The rise of ‘sugar daddy’ culture in Canada: Vancouver tops the list

There has been a recent rash of Canadian media covering stories on the topic of "sugar babies" and their "sugar daddies."

Apparently, a shift in the sugar daddy culture has resulted in more complex reasons why people engage in these "mutually beneficial" relationships, so the narrative goes.

The most recent story from last week focused on how Vancouver has become the sugar daddy capital of Canada --- a title, no doubt, that will rub west coasters with delicate sensibilities the wrong way.

"Vancouver Sugar Daddies spend $4,307 monthly on their younger counterparts on average, more than anywhere else in the country, according to a study by 'the world’s largest Sugar Daddy dating website,' SeekingArrangement.com," CTV reports.

The study also found that Vancouver sugar daddies are, on average, 40 years old and make $292,506 annually. They spend almost $1,000 more a month on their sugar babies than Toronto sugar daddies.

In what seems to be an attempt to gain legitimacy for his business, SeekingArrangement.com website founder Brandon Wade, has released a slew of media statements over the past several months on the topic of sugar babies and his website.

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He claims he has seen SeekingArrangement.com membership jump by more than 70 per cent in the last year. And he also suggests that the number of married sugar daddies dropped from 46 to 31 per cent in the last five years.

“Last year, the number of single men joining our website doubled, reducing the number of married men who engage in this lifestyle,” Wade tells CTV.

Then there was another media story earlier this year -- also one of Wade's press releases -- that talked about how Canadian sugar babies are often university students, looking for, erm, innovative ways to pay their tuition.

Wade claims that when his site launched in 2006, 30 per cent of his clients were students. That number has since risen to 50 per cent.

"The money could go to college tuition, it could go to paying rent or it could just be used for travelling or buying gifts and shopping," Wade tells The Canadian Press.

In 2012, 183 students at Ryerson University in Toronto signed up on his site, making it the fastest-growing sugar baby school in Canada. The University of Ottawa and University of Toronto followed, with 179 and 156 new members, respectively.

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But perhaps the most in-depth national coverage on the topic of sugar daddy culture comes from a feature article by Lauren McKeon, featured in the April issue of Toronto Life.

"For many sugar daddies, the idea of hiring a prostitute is unpalatable—they don’t like the open acknowledgement that a woman is with them for the money or that she is, very possibly, faking her sexual pleasure," McKeon writes.

The article follows the story of 25-year-old Olivia, a Halifax, N.S. high school drop out, who says that sometimes she has sex with her sugar daddies and sometimes she doesn't.

The sugar daddy lifestyle is not part of her long-term financial plan. She also doesn't believe in focusing too much on the material aspects of life.

“Karma will bite that person in the ass. You lose the real you,” she maintains.