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- [00:01]
A
Welcome, friends, to Economic Update Extra. This is where we continue an interview conversation from the regular Economic Update program for you, our Patreon community, so that we can explore further the kinds of issues raised in the interview that we conduct on the regular program.
- [00:23]
B
So, Harriet Farad, I want to pick up where we left off by asking you to spell out for us what you think are some of the major consequences of this arrangement. You've described for us, these millions of mostly young women working out these negotiated girlfriend experiences for wealthy businessmen. What is the impact you think this is having on our society and our culture?
- [00:53]
C
Well, it further monetizes intimacy and friendship and a girlfriend experience. It also gives men an out if they can't negotiate or they don't want to negotiate a relationship with a wife or a regular girlfriend whose needs come into the bargain where everything isn't negotiated beforehand, where you actually might be challenged on your selfishness or your inability to listen, you don't develop. One of the wonderful benefits of having a relationship with someone is that you get to learn yourself because they bring up things about you. The sugar baby is not going to bring up anything critical that's not in the bargain. She does the emotional labor of feigning interest and approval at this man, sort of like an airline steward might do when some wealthy guy in first class spills his coffee. Oh, I'm so sorry, sir. I'll get you a wet wash course rather than you slob. What do I care if your tie is strained, you know, is stained? Who cares? You know, you don't do that. And so it's a performance. And it might, it might create a backlash of rage at what one has to absorb in order to keep this job which is economically really desirable. And the man who can take an attractive, intelligent young woman to an after business social event, adding a perk that he has as access to this young, attractive, intelligent person conversing with his business colleagues makes a big difference to him that he doesn't really have to work out anything. And part of the developmental perk of a deep relationship is that you learn yourself and another person through working out the issues that arise.
- [03:05]
B
So it's a kind of, it's not available. So it's almost a vehicle for pretense. It's almost a kind of substitution of performance for interaction of pretend, for the rough and tumble of honest working out of a relationship.
- [03:27]
C
That's right.
- [03:28]
B
But that could be a very profound and negative effect on the society if, if that is what indeed flows from this.
- [03:36]
C
Well, it was founded by a Man who couldn't negotiate dating. Here, everything's on the table. It's all negotiated in advance.
- [03:46]
B
Like a business deal.
- [03:47]
C
Like a business deal. It is a business deal. The man pretends he's loved and a priority. The woman pretends he's wonderful. And so it is. It's pretense both ways.
- [04:07]
B
And my guess would be, I mean, you're the psychologist, in a sense, that this carries over into the personal lives of both the man and the woman that is doing this and doing this on a regular basis, repeatedly, either with the same two individuals or varying individuals. The woman may have multiple men doing this. The men may have multiple sugar babies. That this is going to shape what they do have in the way of relationships too. It's not a contained situation that has no consequences.
- [04:39]
C
That's right. The women usually can't have several relationships because often the regularity of the visits isn't specified in advance. It's just that I will be in town and want to see you twice a month or whatever. And so that it would be harder for her to have multiple sugar daddies. Also, if she's in school, she does have to actually do some schoolwork and be prepared. But for the man, he escapes from the developmental possibilities of being intimate with someone who actually talks to you and reflects you and contests you and engages with you. On an honest level, I'm also struck.
- [05:24]
B
That in cultures which have at least pretended to think that human romantic interactions must be kept away from the market, must not be monetized, must not be reduced to a quid pro quo financial exchange, that this. We live in a culture that at least pretends to have that view. But what you're telling us is that they're just pretending and choosing not to acknowledge what is all around them, which is a gross expansion of monetized romantic connection.
- [05:59]
C
Well, one of the things that's happened recently in the history of the United States is that people tend overwhelming only to go out with and date other people in their own economic group. And increasingly people look up each other's credit ratings before they get involved.
- [06:18]
B
And so that would be a kind of extension of all of this.
- [06:21]
C
It would be.
- [06:22]
A
Do you think that if there were.
- [06:25]
B
A program, for example, in Germany, all tuition has been eliminated from all universities, not only for Germans, but for anybody who comes to Germany to study. If we had a program that adequately addressed the fact that students ought not to go through college and end up with debt, you think that would markedly reduce this whole industry? Because the incentive, at least for the women, would Be much reduced, much reduced.
- [06:54]
C
45% of the sugar babies are involved with tuition payments of some kind, involved with college or graduate school and needing help. So they're not in debt peonage for 20 years after college. And so that would really reduce the demand. That's probably why this industry hasn't started and flourished in France or Germany or the Scandinavian countries or even Slovenia, because they have free tuition.
- [07:24]
B
And might it also be reasonable to infer that if this were not available, if this industry, even though it violates religious and other kinds of norms in this culture, if this industry weren't there, then the students of America might have been struggling much harder against the debt problem and the rising cost of higher education because they wouldn't have had this escape, if you like, this escape hatch to solve the financial problem this way rather than confronting the very problem in the first place.
- [08:00]
C
That's right. And what it does is it builds in a vast hypocrisy, which is very curious. 7 out of the 10 biggest sugar baby populations at universities are in southern universities in the American South. Now, of course, the American south endorses a president who is thrice divorced and has 22 sexual abuse allegations against him, so that the hypocrisy of sexual, quote, morality and of keeping pure is turned on its head. In addition, young women, particularly in the purity cults of the south, who swear before their fathers that they will remain virginal until marriage, proving that they are morally good. That shows that the most important thing about a woman is her sexuality. So if it is, then monetize it. That's a bigger incentive. Plus, it's interesting, this has happened mainly at state schools. It's everywhere but the biggest sugar baby populations, except for NYU and a few others in the top, well, three others in the top 10 is because those have gone up the most. The elite, top private universities have gone up about two and a half times. State schools have gone up more like three and a half to five times. And people go to state schools because they, they don't have as much money. And so they are particularly imprisoned in debt. And if they weren't, if our university system was like those of our European peers, that would be vastly cut down.
- [09:47]
B
So the old criticism that used to be lodged against the old prostitution industry, that this is an economic deprivation forcing large numbers of women to survive in this particular way. So that denouncing the activity without denouncing the conditions that bring it, that's applicable here as well, even if prostitution is not exactly what's going on here. But it's the same economic compulsion of a society. And you think it might make people wonder about an economic system that works like this produces these results.
- [10:26]
C
Ironically, people have condemned Marxism and socialism and what they called communism because it ruins the family. Well, this, the family in the United States is being ruined by capitalist outsourcing and profiteering. And the sugar industry is a reaction to that. And the sugar industry is not affecting family friendly industry.
- [10:51]
B
We've come to the end of our time. Thank you very, very much for being with us again.
- [10:56]
A
Thank you all, particularly our friends and our supporters in the Patreon community. I hope you found this extension of the interview from this week's program as valuable as we have. This is an important topic that gets way too little attention in our media and in our universities.
- [11:15]
B
We where it ought to be brought.
- [11:17]
A
Front and center as a part of what it is that has to change in this society to make it the kind of society we want to live in. It's my pleasure to bring these programs to you and it is also my pleasure to thank you and appreciate the support that you, our Patreon community, provide. And I look forward to speaking with you again next week.