Gold digging is alive and well, thanks to online dating sites like SugarDaddies.com and SeekingArrangments.com.
While trading in a well-maintained body for a well-maintained lifestyle is more or less legal, a new matchmaking website by SeekingArrangments founder Brandon Wade has many wondering: Where do you draw the line between presents and prostitution?
See also: ASU Students Increasingly Seek Sugar Daddies
CarrotDating.com is a new site embracing the "superficial game" that is online dating. Advertising a sort of sexual supply and demand, Carrot Dating divides its users into two categories, Bribers and Attractives.
The Bribers can purchase credits in order to communicate with Attractive users. Depending on the interest of each user, these credits continue to be accumulated by the Attractive and paid for by the Briber; ultimately being exchanged for jewelry, travel, entertainment, food -- basically anything short of cash so as not to be labeled straight up hooking.
Ignoring the degrading connotation of dangling a carrot, its phallic symbolism, or the synonymous connection between rabbits, their small vibrating counterparts, and Playboy bunnies, the site still has a strong sexist undertone.
While Carrot Dating claims that both genders can apply to either user category, the website's copy, graphics, press photos, and promo video all suggest that it's predominantly the women who are putting themselves up for sale.
As the song goes, "Money can't buy me love, but it can buy me a superficial imitation of it. And that's good enough."
