SUGAR DADDY SHOCK Cash-strapped students turn to sex work
Sugar daddies and online shows used to reduce student debt, warn experts
Agrowing number of young Kiwis are jumping into jobs on the fringes of sex work such as “sugar daddy” relationships and online sex shows to pay the bills.
Some of them are students seeking ways to pay for rising rents and tertiary fees.
New Zealand Prostitutes Collective co-founder Dame Catherine Healy is concerned young people are delving into the “soft edge” of sex work, with little support or awareness.
“Camming” — where a person puts on a sex show via a web camera — was not new, but Healy thought it was growing in popularity in circles of young people.
There was a perception that digital sex work was more socially acceptable than prostitution and an easy way to earn money, but Healy said she had heard a few cautionary tales.
One woman in her 20s had been heavily involved in camming, she said, until her identity was spread across the internet with pictures of her at work.
“She was devastated by the fact that she lost control of her image — she had no awareness that could happen.
“It started well, and ended not so well.”
Camming could also be appealing to students because of expensive tertiary fees and rent, Healy said.
Student debt is currently $15.9 billion in New Zealand.
Discussions on camming forums suggested workers generally earned upward of $50 an hour. New Zealand’s minimum wage is $16.50.
Healy said sex work was not necessarily a worry, but individuals had to be ready to deal with the consequences.
“It’s more that if people are unsupported and lose control and are in situations where they’re manipulated . . . then they’re isolated and they are, in some situations, being exploited.”
Police received regular reports about children using webcams for concerning behaviour from parents or social media companies, a spokeswoman said.
The Online Child Exploitation Across New Zealand team had received two reports this year involving minors where a New Zealand based offender had blackmailed complainants using previously recorded webcam footage.
One of these was before the court — the other remained under investigation.
Healy said there was also a concerning boom in the number of young people getting into sugar baby-sugar daddy type relationships through websites such as Seeking Arrangements.
A spokeswoman from US-based Seeking Arrangements claimed the site had more than 50,000 members signed up from New Zealand.
The site advertises itself in America as a way to help “sugar babies hack student debt”.
PhD student Madeline Henry, who is researching digital sex work, said it was a secretive profession.
“They don’t tend to go to the [Prostitutes Collective] so much — maybe it’s the lack of physically touching people . . .
“But then if they get in trouble, if they get blackmailed online then sometimes they don’t know where to go.”
Henry thought the market had become saturated with newbie webcammers.
“It’s a bit hard to make a name for yourself now unless you’re doing something really drastically different,” she said.