I'm not sure I've ever heard the term "sugar baby" outside the context of the favorite childhood candy (do they still make those? they were fantastic), but the mademoiselle writing under the nom de plume Melissa Beech seems to have brought the original meaning back into vogue, lighting up the blogosphere with her recent, unapologetic post at the Daily Beast, "My Sugar Daddy."
"Melissa" is a college senior and daughter of Philadelphia privilege who has discovered a shortcut to the lush life and - the more interesting part, here - career advancement in the form of a wealthy benefactor about ten years her senior who provides these benefits in exchange for sex and companionship. Shocking, of course, that our wee Pretty Woman has not been particularly well-received. Her grating tone and excessive self-pride - the bratty "how many other college students are wearing Christian Louboutins to class?" alone is enough to merit most of the vitriol directed her way in the comments - do seem to invite censure.
But her Cinderella story is sticking with me in a way that, say, Ashley Dupre certainly didn't, and I'm starting to think that maybe Melissa seems more identifiable, a little more acceptable, because she's speaking my language - she's not a prostitute, she's a networker (or at worst, a short-term prostitute networking for her future career.) After all, in addition to providing her with an AmEx Black, Melissa's sugar daddy has put her in a position to make contacts in the PR world (her chosen field) and helped her line up multiple internships. Her confidence about her job prospects post-graduation is enviable, given the financial climate that has most nearly-graduates trembling, and reminds me acutely of the budding old-boys-clubbers I knew at UVA.
And that's exactly it. It's a farce to pretend that all, or even most, hypersuccessful young people have "earned it" through hard work. The capital for a start-up, the connections to a position that leapfrogs all the menial stepping-stone jobs - those things are hereditary. How is Melissa's sugar daddy different, really, than a Congressman daddy, or a Chairman-of-the-Board daddy?
It's easy to dismiss her as a gold-digger when she's harping on the manicures and tanning, but then there's the line about the $12,000 that she's saved to start out her career, and suddenly the moral tut-tutting gets clouded by... jealousy? Not that I'd trade grilled cheese sandwiches with my debt-burdened law student for well, anyone, but I do know plenty of my peers who work jobs they loathe to save much less than that, or waste away in uninspiring positions in the mere hope of making those types of valuable connections. Our correspondent does, after all, enjoy the company of her patron, which is far more than most young people can say about their jobs.
Is this really such an immoral arrangement, or are we just angry that, like those privileged rich kids, it's all come so easy to her?
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3 comments:
first, let me say how happy i am that you've started posting again. google reader is happy to once again feed on katie cristol's thoughts.
still, i'm not exactly sure i agree with this post, mostly with how this part:
"The capital for a start-up, the connections to a position that leapfrogs all the menial stepping-stone jobs - those things are hereditary. How is Melissa's sugar daddy different, really, than a Congressman daddy, or a Chairman-of-the-Board daddy?"
somehow leads us to the conclusion that this isn't an immoral arrangement. I don't want to get into the complexities of morality, but I think it's pretty safe to say that one of the motivating factors in the liberal agenda - of which I proudly take myself to be a part and am inclined to think that you do as well - is to eliminate the influence of arbitrary factors on a person's relative success. (This is core Rawlsian doctrine, but can surely be defended by numerous liberal conceptions of the good.) My point is that while you might be right to claim that benefitting from one's ability to seduce a "sugar daddy" is no worse than benefitting from one's birthright, it does not necessarily follow from this that both are just arrangements. In fact, it seems to me - and probably at least a few others with similar liberal intuitions - that both arrangements are unjust. While I might be willing to grant that Melissa's success is not the result of as obviously arbitrary factors as many successful "old-boys-clubbers," I'd be wary of claiming that this somehow makes her success a just outcome.
Ultimately, I worry that your argument relies on a dichotomy where there might be a continuum. Simply because something is not the most egregious offense of its type does not mean it is just. There is likely a wide array of unjust offenses of this type, some worse than others. Thus, Melissa's actions might be better than some, namely the successful "old-boys-clubbers," but that doesn't mean her success is justifiable in the moral sense.
Hi, Shaun!
Thanks, and thanks for coming back (and posting) after the prolonged absence...
You philosophy students are useful this type of conversation! I think my counterpoint would be pointing out the distinction between justice and the common understanding of morality - something can be unjust without being immoral, right? (I think wealthy kids trading on their parents' status would be the key example here) I think Melissa's story has been met with all this opprobrium in the blogosphere, and everyone has rushed to call her "sugar daddy" arrangement immoral, when what it really is, is unfair.
i think you're right to claim that there might've been some equivocating on "unjust" and "immoral" in my response. the two terms are certainly distinct.
however, i still want to hold that they are closely related, especially in this case. melissa's situation is unfair, but it precisely this offense to fairness that makes it immoral. consider the "old-boys-clubbers": it is their exploitation of the background institutions - by means such as taking advantage of the nepotistic practices in government and business - that allows for unfair distributions that offends our moral sensibilities. i'm not sure whether you want to claim that the "old-boys-clubbers" are unjust but not immoral, but i want to hold that they are both. this is not to say that anyone who benefits from their parents' labor is immoral, just that those who greatly exploit it are on morally shaky ground, as they are willfully acting to exploit an unjust - and therefore immoral - institution. thus, we can see that while being unjust is distinct from being immoral, the former often - and perhaps always - entails the other.
with that said, i do not want to say that melissa, nor that every "old-boys-clubber", is a bad person. this might be a bit more complicated. however, i think their willful exploitation of an unjust system - that favors female sexuality and the children of the wealthy - are immoral actions.
to further pronounce the immorality of the situation, we have to keep in mind the other agent of exploitation: the sugar daddy. he is also unjustly taking advantage of the immoral background institutions by playing on the institutional obstacles to female success in the corporate world. it is widely agreed upon that women must work harder than men to achieve success in this realm, and women are aware of this fact. it seems that the sugar daddy is playing, even if subconsciously, on melissa's awareness that she must accomplish extra tasks to reach comparable - to her male counterparts - success. the fact that the sugar daddy uses this for sexual favors is morally repugnant.
while this situation might be completely acceptable in a vacuum, it seems problematic given the background institutions. it seems to me that it is their - melissa's, the "old-boys-clubber's," and the sugar daddy's - unfair exploitation of these immoral background institutions that makes their actions immoral. thus, their actions are unfair and immoral.
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