0:01 Money problems, something a lot of us are familiar with. By us, I particularly mean university students, tuition, books, food, social life, these things cost money, and a lot of it. 0:18 I was in first year university, and I realized when I was at the student centre, a meal is going to cost me like over $10. 0:27 This is Dana, a varsity athlete at McMaster University, who quickly realized that school, is ridiculously expensive. Full time student and full time athlete, there's no time for a real job. 0:41 My teammates and I were hanging out and one of them was saying that she knew a girl that had been on seeking arrangements. And we're all kind of laughing about it and just like say how crazy that would be. But secretly, in the back of my mind, I was thinking like, maybe it's not so crazy. 0:57 Seeking arrangements. A website similar to every other online dating website, except the matchups most often are a younger girl, and an older man who's paying the girl to go on dates with him. You're supposed to be 18 to make an account. Dana wasn't. 1:11 A lot of the times I was getting turned down because people were thinking that I was younger than I said, I was. That people on this website are very cautious. You know, like, if you're talking to a person that's under age, there's a lot of implications and potential criminal records. 1:32 Well, she eventually met someone who didn't seem to notice, or maybe just didn't mind her youthful face. Dana hopped on the go train and headed downtown Toronto, for her first sugar date. 1:41 I was super excited, I put on a lot of makeup, more than I'd like to admit and I went to the restaurant. And he was a lot older, like probably older than my dad, which was a bit weird. And we just chatted like he told me about his kids and his divorce and his business. 2:09 And then after dinner, he handed me a wad of cash. I think it was about $300. 2:16 Let's address the question that a lot of you listeners are thinking, why would these men rather pay to date someone, instead of just having a normal relationship? 2:25 If I had to take a guess I would say it would be like a confidence thing. Because an older man gets to be with a younger woman and also to chance for him to just like show how rich he is. 2:41 After a few dates with a few different men, Dana was now ready for what she called a consistent sugar daddy, one man to date, who will pay her for her time. Let's meet Ben. 2:52 I had probably been seeing Ben for about four months consistently, I started with dinner. And then him inviting me on small trips, you just wanted a partner. 3:07 Sugar dating is not prostitution. It's supposed to be dating where you're compensated for your time, but after four months of seeing someone paid or unpaid sex is sort of likely to happen. 3:20 If you spend a lot of time with a person, you'll obviously get to know them took a lot of like thought just to like convince myself that it was fine. But it helps that it wasn't right away. It was after quite a few dates and like getting to know everything about his background and his history. So it wasn't like it was with a stranger, it was somebody that I felt comfortable around and trusted. The morals behind being paid for sex definitely don't align with how I was brought up telling parents or siblings or any of my close friends about it would be really embarrassing and probably hard for them to understand. That's not the best feeling or look. 4:14 You mentioned though, that you would develop some level of feelings and comfort with Ben. So did you continue accepting cash? Or was it starting to move into something more? 4:23 I still did accept the cash just because at the beginning we did have a common understanding. 4:30 And typically just having sex mean you should get a bigger allowance. 4:34 I did ask for more money. Just because I tried to place a certain value and respect on myself and my body. 4:45 Did you tell anyone about Ben? 4:49 I was really scared to tell anybody because kind of taboo to do these types of things. Like what if I'm out with this gentleman and I run into like like one of my parents friends, or a coach from my childhood. Like, that would be really awkward to explain like what I was doing having dinner with this older gentleman, 5:11 Hey, how are ya? 5:13 From a best friend's perspective, not knowing where Dana was every weekend or who she was with was worrying. Let's meet Michaela. Dana's best friend of 10 years, 5:23 She told me that she had like, been seeing this guy like she didn't give him any details. She would spend a weekend at a time with this guy who she didn't really know and who was paying her to be with her sort of thing. She doesn't know him. I don't know him like she's not giving me any details as to where she is. So if anything were to go wrong, how would anybody knows sort of thing and those kind of ideas like it kind of did impact our relationship a little bit. 5:51 Dana stopped seeing Ben a couple of months ago, when she realized that this probably wasn't that safe. 5:58 He invited me to Montreal for a weekend and I told my parents that I was gonna stay at school. And then I told my housemate Michaela that I was going home, I realized that if something were to happen, nobody would know where I was.