(Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Cosmopolitan NYFW)
For years, the discussion around kids being trafficked for sex focused largely on Backpage.com. In 2018, federal officials seized the site and new laws were passed to help protect children from the sex trade. Many warned the demise of Backpage and Craigslist’s decision to end its personals would just lead to similar sites popping up. That’s not necessarily what happened, but there is one trend growing more popular by the day that is considered a big threat to kids: “sugaring.”
“Sugaring is a concept where you are essentially signing up for some sort of relationship or construct where you have a sugar baby and a sugar daddy. The sugar daddy is the one with the resources and the power and the privilege, and they give things of value, which could be a trip or a dinner or cash or clothing or jewelry, whatever it is, to the sugar baby in exchange for something,” explained King County Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney