I see my favorite economist, Paul Krugman, has a post on his New York Times blog site on " Life in Belle Epoque America" (it means "Beautiful Era" and refers to the period between 1871 and 1914 in France when the Moneyed lived exceedingly well and conspicuously, publicly spent lots of money on Courtesans.)
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...gion=Body&_r=0
It links to an article on the Atlantic magazine website "How Sugar Daddies are financing College Education"
http://www.theatlantic.com/education...cation/379533/
which talks about the Seeking Arrangements website that facilitates (for about ten times the cost of a P411 "membership") Sugar Daddies meeting the right Sugar Baby seeking to trade being nice to the gentlemen for tuition and living expenses. Not a new subject here in Commercial Sex World but beginning to be noticed out the Real World where we all have to live. The Atlantic article dispensed with the "Sugar" adjective and talked about "daddies" and their "babies" to the point where something that seldom happens occurred: I experienced the sensation of being creeped out. I personally prefer "Payers" and "Payees" or Clients and Sex Workers if you are feeling upscale and euphemistic.
The Atlantic article had 1165 comments when I first clicked through to it and had four more by the time I got to the comment thread. That is fairly impressive even by our local standards. I'm not inclined to go too deep into that thread since most internet call and response events quickly turn into a series of virtual fist fights as the boys let their primate dominance genes take over their keyboards. You would think that there must be a potential goldmine in reviving the neighborhood amateur boxing gym except it appears that the percentage of cyber warriors willing to take a real world punch, even with a padded glove is pretty small.
About Sugar Babes: I have known a couple of ladies in the local corner of Sex World who put themselves through college thusly. One of them may have gone back to it. If so I wish her and Mr. Money all the happiness or at least good sex in the world and would like to thank the Mr Moneys in the past for their contribution to polishing up these fine ladies' personas and contributing to their overcoming the narrow prejudice against by the hour(s) sex work.
There is a lot to say relative to Sugar Babes who actually are college students. If memory still serves in 1965 I spent a total of $940 for a Long Semester's worth of education at UT Austin. The Good Old Days of tax payer financed higher education,gone now to be replaced by student loans equivalent to something between the price of a new car and the price of a condominium, or not being able to go to college or maybe a little or a lot of sex work.
The disappeared tax payer subsidy is mostly thanks to the Republican Party's efforts on behalf of their owners in the 1 Percent and fractions thereof, not that the other conservative party also beholden to the same campaign contributions donor base put up much of a fight.
The somewhat ironic thing is that the One Percenters who have pressed for all and any subsides to those less moneyed than themselves to be ended are also the Sugar Daddies benefiting from the available of good looking but not independently wealthy young ladies who are willing to F-word their way to an entry ticket to the competition for the good life. Coincidence or Plan? What do you think?