Hundreds of UNR Students Turn into Sugar Babies To Avoid Crippling Debt
Reporter Wenei Philimon meets with two current students who are using the SeekingArrangement website to supplement their income, and finds out UNR is one of the fastest growing “sugar baby schools”, while university officials decline to comment.
Marketing to Students with Financial Difficulties
Emily Wilson* is a freshman at the University of Nevada, Reno, from a low income background, majoring in electrical engineering. Despite having an on campus part-time job, she struggles to pay off her remaining student fees of several thousand dollars.
She says she does not see student loans as an option due to the fear of never being able to pay these off, so she says she decided to explore other ways to make money.
“I met a girl who is friends with someone that works in ASUN. She introduced me to this website which is called SeekingArrangement,” Wilson explained during our interview. “SeekingArrangement is, like, you go, you make your profile, you talk about what you prefer, what you don’t, you know, stuff like that. If you use your .EDU email, you will get the whole premium for free.”
With a premium account, a participant can be featured on search results, communicate without a profile photo, and be able to privatize location among other extras. SeekingArrangements says having the .edu option helps identify college students so sugar daddies can extend their help to them.
Creating a New Fake Identity Every Time
Wilson, however, says she creates a fake identity with every person she meets. She uses a fake name, fake major, and Google Voice to communicate with the so-called Sugar Daddies. The Sugar Daddies are often older men who from her experience, she says, consist mostly of Trump supporters, conservatives, and people with what she called an old fashion mindset.
“A lot of them are shitty, horrible people,” she said. “One of the guys that I went on a date with, he’s Indian. The thing is he got me into a bar and when we were talking and stuff and a black guy comes in, he says the N word with a hard R. I looked at him and I’m like, ‘what is your problem?’ He’s like, ‘that’s what they are. That’s what they are like, they’re slaves.’ And I was like, ‘no way, dude, that is so wrong.’ And he’s like, ‘you’re just too young to understand.’”
On the website, it states that traditional ways of getting financial aid to attend college or university can be a nightmare. SeekingArrangement repeats over and over that it is offering the students the chance to find open and empowering relationships while also getting help to pay for school.
Different Rates for Different Levels of Being a Sugar Baby
Natalia Johnson*, a sophomore majoring in business, says she started using SeekingArrangment to help pay for her textbooks and groceries.
She says she doesn’t meet her sugar daddies in person, and only talks to them over her phone and computer. Johnson says she makes anywhere from $50 to $100 per phone call.
“I would talk to people, mostly older men on the Internet and they would give me money for my time,” she said. “One of the people that I would talk to more regularly was a single dad. He had three little kids and he had a full time job as a pilot and he was really busy and he would just talk to me about what was going on in his life.”
Wilson says she makes anywhere from $100 to $5,000 depending on what happens when she meets up in person with her sugar daddies, including having sex with them.
“For some of my services I get paid a $100 and over for oral sex or anything like that,” she said. “I would charge like five grand if it was sex. So if they’re like, ‘oh, well that’s too high,’ then I would say, ‘you know what? I know what I’m capable of doing.’ I feel like, depending on what body type you have, what you offer as a person, it’s included in the price. I’ve spoken to other girls who charge $500 or something. I charge $1,000 and over because I know that I’m worth more than $300 or $500.”
A Big Age Gap
Wilson says she feels it’s a situation of older, more affluent, men preying on young, cash strapped college students.
“I think the sickest part of it all is that I’m 18,” she said. “It was less than a few months ago, I was 17. I understand the age, you know, but if you think about it a few months ago I was a minor then now it’s okay for them to talk to me the way that they do because I’m an adult, which makes sense. But my mindset from 17 to now hasn’t changed, you know? So it’s like, I’m not saying I’m still a child, but I’m also not saying my mindset or my values and stuff has changed over the course of a couple months. So it’s almost as if they’re still dating a 17 year old me.”
When it comes to meeting in person, according to Wilson, sugar daddies in Reno are willing to take sugar babies to other places: Carson City, Sacramento, or in Reno, meet at hotels and museums.
She tries to be on guard about where she meets a stranger for the first time.
“I was about to hop into this guy’s car, but he didn’t have a license plate on it,” she recalls of one meeting which scared her. “So, I knocked on the window and he rolled down the window. He’s like, ‘yes?’ and I’m like, ‘where’s your license plate? Cause I’m not going inside your car unless I see a license plate and he’s like, ‘chill. I just got this car.’ I’m like, ‘no, you fucking chill,’” she said.
Getting as Much Information as Possible about Her Sugar Daddy
“The thing that you don’t realize is that if you do one wrong move, your whole life is damaged,” Wilson said about trying to protect herself while being a sugar baby.
“If you get into the wrong car, if you don’t confront that person saying, ‘where’s your license plate?’ Like, imagine if I didn’t say that, he probably could’ve done some awful things. I mean he didn’t, but you know what I mean? He could have because there’s no license plate, which means there’s no way to identify who he is, there’s no way to find him. I’m such a snoopy person. So, when they go into a store, I open everything. Are there guns? Are there any drugs? Is there any rape drug, just stuff like that. I look for bottles, is his name on it? What is it? Google search everything within like 15 minutes. I have like a 15 minute span for him to get to the store to buy the alcohol and to come back. So you have within that span to get as much information as you need. I Google search everything. I do my research, write it down in a digital notebook … so that if anything happens, my roommate would know what to do. I told her, ‘if I don’t come back after this certain amount of time, you open up the book and you locate it and you call the police and say this is where she’s at.’”
Nevada Cares (website above) has as its tag line Consent, Awareness, Relationships, but did not respond for an interview request about the growing trend of sugar babies on its campus.
Keeping it Private for Fear of Discrimination
Wilson also works a part-time job on campus and goes to school full time. She says she sought help from various places on campus before signing up for SeekingArrangement but that those places said that they could not help her.
“I’ve told people about this, but I don’t tell a lot because if it was to get to my professors, I don’t think my professors would like me or they’ll look down on me. I think they would just be disappointed and they’d be like, ‘Well, you’re really smart. Why are you doing this? Do you know how dangerous this is?’ I feel like for a lot of girls and guys they feel guilty about it. They think it’s a very awful thing, which personally to me, I don’t think it is,” she said.
The Director of Student Engagement Sandra Rodriguez said she had heard about this trend through general news. She pointed to resources financially-strapped students should look into, such as FAFSA and an emergency funds program with links here: https://www.unr.edu/student-services/resources-and-downloads/resources-for-low-income-students.
Interview attempts with other university officials did not lead to any information about what might be going on with sugar babies at UNR and if anything is being looked into in terms of their safety, awareness or assistance.
