ACCRA — She still had a cup of hot cappuccino in her hand when her smartphone beeped. She checked the message and smiled, as her manicured fingers typed something quickly to the sender. At the second beep of the phone, she dashed out from the auditorium to a waiting limousine in front of the main university library. As she graciously surged out from the lecture, you wondered whether she hadn’t overdressed for lectures.
A rich-looking man in his fifties or even sixties stepped out to usher the young lady into the rear of the limo–in real Hollywood style. Like the Knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, they sped off from the university environment for what seemed like a fun ride or a romantic getaway. It was 3pm and we had just completed a lecture on public international law. Usually, she will not attend lectures or will leave in the middle of an exciting class when her phone rang. She was not your average student; she made university education look particularly easy, affordable and pleasurable.
That was Jessica, my friend in university years ago in London. She lived a comfortable, mostly extravagant life in an expensive apartment close to the campus. She had a brand new car that she hardly drove because she was often whisked away in big cars by senior executives of big conglomerates and companies. Unlike other girls in the class, she didn’t work but she had lots of money for shopping and could afford expensive holidays anywhere in the world, to enjoy the finest things in life. She had a great job offer in one of London’s most prestigious law firms before we would write our last paper. Wouldn’t you say the great ending had justified the dodgy means?
We loved Julia Roberts for her phenomenal portrayal of the aggressive opportunist in Pretty Woman. Julia wanted the good life at any cost, and was prepared to make big compromises to achieve the dream. For Jessica, it wasn’t a dream; she lived it–by trading sex, precious time and her ‘dignity’ for the rich life that only rich old men could provide. Most of her ‘clients’ were as old as her father or even older, but not as rich as her father. She didn’t love any of them, even though she often admitted she felt ‘something strong’ for some of the oldies, especially those who respected her terms of the bargain and didn’t push for anything that compromised her education.
Jessica was very beautiful, intelligent and had big dreams. She found it strategic to use what she had to get what she wanted in life. She was also smart to know that there is hardly a free lunch anywhere these days. She was an adult and needed no permission to have sex.
If the old men could offer what a young man of her age could not provide in a decade, she would bear with the baldness of their hair and the wrinkles on their wrists, to live large on their pot bellies. After making good use of their bank accounts, she would find herself a younger person and settle for love. That is the life of university sugar babies who love the good life that only sugar daddies can provide.
We love to put labels on behavioural patterns that do not conform to our traditional notion of what is good or acceptable. Jessica never considered herself a prostitute or an immoral person, and her friends didn’t think less of her for the good life she enjoyed, even though they knew the source of the good life. Morality is for monks and eunuchs.
These days, the internet makes it easier for ‘ambitious’ university girls to find sugar daddies to sponsor a life of luxury and comfort. Last week, The Atlantic, the most influential online newspaper in the USA, reported the popularity of internet websites that link rich old men, usually senior Wall Street executives, to young and pretty university students. The sites ask men to specify their income bracket, level of education, age, and other attractive details that would impress a woman. While sex for money is often the unwritten bargain, some of the girls provide escort services for the old men in return for what they call ‘compensation’ or ‘donation.’
These girls are not bimbos; they are intelligent enough to hold good conversations on global warming, currency depreciation and foreign policy with men in big positions. Unlike a typical prostitute who only has her body to offer, the university sugar baby could provide some intellectual stimulation for her old partner in return for some wads of cash. The arrangement sounds like a client-prostitute transaction but the university sugar baby-sugar-daddy relationship is executed as an understanding between people with bigger brains who are intelligent enough to parry away society’s moral label on what is good or bad, and placate their guilt with hot sex and money.
University students in Ghana are getting smarter than the American girls discussed on the Atlantic website. My Friday night beer buddies attend meetings with sharp-witted university girls who would do anything for money and pleasure. Most of the girls have financial problems and sincerely need money to settle fees, pay rent and buy some textbooks.
They do not need it for the same reason as Jessica and her greedy friends, at least not in those huge quantities. You could sometimes feel the pure innocence in their eyes as they sip a glass of wine or their favourite Sahara or Shandy. Occasionally you would meet the aggressive ones who demand cars, shopping and a weekend in Johannesburg, but generally all they need is support towards their school expenses.
Morality? Tell that to the dogs. Occasionally, a sugar daddy would extend an unconditional offer of support to a beautiful girl. But these seldom happen. These men are rare–only in the sense that they rarely have the patience to wait for their investments to mature before asking for the benefits. And when they do, they take it with all the interest. These cuties are their investments; they must earn them some interest, just like treasury bills or high value savings.
So the smart girls have learnt to play smart. Some offer the goods on credit and wait to reap the huge profits from the deep pockets of the old daddies. It sounds like a fair game with no clearly defined rules. Those who know how to play know how to get in. Many have turned their lives around by playing two or three great games at a time.
Like the Americans, Ghanaian University sugar babies are available on the internet. They are quick to engage you in a chat on facebook if you have an attractive profile. The very unintelligent ones make demands for the latest Samsung Galaxy or an iPad soon after you had asked for their phone numbers; the phone they have been using just got stolen or fell into the sink. There are always demands waiting for answers.
The smart university sugar baby has an intelligent approach to the bargain for money, and the sugar daddies pay more before they asked. They say it’s not prostitution; they are only rewarded for the pleasure they provide their sugar darlings. So, the Atlantic asks: what do we call this kind of business?
