Opening with a slightly chilling observation - "I didn't know much about the Sugar Life before making this programme and you might not either.
But I bet your daughter's heard of it" - reporter Emma Jane Kirby delved into a world which, depending on your point of view, is either prostitution by another name or an old-as-the-hills solution to a very modern problem.
That notional daughter would need to be in at least her late teens and probably at university to have heard about the Sugar Life and actually be living it. But if she is, hers may well have been one of the voices we heard in Sugar Daddy, Sugar Baby (BBC Radio 4, Monday, 8pm), which spoke to the young women who offer their company and sometimes their bodies to men who are willing to pay in cash, holidays, dinners and handbags.
According to Angela Bermudo of the website Seeking Arrangement, students are "the largest Sugar Baby demographic". And as well as a monthly allowance or cash payments for things the women might need - exact arrangements are left up to the individuals concerned - there is "mentoring" to be had and what Bermudo describes as "a bevvy of networking opportunities". Sex, she stressed, is not necessarily part of the arrangement, though "if two people decide they are close and they want to become intimate later on, then that can happen".
There were a few cautionary tales along the way but on the whole both Babies and Daddies seemed perfectly happy with the arrangement. Names were changed and actors used to disguise voices, but the testimony was real enough. And so we heard from women like "Catherine", who funded a law degree at a Russell Group university through being a Sugar Baby. She got £750 a month, rising to £1200 a few months later - presumably around the time she began a sexual relationship with her Sugar Daddy.
Even more jaw-dropping was "Freya", another student, who turned up to be interviewed with her mum in tow. "Mary", it seemed, was perfectly alright with her daughter's extra-curricular activities.
Kirby, to her credit, was non-judgemental and asked all the right questions. Again depending on your point of view, the answers were either depressing or refreshingly clear-eyed and matter-of-fact. "Sexual allure is a commodity," said Freya's mum simply. "She was lucky to have it and brave enough to make use of it."
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