My latest: I weigh in on the Gaetz scandal with the help of @adrierising @urinternetgf and Luna (not on Twitter) for @thedailybeast. It is behind a pay wall, but I'll try to summarize the piece here. DM me for the full article. https://www.thedailybeast.com/sugarbabies-on-guys-like-gaetz-they-dont-think-theyre-paying-for-sex?ref=scroll

Was [Gaetz] buying sex or being a generous partner? In this context, is there a difference? I asked 3 women who’ve done sugaring work for their perspectives & while they wrestled w the same ?'s they were also clear that sex is at least part of what’s being bought and sold here.

As a sugar baby “obviously it wasn’t explicitly spelled out, but there was the expectation that you were going to have sex.” @adrierising goes on: “Being a sugar baby is being an escort with a contract,” with its terms decided on between the daddy and the baby.

Luna, a 21-year-old who has been sugaring the last few years, agrees, but notes that the job also requires a lot of emotional labor. “Sugaring is fully making a man’s fantasy your responsibility in exchange for money.”

To say that sugaring services go above and beyond sex isn’t to say that they don’t include sex: “The people who want to say that sugaring is not escorting are in denial,” says @urinternetgf.
A sugar baby is “a prostitute that is on-call 24/7,” says @adrierising.

Sugaring is also a complicated dynamic because while sex is part of the equation, it isn’t a one-to-one transaction. “You may do something w this man several times a month, but you only fuck him twice. If he is just paying for the sex, you don’t have to be there to boost his ego.

Gaetz’s claim that he was not paying for sex and simply being generous with women may very well feel true to him. And yet, in a culture in which women have been systematically denied resources that wealthy & powerful (predominantly white) men take for granted, women of all sorts

(not just sugar babies) have learned to use their sexuality to gain access to things they want or need.

For those of us who recognize that the decriminalization of sex work is the only path toward safe working conditions for sex workers, the entire conversation about whether one congressman paid for sex or not is beside the point. How consenting adults negotiate their relationships

should be up to them. I stress adults since one of the women Gaetz allegedly paid to participate in his ecstasy-fueled exploit was underage, and therefore not in a position to consent. But there are already laws about that having nothing to do with transactions between adults.

Did Gaetz pay for sex? Yes and no. But honestly, we should probably be asking different questions.

Side note: I think Gaetz is a creep, I am not defending him. But I think the question of whether or not he paid for sex is beside the point.