of exchanging money for sex, and pays you with ‘nice shoes’ and gift cards instead. Don’t fall into this trap. Reconcile with yourself now that you are selling sex, and set up your stall accordingly.

High rollers are time poor

The real high rollers of the world do not hang around on sugar daddy websites. They haven’t got time for the bullshit. And guess who they call when they want some downtime? You guessed it right – they call an escort who clearly defines what’s on offer, who allows them to schedule a meeting in a professional and efficient manner and who they know, as a legitimate business person, isn’t going to mess them about. The men with metaphorical big dick energy (BDE) don’t get phased by paying for sex. BDE guys respect the hustle, they aren’t intimidated, and it doesn’t make them feel small. They have the self-confidence to value what a women selling sex has to offer them. We love BDE guys! And thank God they flock to escorts in their droves, because they make this gig an absolute pleasure.

Escorts are business women

And this of course, leads me nicely onto my conclusion. The question asked was what’s the difference between a sugar baby and an escort? The answer does not revolve around one being a prostitute and the other not – they are both selling sex. The real difference is that escorts are savvy business women, while sugar babies are amateurs. The red flags know this, and so guess where they hang out?

Lulu xx