The Allure of Transactional Intimacy in Sugar Dating
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2363775 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lena Gunnarsson (0000-0002-7766-8696, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 67 |
| Issue | 1-3 |
| Pages | 25-41 |
| Publication date | 2024-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociological Perspectives (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0731-1214 • E-ISSN: 1533-8673 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/07311214231191771 |
| OpenAlex | W4386029050 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 33 |
The proliferation of 'sugar dating' websites, facilitating transactional relationships between a 'sugar baby' and a 'sugar daddy,' raises new questions about the reconfigured relationship between intimacy and economy in the contemporary Global North. By encouraging people to approach sex and intimacy through a logic of exchange, sugar dating has been claimed to represent the culmination of a broader trend towards a 'marketization' of intimacy. Based on semi-structured interviews, this article analyzes Swedish 'sugar babies'' investment in a transactional approach to intimate interactions with men, focusing on the emotional rewards that they associate with the transactional setup of sugar dating. While the participants' transactional approach to intimacy is bolstered by the cultural dispersal of a neoliberal rationality into ever more domains of life, I argue that its deeper roots need to be sought in the precarious conditions of contemporary intimacy. Drawing in particular on the work of Eva Illouz, I claim that the women's embracement of a transactional approach to heterosexual sex and intimacy may be read as a defensive tactic of seeking to gain control over the flows of intimate interaction in light of the (gendered) insecurities and vulnerabilities of the contemporary market of intimacy
Marketization · Political science · Sociology · Transactional analysis · Transactional leadership · Transactional sex · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Marriage and Sexual Relationships · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology
Karmic Payment
Who knows? On the epistemic status of experience in sugar-dating research
Mediating the Sugar Baby Imaginary
Casting nets, keeping fish
“More Dangerous Than Cocaine”
The Sweet and the Salty
Openness to “Sugar Relationships” Reflects Personality and Emotional Vulnerabilities in a Representative Sample of Hungarian Women
Commercialization of Intimate Life
The Sense of Dissonance
The Contradictions of Love
Camming
Edgework
The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism
Neoliberal Feminism and the Future of Human Capital
Dating Apps
Girls want money, boys want virgins
Receiving Gifts for Sex in Moscow, Kyiv, and Minsk
Sweetening the deal? Sugar daddies, sugar mummies, sugar babies and HIV in contemporary South Africa
Blurred lines
Mainstreaming the Sex Industry
Sugaring
Chemistry or Service? Sugar Daddies’ (Re)quest for Mutuality within the Confines of Commercial Exchange
Temporarily Yours
Postfeminism, popular feminism and neoliberal feminism? Sarah Banet-Weiser, Rosalind Gill and Catherine Rottenberg in conversation
Sweetening the deal
It's Its Own Thing
Being Like Your Girlfriend
Varieties of Sugar Dating in Sweden
Becoming a Male Client of Compensated Dating
The Hobbyist and the Girlfriend Experience
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |