The real issue with being a sugar baby

 

I met two ladies this week with similar stories but very different endings. The first one, Kate, was a married 30-year-old woman with two children. She celebrated her 30th birthday a year ago and on that day she got a call from a gift shop in town to go and pick her birthday gifts.

She was amazed when she went to pick the gifts. The gifts included car keys, a fat cheque, a pack of assorted gold ornaments, a birthday cake, and a card. There was also an air ticket to Zanzibar. The message on the card read:

"This is just to let you know that I love you and glad to offer you this small gift from the bottom of my heart. I will be with you on the plane to Zanzibar."

Kate was surprisingly amazed. She asked the shopkeeper for the phone number of whoever had left the gifts. She was sure her husband could not afford such lavish gifts. She decided to call the number given to her by the shopkeeper.

Then came the surprise of her life.

"I nearly fainted because I recognised the voice of the person on the other end," she says, "It was my 70-year-old landlord!"

Kate was annoyed. She felt this was disrespectful to her and her family. She left the gifts in the shop and told the shopkeeper to return them to the man. She convinced her husband that they needed to move houses, and they moved out a month later.

But the story is different for Olivia, now 27. She met a man two years ago when she was looking for her first job. She then applied for a job in his company and went for the interviews only to find that it was a one-man interview panel. The man asked her out for coffee that evening and she innocently accepted.

One thing led to another and in the end, Olivia had a job, a paid furnished apartment in Kileleshwa, a car, and lavish holidays. Olivia had to drop her boyfriend with whom they had planned to marry. Her newfound man was 67 and stinking rich and she enjoyed the life.

She was however not allowed to socialise with other people. A watchman was employed to monitor and report her movements. Male visitors were not allowed into her house. The man did not live with her because he had a family. Once in a while, he popped in for an hour or two in the evenings.

The man warned Olivia never to conceive. He did not want a child. He had his children with his wife some of whom were Olivia's age mates.

Two months ago Olivia got fed up and told the man she was resigning from the job. To her surprise, the man immediately confiscated the car keys and ordered that she should never be seen in the precincts of her house which he had bought for her. Unfortunately, Olivia never bothered to register the car or house in her name. She was suddenly homeless and without a car or job.

These two stories capture a common sexual problem in our time: cross-generational sex. Whether you consider such relationships acceptable or not is entirely dependent on your values. Still, we need to talk about the health and rights issues around such relationships. The tendency to subjugate the younger and economically helpless person in the relationship can be worrying. The younger person may not be able to negotiate his or her sexual rights and this may expose them to unwanted pregnancies, infections, psychological trauma, and social rejection.

"I was paying for the lavish lifestyles with my body," Olivia says, "It is not a good feeling."

"Always consider the long-term gain when getting into such a relationship," Kate shares, "I would have lost my family and children if I had given in to the landlord's seduction."

Yes, it helps to define the vision of your relationship. If it has no meaningful future, take off for your life at the earliest opportunity. Kate summates it quite well:

"These men use you and dump you, they are heartless and merciless, they destroy lives of young women, so make your choices wisely."

And Olivia, having learnt her lesson, encourages young women to be on the lookout.

"Don't fall for the goodies. There is a heavy price to pay," she warns.    BY DAILY NATION