The Sugar Baby Persona
As a sex worker, you take on a persona as a means of self-preservation. Sometimes it’s an alter ego that is completely different than your normal, everyday self. For instance, I have a friend who is very demure in real life and who started working as a dominatrix as an outlet for expressing her more assertive side.
Sugaring tends to blur the lines more than other forms of sex work when it comes to the real versus performative self. In part, this stems from the fact that sugar daddies want authenticity. This means that you’re always playing some version of yourself, albeit a hyperbolic one. But it also has something to do with the realities of the type of person who will be drawn to sugaring in the first place.
My bestie was always fascinated by my sugar adventures and while she was tempted by the financial benefits, she knew deep down that she would never be able to do it because she has a low threshold for bullshit. Whereas I have the ability to hold my tongue when a daddy starts getting all patronizing on me, she would not be able to fake the way she feels. I can stroke a man’s ego even when I think he is non-deserving because I know in the end, it will get me what I want. She is simply too reactive to do the same.
It’s not a moral judgement on either one of our characters, but it is a testament to the fact that the kind of person who becomes a sugar baby is likely to be more flexible, passive, and — as the name would indicate — babyish. As I approach my 29th birthday, I’m going through a profound period of spiritual growth and coming to terms with the fact that I’ve let my sugar baby persona and true self merge together — to the point where I’ve lost my sense of self-assuredness and depend on male authority figures for guidance more than I should.
So, I’ve begun the process of writing a series of letters to the people and behavior patterns that no longer serve me. After I finish this series of letters, I plan to print them all out and burn them in a letting-go ceremony. I think this is powerful exercise that can help anyone — whether they are a sex worker trying to separate themselves from their professional persona or just a normal person trying to break out of toxic dating patterns.
By writing a letter to a part of yourself that no longer serves you, you are honing your self -awareness and giving yourself permission to evolve. Such a letter requires honesty but also compassion. You were doing the best you knew how and there’s no need to feel ashamed. But now that you have the tools necessary to reflect and release, it’s time to shed your old skin so that you can grow into a new one.
Letting go can be a scary process because it involves putting your trust in the universe and betting on the unknown. But I promise you, your future self will thank you. As the saying goes, “When one door closes, another door opens.” I hope that by reading my letter, you feel inspired to do some soul-searching of your own.
With Pluto shifting into Aquarius for the first time since 1798, major changes are in the air, which means there’s no better time to take an honest look at yourself so that you can let go of people and behavior patterns that no longer serve you and rise into your full god / goddess potential.
My Goodbye Letter
Dear Slutty Baby,
You were born out of a confluence of forces. In some fucked-up Freudian way, the baby voice you use to get what you want started as a little girl. It was the voice you — the spoiled baby of the family — mastered in order to manipulate your father into giving you what you wanted, be it a candy bar, a toy, or a “yes” to a sleepover at a friend’s house.
A cutesy baby voice paired with the batting of your eyelashes was a surefire way to solidify a win. Meanwhile, the baby voice paired with a quivering lip and a few tears was the magic combo for getting you out of trouble, no matter how far you had misstepped.
Comparing notes with peers about the disciplinary action they experienced at the hands of their parents is laughable. While nearly everyone I’ve talked to about it was either spanked, yelled at, or grounded, I really can’t recall ever being disciplined. To be fair, it’s not like I was some out-of-control child who wouldn’t listen to reason. On the contrary, I was a school-loving perfectionist.
My parents probably understood how hard I was on myself already and consciously decided to refrain from putting more pressure on me than I already put on myself. I think my dad had also grown up with an asshole for a father and wanted to do everything in his power to ensure he didn’t traumatize me the way his father had traumatized him.
It was a well–intentioned parenting style but at some point, I think I started leaning into the baby persona a little too hard — to the point where it started to become part of my identity. I could elicit laughs from adults by spouting out sassy one-liners like, “While you’re up, can you fetch me a glass of water?”
It was as if I had an innate understanding of how far I could push my bratty behavior without facing repercussions. As an adult, I often joke that I learned about outsourcing at too young of an age. Decades before reading about Alfred Adler’s theory that the baby holds all the power, I had already internalized a learned sense of helplessness.
