'Sugar Daddy' Company Uses Billboards to Attract New 'Babies'
Meet your new (18-year-old) baby.
— -- A new billboard campaign invites "new adults" to to “Meet their new Daddy.”
The billboards are by SeekingArrangement.com, a "sugar daddy dating site for those seeking mutually beneficial relationships and mutually beneficial arrangements."
The billboard features a young woman blowing out candles on a birthday cake.
"Happy 18th Birthday!" it reads. "Meet Your New Daddy."
The site claims 3 million members -- one million of them college students.
When their biological dads can’t pay for college, Sugar Daddies are stepping up, the site claims.
“Being a man of a certain age without children can feel like you’re missing out,” said Founder and CEO, Brandon Wade. “American parents have a habit of throwing their children out into the world after they reach 18. Without the support they need to land on their feet, they will seek support elsewhere, including their relationships."
At least one expert thinks this is a bad idea.
"These arrangements are really about power," said Christin Munsch, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Furman University who studies and gender, work and family. "These sugar daddies are seeking relationships in which they have all of the power and their partner has none." Munsch told ABC News her research and others has found the economically dependent partner has less decision-making power and more likely to be abused.
As for the women, she said, the ones most likely to sign up are those of very poor socioeconomic status who cannot make a living wage.
"In this way, this practice is very similar to prostitution," she said.
It's the site's first billboard campaign and so far the ads have gone up in Los Angeles and Phoenix. Next up: Las Vegas and New York.
