TRADING SEX FOR COLLEGE TUITION: HOW SUGAR DADDY “DATING” SITES MAY BE SUGAR COATING PROSTITUTION
Jacqueline Motyl
ABSTRACT
Recently, the amount of outstanding student loan debt has skyrocketed, forcing young college students to seek nontraditional sources of financial support. Some of these individuals have turned to sugar daddy dating sites that specialize in pairing young, attractive sugar babies with older, wealthy sugar daddies in “arrangements.” An arrangement is distinct from a traditional relationship because sugar babies receive an allowance from their sugar daddies in exchange for sex and companionship. The media has declared that arrangements are merely prostitution in disguise and that sugar daddy dating sites facilitate prostitution online. This Comment analyzes the liability of sugar daddies and babies under the Model Penal Code’s definition of prostitution. Additionally, this Comment discusses sugar daddy dating sites’ potential liability for facilitating prostitution in view of the broad immunity offered to websites for user-content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This Comment concludes by positing that current civil and criminal laws are insufficient to ensure that prostitution is not taking place within sugar arrangements and suggests that law enforcement infiltrate sugar daddy dating sites to guard against online prostitution.
preferred citation: Jacqueline Motyl, Trading Sex for College Tuition: How Sugar Daddy “Dating” Sites May Be Sugar Coating Prostitution, 117 Penn St. L. Rev. 927 (2013).