I’m a Straight Man, and He’s My New Sugar Daddy

When one broke Brooklynite embarks on a new side job as an escort for hire, he finds himself swimming through a murky world of easy money, broken promises and naked truths.

Illustrations by Beatrix Urkowitz

When it comes to setting up an encounter with a potential sugar daddy, there are certain precautionary steps that my sex-work mentor, an exotic dancer, model and sugar baby whom we’ll call Chelsea Dawn, always takes. Curled up with a mug of tea on the cozy end of her cloth-covered futon, she takes me through the process.

While I listen to her motherly advice and gentle admonishments for my own previous lack of caution, I’m enjoying my own cup of Moroccan mint in Dawn’s spacious Bushwick loft, the rent of which is now paid for by one of her sugar daddies. The living room is crowded with DJ equipment, hula hoops, racks of costumes and a “Scarface” chandelier hanging from the ceiling, declaring that The World Was Ours.

Sugar baby/daddy relationships are more nebulous than those between most other sex workers and their clients; compensation varies wildly, sugar babies are paid for anything from going on casual dates to accompanying sugar daddies on vacation,…