Brooke West has multiple sugar daddies. She lives alone in a posh two-bedroom apartment on Lorne St in central Auckland. She has no idea how much her rent is because its paid for before she gets bill. While many of her mates at university work part time on minimum wage, Vivian gets thousands of dollars transferred into her bank account every month which help her pay her school fees.
Sugar dating is where an older man or woman spends large amounts of money on a younger girlfriend or boyfriend in exchange for a relationship. Arrangements vary, with some sugar babies saying they have sex with the men, and others keeping their contact to dates and no physical contact.
Some see the sugar daddy only a small number of times a year, when they fly in from their bases overseas for business, away from their wives and children. Originally from northern China, Vivian — not her real name — meets her sugar daddies on various websites including English-language sites like The SugarBook and SeekingArrangement, as well as Hong Kong-based sites.
The youngest of her three sugar daddies is a year-old businessman from Hong Kong. The oldest is a retired year-old grandfather from Malaysia. The third man is from Taiwan. She says they are aware of each other's existence and all have families back home but she's not sure if they are all still married — they ask her more questions than she asks them.
Her Hong Kong sugar daddy makes regular trips to Auckland, while she flies to see the others in holiday destinations on business class tickets they have paid for. Vivian says they have sex when they meet, but she doesn't think sex is the motivation for their financial support. The sugar daddies she met have also lavished her with gifts, including a Xiaomi Mi 8 mobile phone and a MacBook Pro. V ivian is one of many young women in New Zealand shunning traditional student jobs and the minimum wage to pair up with men who can buy them what they need.
