The downfall of Malaysia’s biggest sugar daddy platform
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restofworld.org
My wife gets bombarded with these scummy offers, but at least she's an adult.
Now being on their yacht in Biscayne Bay is worth the instagram clout for many girls. Go for a walk on the beach in Tulum and you'll see the average age difference of couples is something like 20 years. Instead of keeping it a secret, college age girls know their friends are doing it, as well, so there's no social pressure to hide it.
Very, very clearly there has been a massive shift on the acceptability of talking about this among women, and also I think how common it is among more affluent, younger women.
But I have no idea how the demand on the male side has changed. Certainly, there have always been "creepy men" doing this, but I'm curious if the numbers are increasing or staying steady. Definitely I have never heard of any man I know doing it, but I think they would hide that they do. By contrast, I do know young women who have done this.
Seems very similar to the inflated perception of child abduction occurrence.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/09/teenag...
a day ago a girl which i was dating was so surprised that i was kind. she indeed either got harassed, spied on, bullied or raped by all of her male partners.
(another one had a loaded gun pointed at her face because the boyfriend was jealous. oh no wait, three of my partners almost got killed.)
in fact 100% of my female partners and 99% of my female friends got raped at least once (many male ones too, but less). not even talking of such "offering", it's just "normal" for most. a statistical quirk, i doubt it.
perhaps sexual education of male fellows might be important? and when i say male i talk for myself too, as a bisexual 50% of intercourses i had with ppl of my gender had at least one non-consensual element done to me. the line is blurry sometimes but the problem is well there.
i tend to think there some kind of cultural issue there: every ad targeting men tries to explain them how many young girls they will f** if they buy the product.
reminds me my former roommate brought a box of actual sugar, guess the branding: Daddy
there's a solid percentage of people, but particularly men, who just do not care about the impact their actions have on others.
I have a hard time believing that men are harassing, raping, and armed assaulting because they missed that day in class.
It would be interesting to see if either a VC-backed Yelp for People or China's social credit system has an effect on sex-related crimes.
That has always been the root of the rage that comes with these applications. The hilarious irony is that they're always shut down to "protect" the women from the evil predatory men, which just exposes their hypocrisy: they don't believe adult women have enough agency to make their own choices.
Shame was the tool, but now that shame has been removed from sexual expression, more ways have been used to curb that expression.
Just look at Instagram, in the beginning women could openly advertise only fans. Now that is restricted and also on twitch and YouTube is making moves in that direction.
That’s what’s happening in Malaysia right now.
I’m not saying it’s good or bad, it’s just what’s happening around the world and it will forever been a constant struggle as the pendulum swings from one end to the other.
In the end unrestricted sexual freedom leads to lower birth rates as people have more choice. Just look at worldwide birth rate stats over the past 20 years. Covid only sped them up.
There is no “they” that considers this or enforces this - it’s just the human organism fighting for ways to keep itself alive.
Check out Greg Bears theories on how germs and viruses actually control the overall operations of humans in a bid for self survival.
Fascinating.
That’s what makes the world interesting sometimes —- to gaze at this struggle going on with open and neutral eyes.
There clearly is, aside from differing fertility rates these are all actions of authorities of one sort of another. They're different authorities but most are religious whether directly (Malaysia is a conservative Muslim country) or indirectly (Twitch isn't religious per se but it's following the puritanical values of the US)
Such behavioral, preference, lifestyle, openness, and attitude changes include: Alternative gender/sexual identity expressions diverging from family focus, stress/anxiety, voluntary celibacy, perfectionist family planning (contraception, abortion, workaholism, and stricter goals), shallower human interactions, disillusionment of love, casualness of increased divorces, elongated adolescence, extended non-monogamy, "failure to launch," distractions like screens and video games, and, inadvertently, fertility reduction causes like obesity and plastics. I'm certain there are more factors I missed and some that are minor.
It’s certainly bigger than any one human directed agent.
But yeah we can’t prove it.
