At 2am over cocktails garnished with floating flowers, we speak to two men who have invited themselves to our table. Here for a poker tournament, they had seen we were sitting alone and made their way over. They stood awkwardly at opposite sides of the table until enough time had passed where they could gesture at the empty chairs to take a seat. Both men were in their late thirties and not particularly attractive. My friend glared at me as they sat, and I offered a small smile to alleviate the moment. She endured conversation under the premise that drinks would be bought. I was apprehensive about letting just anyone buy me a drink, because they are usually offered with an undertone of owing the buyer something in return. The cocktails were not cheap however, and there’s no harm in friendly chit chat.
The Irishman who talked my friends ear off had come from outside of London just to play and was constantly praised by his companion for his poker playing prowess. Particularly, how much money he had amassed. His friend was undeniably wingman of the year. When he wasn’t stroking the ego of his mate, he asked me about my life. We sat on tall bar seats, and I felt his proximity was rather close. Shuffling back, I divulged in friendly chatter about my work and monitored levels of flirtation so that it didn’t reach an exceeding amount. There was no attraction from my part, and because of this, it would make me uncomfortable if I sensed signs of such from him. Perhaps these older men had approached us merely because we were people to talk to, outside of being attractive women.
Occasionally me and my friend would look at each other, checking in to make sure no one was out of line and that the other wasn’t uncomfortable. They insisted on ordering a round of cocktails for the table, and we didn’t refuse. I got some type of banana liqueur infusion, him, a tropical mixture. ‘So where are you from?’ he asked, I lead with my neighbourhood instead of ethnicity. ‘South London’ I reply, and he grins, thin lipped. He tells me he lives in Angel, and I tell him about a great night out I had at The Lexington. ‘Oh, so you’re a rocker chic’ he jests as he takes a sip of his drink, not breaking eye contact.
Gold! I loved these nails, I’m a sucker for chrome
It teetered on flirty, and I forced a laugh and picked up my drink. When he found out I was Bajan, he proceeded to boast about all of the countries in the Caribbean he had visited, and just how much he loved it there. ‘The only bad thing about the Caribbean is the Americans, but Cuba remedies that. There’s none in sight, its perfect!’ I laughed at this, having a shared disdain for American tourists. ‘God, I’ve been to Cuba alone at least 3 times’ he shared, in between sips. My friend and the Irishman were talking politics. My attention came back to the conversation with my wooing Englishman. I told him I’d always wanted to visit St. Lucia. He nodded in agreeance, ‘what are you doing next week?’
To this I laugh, though his face is unmoved. He smiles, ‘I’m being serious’. I brush it off, feeling the warmth of alcohol swarm my cheeks. Silence floated between us. ‘Seriously though, why don’t you and I go on a date’. To this I had to be firm. I had to make it clear there was no romantic connection, no tenable chemistry no matter how much he campaigned in favour of it. I offered a no in a soft tone, smiling so as to maintain an air of casualness.
‘There’s something here though, we have a spark’. If there was a case needed for the sexual overperception bias practiced by men, this moment served as prime example. I was simply just there, talking. I’d admit if I had done anything leading, and I acknowledge I can be rather coquettish, it is a disposition that comes easily to me. However, that night, I was nothing of the sort! I’d explained I didn’t see him in that way, he argued what’s the worst that can happen? Perhaps he’d hoped I’d grow into liking him, or that he could charm me past attraction. Ultimately, he wished I’d yield. ‘You don’t have a boyfriend, do you? I’d hope not, since I’ve bought you drinks’
And there it was. He had made clear and shone a light on The Exchange. The implication that drinks were bought in exchange for a number given, a date agreed to, and at the very least, a kiss shared. After all, a free drink is rarely free. There is a subtext of relenting. I, however, was not one to give in. I responded that I wasn’t seeing anyone (which I wasn’t, really) and tried to deflect the conversation. He invariably started talking about his ex-girlfriend who he dated for a number of years. ‘Oh, so she’s the love of your life’ I joke, trying to take on the role of listening-ear-therapist instead of potential date. He concludes that they didn’t last because she was ‘too vanilla’, I took this as my cue to end the conversation.
My friend was overly bored with her drink buyer, and we decided to make a move to the lower level of the bar. A guy she was talking to a week prior that she had met here (as he worked the rooftop bar) was finishing his shift and promised us company. The poker players followed us down and we worried it would be difficult to get rid of them. I thought them harmless until, upon offering my friend a cigarette, the Irishman gave his friend a knowing look, to which he chuckled, and I realised how inebriated my friend actually was. It was a look that said, “I’m in for the winnings”, and I knew they had to go.
Once the age-appropriate man arrived they got the hint and retired to their respective hotel rooms. We were saved by the handsome Brazilian with an accent imbued with Italian intonation (as a result of an upbringing in the countryside of Italy). It was now 3am, my friend and I were some cocktails deep and discovered the food menu. The kitchen operated 24 hours. God bless Hippodrome. He got us burgers with his staff discount, and we chatted away till 5am when home time was finally calling. This time, there was no implication of The Exchange.
