Sugar-Coating The Cost of Tertiary Education: Sugar Babies And Their Generous “Daddies”

Abstract

This paper uses the discourse analysis approach by Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) to accentuate the voices of different active and passive actors within the field of sugar dating. A series of interviews, anonymous online focus group discussions and a large-scale survey involving 511 respondents revealed that actors subscribed to varying and conflicting beliefs when asked to speak of their experiences or thoughts on the subject matter. 2 interpretivist repertoires were subsequently identified: materialist and empowerment. The former revealed that cultural goals of material wealth established in Singapore provided various motivations for persons to participate in sugar dating relationships, while the latter showed that persons rationalized participation in these relationships with both notions of radical feminism and sex radical feminism. When analysed against the backdrop of social mobility in Singapore, these repertoires affirmed that sugar babies featured as the “innovator” adaption of Merton’s (1938) strain theory. Sugar-dating was deemed as a morally and socially unacceptable means to attain cultural goals in Singapore society unlike recognized pathways of education, hard work and social networks