I think we can only look at history, macro trends, and some imprecise civilizational differences to throw approximate qualitative hypotheses against the wall to make some guesstimates, and still be wrong most of the time due to unaccounted factors or even happenstance of maladaptive random behaviors like not dating people with green eyes, political revolutions that organize society differently, or inexperience/shyness denying the immense rewards of social/sexual/pairbonding opportunities.
People with scarcer resources have more kids.
In such an environment, wouldn't evolutionary forces be less likely than, say, ubiquitous xenoesteogen exposure from new chemicals like plastics or a vastly different diet and lifestyle from our evolutionary origins?
That doesn't seem very logical. (?)
The point is look at the numbers and how society expresses sexual expression between men and women these days.
If they are so unrelated as you posit, what is the cause of the decline in birth rates then?
1. You probably want to establish your career before having kids. That takes time, especially with all the training required and needed mobility.
2. Kids need to have a good career to have a nice life, so you need to invest more in your children, which means fewer of them.
I don't know whether it's a cause or an effect. Maybe it's a self-feeding dynamic?
Sex negativity vs. sex positivity has been a battle forever, and Malaysia has dual systems for Muslims and non-Muslims that exacerbates this dichotomy.
The typically most taboo exchanges involves the scarcest and most desirable resources: sex, love, money, slaves, or power.
It seems like the sugarbaby/daddy phenomenon is merely an inducement for what others can get for free if they had more time, better seduction skills, self-confidence, and seized on more opportunities. I see that like the legalization of prostitution: what consenting adults can do shouldn't be regulated by the government. It is unfortunate that Malaysia banned Sugarbook and now drives such arrangements underground like prohibition, risking the enrichment of criminal enterprises.
Good things laws are decided democratically, and the vast majority of humanity rejects this conception of how government ought to function.
Its nature is to meddle. And thats what changes the world.
Some of us do sit back and observe and learn.
I thought birth rates tended to decline due to increased prosperity, not freer sex.
Wow, plainly admits to abusing social media for soliciting sex from people he knows aren't sex workers. It's not hard to imagine some minors get "flagged" too.
This is the stuff of sex trafficking.
"he’ll now head to Instagram instead, scroll through accounts ('a dead giveaway is if she has travel pictures alone')"
Solo female travelers aren't necessarily prostitutes!
Sure, in the framework of capitalism and individual freedom, this is uncritizable.
But let's step back a little bit, and see this in its actual form, and acknowledge that it's a well-justified ban.
In reality the laws provide a mix of the two. You can say almost anything you want, but you can’t yell fire in a movie theatre. Similarly, you maybe can sell anything you want, but selling your body may be a net negative for society.
There are enough people on the planet that we do not need to restrict personal choices for the greater good beyond the golden rule. I don't want to tell somebody what they can and can't do because I don't want others telling me the same. I will do what I want to satisfy Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and I am not going to stop others from doing the same as long as there is no force involved.
It's easier to understand by flipping the situation:
Let's say society's age-old tradition was that men MUST pay women for sex, and it's shameful (even illegal) not to. But a few women say no, we want to be able to have sex for free. If the men know that free sex is now a real option, why would they keep paying for it? This freedom would drive the price of sex down, and could cause the sex market to collapse.
The equivalent in our timeline is if sex went from being generally free to always having a price.
[0]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative...
"Positive liberty is the possibility of acting — or the fact of acting — in such a way as to take control of one's life and realize one's fundamental purposes."
In the journey of life you cannot rush someone to realize their fundamental purpose. You can only cultivate an environment that allows them to do so. You might see choosing to be a prostitute as avoiding their fundamental purpose. I see it as a stepping stone in their journey. They are earning enough money to move to a higher level of the hierarchy of needs. This is necessary for self-actualization.
They hurt the young girls ability to recognize passionate mutual affection driven by the human instinct of finding the fitting mate.
They deprive the strong sense of self driven attractions between human beings, and replace it with much more rational yet unspeakably gross attractions to material possession, which itself was a modern invention out of ludicrous idea that someone are just more entitled to privileges than others, even if everyone was created equally, both physical and mentally.
