These apps are often touted as being an avenue for women to explore their sexuality and use it in a manner that benefits them. This is, and this should be needless to say, problematic. The underlying dynamic is exploitative even when the women involved are in denial about it. The worst part of it is that this is sort of thing, broadly speaking, is advanced as a women's lib type thing. Prostitution isn't feminist, it's profoundly anti-feminist. The former is a view that's been advanced in many "third wave feminist" circles. There's even a nauseatingly cute acronym, "SWERF," analogous to the currently-trendy snarl word "TERF," with the "SW" being, of course, "sex worker." (This of course leads to corny jokes about "surf and turf.")
The 60s-70s sexual revolution, with it's emphasis on freer attitudes towards sex, was actually, and it's descendants remain today, rather anti-woman in a number of ways. A lot of the "free love" stuff is actually about free access to women for men and less about any type of liberation. Same with the prostitution stuff, and that even speaking as someone who in other times of my life used to use the services of prostitutes on a fairly regular basis. I found situations where the woman in question was obviously being trafficked or exploited very distasteful, and preferred to go to providers who appeared to be more "independent" and who were doing it as a "career," because they wanted to, etc. Most of the time this probably wasn't actually true. None of these women were, you might say, right in the head, well adjusted, or in ideal situations in their lives that caused them to resort to prostitution, and this includes the ones that seemed the "coolest" and "freest."
"Sugar babies" are no different at all. They may think they are, because they only have one or a very few clients; they may tell themselves they are, because it seems more dignified, but this very fact betrays the truth that prostitution is utterly un-dignified, that it is incompatible with the human dignity of the woman (or man for that matter) doing it. People may tell themselves differently whatever form of the business they are in. They may even honestly believe differently. That doesn't make them right. "Sugar babies" may not be being exploited by a pimp (although the sites do skim a bit off the top of their earnings, as I understand it) but the dynamic between them and their customers ("sugar daddies") is still exploitative, as is the relationship between a prostitute and a john even in the absence of a pimp.
The situation with pornographic performers of various stripes is essentially the same.
www.theonion.com