Within the context of school and friendships, I never intentionally acted babyish the way I did within the safety of my home. If anything, I tried to act as mature and independent as possible. But I was so shy and afflicted by “good girl” conditioning that my voice would go up an octave anytime I had to speak in front of the class.
It was a bizarre combination of wanting to be taken seriously yet being utterly incapable of taking myself seriously enough to command the respect I so desperately craved — the respect that seemed to come so easily to my parents and older sister. I was a wallflower who wanted to take up as little space as possible, and a big part of that was refraining from using my voice and using a very passive, timid voice when I did.
By the time I reached the age when boys were expressing interest in me, I was in the full throes of an eating disorder. On some level, I knew that playing the vulnerable broken bird character made me appealing to the type of sad boy hipster I couldn’t get enough of.
So I fashioned myself after Effy Stoneham — a character from Skins — who was a sulky, shy femme fatale that loved drugs and had a nihilistic punk rock essence to her. I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin and had always felt like a loser for being so quiet, but Effy made me realize I could rebrand from awkward to aloof.
Naturally, this attracted outgoing, charismatic men who could balance me out. The kind of man who seems full of himself but who is really actually quite insecure deep down and needs people to constantly validate him, and lovers who let him take the lead so he can feel a sense of control.
Eventually, the arrogant lead singers of bands my own age became arrogant dom daddies thirty years my senior. They treated me better and had more money to spoil me with. I played into the damsel-in-distress character, and they played into the knight-in-shining-armor one. Both our egos were satiated from this back-and-forth. I felt safe and taken care of and they felt powerful.
But deep down, I wasn’t a submissive barbie doll. I was feisty and free-spirited. Whenever I let my true colors show, I would get scolded for my bratty outbursts. It was a vicious cycle that would repeat itself over and over again. Throughout the years I’ve managed to trap myself in many a gilded cage.
I’ve sacrificed my autonomy for the validation and protection I receive by falling into the orbit of an already established, financially stable man. Sometimes they are my age; sometimes they are older. But in each scenario, I always end up defaulting to slutty baby at some point or another.
I regress into my childhood self because I feel like I’m powerless again and that playing slutty baby is the only way for me to possibly recoup some of my power back. I’ll use my impish charm and play up my nymphet sex appeal to manipulate men into giving me what I want. It’s something the outright daddies seem to eat up but the more level-headed, feminist-leaning men closer in age to me aren’t nearly as enamored.
In fact, they call me out when I start using my slutty baby voice — helping me recognize that I’ve unconsciously dissociated from my true, authentic boss bitch self as some sort of bizarre defense mechanism to avoid hearing uncomfortable truths and being held accountable for my actions when I’ve done something wrong.
It’s an awareness I’ve had for years now but haven’t been able to let go of. It’s difficult to unpack this security blanket persona I adopted as a young child and which took on a life of its own when I started sugaring and getting positive reinforcement for playing into it.
Maybe at 20 it was cute but at almost-29, not so much. It’s keeping me stunted, particularly in the professional arena. I still have a tendency to take on my slutty baby voice when I get nervous introducing myself on a Zoom call of big shots, and I struggle to not fall into slutty baby-daddy dynamics with the magnetic, domineering entrepreneurs I often find myself working for.
But enough is enough. I’m tired of being beloved but not respected. It’s time to say goodbye to slutty baby once and for all. You’ve served as my protector and allowed me to do some cool shit in life. But just like a gal outgrows her friends as she ages, I’ve outgrown you. I am rising into my power and don’t need to hold on to the self-doubting, helpless part of myself that slutty baby represents.
I no longer need powerful men’s validation because I realize that I am enough just as I am. I am strong, capable, and resilient as fuck, and I’m no longer caught up in seeking the intellectual validation I never got from my own father in the form of other men. No hard feelings but it’s time to say bye. It was fun while it lasted.
I release you with love,
Jules
Jules
Based in Brooklyn, Jules has dedicated her twenties towards harnessing her pussy power, exploring the muse, whore, and wild woman archetypes along the way. When not blogging, you can find her sweating the toxins out in a hot yoga class or sipping a matcha latte at a pretentious coffee shop, whilst she scribbles away in her journal.
