Bodies for sale and bodies seduced with sugar: an analysis of the sexual interchanges between Sugar Babies and Sugar Daddies/Mommies in Mexico

Abstract

The following article discusses the results from our psychosocial study of the experiences of sexual exchanges between male and female Sugar Babies and Sugar Daddies/Mommies in Mexico. Throughout the analysis of eight free association narrative interviews, we show how female Sugar Babies have different understandings of their bodies compared to male Sugar Babies. Female Sugar Babies experience having a ‘body for sale’ before starting a relationship with a Sugar Daddy, whereas male Sugar Babies experience gifts and money as seductions, not exchanges, because they do not experience their own body as something that is for sale. Only later do male Sugar Babies accept that their bodies have been bought. In other words, whereas women start from the assumption of being sexual objects that can be bought and sold, men start from the assumption of being persons that cannot be bought and sold, but have their self-perceptions transformed through the sexual encounter with their Sugar Dadies/Mommies.