This interaction made me think about transactions, particularly through commodification of the body, whether that be through self-objectification or other means. As of late, my Pinterest feed has been flooded with adverts for Seeking. When it first popped up, boasting a platform that allows for ‘luxury dating’, I thought my eyes deceived me. There was no way they were now advertising on huge platforms such as Pinterest. Then I thought, perhaps it is not the same site that I had come to know, Seeking Arrangements. Once formerly a sugar baby ‘dating’ platform, Seeking Arrangements has now rebranded as Seeking, in which any chat of ‘mutually beneficial relationships’, allowances, and other sugaring lingo gets your account banned.
I first discovered Seeking Arrangements as a late teen, when the YouTube algorithm brought to my attention a video from a bona fide sugar baby providing tips on how to acquire an affluent man willing to pay for your upkeep. Of course, my intrigue made me click. And so began a virtual foray into the world of sugar-babying. I was quite fascinated by it, the sheer transactional nature it proposed. It cut to the chase of sexual relationships, and spoke to the ways women in particular are socialised into viewing sex, as something that happens to us and not something we are a mutual participant in. With this logic, if you were “giving it up”, it would be foolish to do so for nothing in return. I wasn’t (and am still not) in agreeance with this sentiment, but I could see the logic behind it.
Of course, not all sugar babies have sex in exchange for sugar, and many offer mere platonic companionship to their SD/SM. However, the vast majority do. The one’s that moved me most were those seemingly able to amass money and various riches without ‘giving up the sugar’. These were the ones that YouTube brought to teen-me’s attention. In retrospect, through fear of demonetisation, these youtubers were probably withholding that these relationships did have a sexual nature, that they indeed mirrored that of any other adult relationship, and that they endured sexual relations with their much older ‘Daddies’. It couldn’t all be conversation in exchange for Chanel bags and financial maintenance.
A couple of years after my research interest of transactional dating dipped, I spent an evening FaceTiming a friend from my university halls room (Covid), and the topic of sugar daddies came up. ‘I’ve been watching so many videos, and it seems so easy. Most of these guys just want feet pics anyway’, she bellowed. I wasn’t convinced it was that simple, nothing typically is. ‘If only it were that easy’, I replied, imagining all the things I wanted for, all in arms reach in exchange for a few snaps of my toes curled and my feet arched.
Seeking Arrangements was on the tip of her tongue, and I revealed my knowledge on the site and the subject. How in my youth I spent hours online, living vicariously through various SB vlogs and haul videos, reading up on how they used the site the garner men with more money than sense. Through this site, the process had been made all that easier. Thank you, Internet, thank you choice feminism. We joked that we should make profiles, just to see.
The next hour or so was spent on each other’s laptops, our phones propped up by the screen as we made profiles with fake names and photos with our faces cropped. We maintained that it would strictly be a virtual affair. The SBs of YouTube had us believe this was possible, that men would pay you simply to text, for the e-girlfriend experience, if you will. The next twenty minutes were spent scrolling through the site with child-like wonder. The men were mostly old, bald, and ferociously oversexed.
This wasn’t what we were promised, strictly virtual, chaste interactions in exchange for material support of our budding lifestyles. We were twenty and thoroughly naïve about the whole thing. In just as much quickness as it took to make the profile, the whole premise lost its appeal. As the mask of no-strings-attached cash behind the safety net of a screen slipped, the harsh realities of such arrangements revealed themselves.
We were resourceless twenty year olds trying to cheat code our way into acquiring money, using the one thing we had in abundance that also seemed to pay a pretty penny: our feminine charms. We were pursuers of labourless cash, sex workers we were not. We ought to stick with scratchcards.
*
I still scroll past the odd Seeking advert when endlessly browsing fashion pieces on Pinterest. I wonder why it is suddenly being suggested to me so often. Last Sunday, I spent the afternoon watching 1000 Men and Me: The Bonnie Blue Story and was equally radicalised as I was depressed. She, rather her persona, serves as the personification of our perverse technocapitalist world, where the insatiable pursuit of wealth comes at the price of limitless self-objectification masquerading as empowerment. Her career isn’t the shocker, it is indeed the oldest profession. What is laughable is that her stunts could ever be positioned as feminist liberation work. Simply put, sex sells, and money talks. She is aware of this transaction and pushes it to the extreme.
Later, my mum and I discussed our interpretation of the documentary. In her room, as she was in a music-playing mood, the bass of Dirty Cash (Money Talks) by The Adventures of Stevie V thudded. It is one of my favourite dance songs, stolen of course from her playlist. We danced and sang along. I got no taboos, I’ll make a trade with you. Do anything you want me to. Money talks. It was thematically fitting.
Beyond Fashion exhibit at Saatchi Gallery, August 2024
Queencoc0 Talks 
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