While reading several articles about the phenomenon that is sweeping the United States and Canada, I can’t help think that, hey we’ve had this in Costa Rica for the longest time.
Over the years, mainly North American women, have criticized it and blamed foreigners for promoting it.
I am talking about the “sugar babies”, the trend of college or post-secondary (as is use in Canada) students seeking out older , richer “dates”.
“This is a trend. It’s growing,” said SeekingArrangement spokesman Brook Urick, citing a 42% overall increase in signups. SeekingArrangement.com is helping poor students hook up with “sugar daddies” and “sugar mommas,” to help pay for their tuitions in exchange for? “Redefine the expectations of a perfect relationship,” promotes the website.
Instead of calling them sugar babies, in Costa Rica we call young women who seek out a relationship with an older man, preferably a foreigner, to pay for, something even more important than an education, “putas” (prostitutes or whore).
What’s more important than education? Survival, putting food on the table to fee your hungry children. Milk for a growing baby. A roof over their head. Clothes to wear, etc., etc.
Yes, some of these women use the money they “earn” for things other than survival, but then do you think that all those colleges girls up north are just using their sugar daddies (or mommas) to only pay for tuition?
The high cost of living in Costa Rica and low salaries have forced and continues to force many young women, typically in their late teens and early 20s, to seek out ways to make through the day and give their children a future.
No different from up north: rising tuition, living costs, and low wages for young graduates all contribute to the “hook up”.
Of course SeekingArrangement.com and other websites like it do not promote sexual relations, but let’s be real. Urick told the Sun News that these young women receive an average monthly allowance of $3,000 a month from the financially well-endowed dates they meet through the site.
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As education costs rise, so do number of ‘sugar babies’ on Canadian campuses.
– Sun News[/su_pullquote]In Costa Rica the typical relationship between younger women and older men (and sometimes women) involves sexual relations. Do you think it doesn’t up north? Someone is going to put out $3,000 a month with nothing in exchange? If you do, I have a great deal on a piece of land for you in Costa Rica!
Before you think that it’s only a few going this way, here’s the shocker, more than 1.4 million “students” use the site, accounting for 42% of its overall membership. That’s like more than 1,000 times the “putas” in the country.
According to the Sun News article, the University of Toronto is the fastest-growing university in Canada for signups, with 195 students joining in 2014. The University of Alberta has 363 registered sugar babies vying for “mutually beneficial relationships” with one of the 1,866 Edmonton sugar daddies. The daddies are usually middle-aged, though many are in their 30s or younger.
That is about twice the number of “students” we can find at the famous Hotel Del Rey on a weekend night.
Many older men, and a growing trend of younger men in the 30s, have been and continue visit Costa Rica seeking out “sugar babies”. With the trend that is now sweeping North America, many don’t have to travel so far, they just have to look no further than their local college or university.