They hurt everyone by setting the example of even your sexual activity, the most intimate and passionate human activity, in both physical and mental sense, is perfectly ok to commercialization.
No, this is not only wrong, it's anti human!
It's accepted to have temporary wives (under a religious marriage for a few days) as escorts in Islamic countries, but quietly. Once it hits the press, authorities often feel compelled to do something about it.
But Sugarbook doesn't even fall under the fig leaf of temporary wives, and the membership numbers are shocking for a small country.
Some other commenters asked what's the harm of Sugarbook or OF:
1) women have a limited window to start a family and have children. Disrupting that has a very high price for both individuals and society.
2) making relationships purely transactional
3) normalizing the above across the population.
The indigenous locals, Chinese, and Indians are all minorities.
What's that supposed to mean? Islam is strictly against this practice.
On the other hand one could say it “strengthens” relationships because it’s a release valve for relationships which otherwise may be under pressure to break up.
Boss pays you for the power to direct your energies.
Taxes.
Customers pay you to do things.
Just because it’s related to sex does not make it more of an imbalance.
And no - don’t get it twisted, I’m not advocating for this specific power imbalance.
Who's been messin' up everything...
Serfs.
Selling of children.
Communism.
Give me the power imbalance that rewards me instead of forced labor any day.
All of this precedes "capitalism" and also existed in non-capitalist economies. What were gulags and other such mechanisms if not enslavement with added mortality?
I thought there was evidence that money was invented fairly early to be able to keep track of what goods or services had been exchanged.
Clearly there is something distinguishing some power imbalances from others.
Because, unlike a sugar baby, that's not what the employee signed up for.
Perhaps there is something unique about sex and how it interacts with power dynamics? I want to capture the intuition that we generally all share around stuff like this.
A statement like
> Just because it’s related to sex does not make it more of an imbalance.
does not seem to capture this intuition that most people hold.
...which is also generally bad if the role is materially different and goes on top of what was signed up for, with little to no extra compensation.
> Perhaps there is something unique about sex and how it interacts with power dynamics?
Suppose that your boss asked you, in addition to your current duties, instead of giving sexual favors, you follow him home and do all his laundry - with the same implication that your career hinges on it. Would that change the power dynamic? I don't think so. The only thing that "sex" changes is that it arouses attention.
Both are bad, but I disagree with your moral intuition - and suspect most people would as well.
The key moral fact here is more than just "it's not what you signed up for"
Vice versa may be worse, but either is bad. We wouldn't consider it fair just because it doesn't involve sex. In either situation, the power balance is the same. Your boss doesn't get more power just because he asks for sex instead of laundry.
If the entire relationship is premised upon sexual favors or sugar daddy style relationship, there is definitely a different power imbalance than one where you are being blackmailed/coerced into something you didn't originally sign up for.
Are you saying the relevant important factor is that they are an employee and not a contractor?
> wrong (and illegal in the US).
Sure, but prostitution is also generally illegal in the US as well.
If you are hired as a coder, and the boss asks you to start also joining sales/marketing calls with them (not in your job description) is that of equal moral ickyness as if the boss asks you to have sex with them or a third party (similarly, not in the job description)? I think not, but the explanation provided definitely doesn't capture that intuition.
But it comes down to personal comfort zone. Someone who tries to get a coder job is comfortable with coding, but may not be comfortable with doing electric installations, which clearly is not in the job description - and I would expect any of my team to tell me to go fish when I come to them with 400 meters of copper cables and a screwdriver.
Women who are on that platform obviously are comfortable with the idea of exchanging sexual favours with clients. They may have limits on certain practices, and they probably would not be comfortable doing something icky and morally corrupt as coding.
Moral is something very subjective, and I consider it pretentious for someone to push their own morals on others. If the people involved in that platform are ok with this, if they do these transactions out of their own volition, it is obviously wrong to send a sharia morality police after them because some grandma or some priest might be offended.
It's harder (but not impossible) to define legally, but it would fix edge cases like Indecent Proposal and A Teacher.
By that standard, any employment arrangement would constitute a power imbalance, which would raise the question of whether such a power imbalance is at all problematic.