The Sugar Daddy in The Room: The Government

by Anonymous

“We can’t have our government officials exposed as sugar daddies!” is probably what the government thought when the infamous sugar-dating site, Sugarbook, published a list of the ‘Top 10 Sugarbaby Universities in Malaysia’ earlier in February this year. If Sugarbook could disseminate such a list, what else could they expose? The ‘Top Secret Sugar Daddies in the Government’? Maybe not. How about the ‘Top Governments Neglecting Human Rights & the Economic Inequities of their Country’? Now that sounds like a list Malaysia would come first in.

Upon receiving the honor of educating the most sugar-babies, Sunway University publicly condemned Sugarbook’s ‘attempts to encourage youth to partake in their immorality’, emphasizing its misrepresentation of their values and student community. Shortly after, the police investigated the prospect of prostitution and other immoral activities being initiated by Sugarbook, considering prostitution’s still-illegal status in the country. 

At first, this was meme-worthy content for millennials and Gen Z’s. But when the government blocked access to Sugarbook, most netizens saw it as an incessant denial of our autonomy. In many ways, banning Sugarbook was an unfounded threat to our liberties; in particular, our right to privacy, free choice of employment, and freedom of conscience.

Right to Privacy
Our right to privacy protects us from unwarranted interference in our lives, allowing us to establish who we are, how we interact, and who has access to our bodies and physical belongings. This is considered a negative right, as it guarantees us freedom from intrusion into our private activities, including any sexual transactions between consenting individuals instigated by Sugarbook. When I asked the followers on my platform what they thought about the issue, 83% disagreed with the ban. Most conveyed that activities being promoted by Sugarbook are private and consensual, therefore giving the government no right to interfere.

Right to Free Choice of Employment
The right to free choice of employment, a negative right, promotes our freedom to choose our employment without interference from authorities. Many protested the authorities’ conservative views regarding the immorality of prostitution. The reality is that Malaysia’s economic environment—with inadequate wages and a lack of job opportunities for women—pressures vulnerable women to offer sex for income. This is evident in the 40% rise in sugar babies registered on Sugarbook since the COVID-19 outbreak in Malaysia, totaling over 300,000 women, illustrating the widespread financial burden exacerbated by the pandemic.

Freedom of Thought & Conscience
Freedom of thought and conscience ensures one’s freedom to independently possess their own beliefs. This is negative liberty as it prevents us from having beliefs imposed onto us by the state, such as the belief that exchanging sex for money is immoral. The government has no right to dictate what is considered moral or immoral and how we use our bodies to make a living. Only when our actions inflict harm on others is the government justified in restricting our liberties. Sugarbook itself is harmless as it simply connects consenting individuals for mutually beneficial transactions, as is prostitution.

So why is this exchange immoral when it benefits all parties involved and doesn’t cause harm to anyone? Well, because the government says so. Consequently, they have breached our freedom of thought by imposing on us the belief that sex work is immoral, and has subsequently compromised our privacy and employment by not only restricting how we use our bodies as a source of income, but by punishing us for it as well. In Malaysia, sex work is a punishable crime for the individual offering sex, who are typically women. And to no one’s surprise, there are no repercussions for those paying for sex, who are most often men. Thus when it comes to sugar-dating, the sugar baby could incur fines and imprisonment while the sugar daddy can get away scot-free.

Beyond the Screen
Certainly, Sugarbook has the potential to induce relationships that can turn emotionally or physically exploitative and abusive. However, we must realize that any unregulated environment can spawn the same abusive relationships, whether it be in a corporate office or the comfort of one’s home. Despite activists pressuring the government to enforce laws against sexual harassment and the exploitation of women, the government has done little to nothing to protect women beyond consensual activities. The government took less than three days to ban Sugarbook for promoting prostitution; meanwhile, the All Women’s Action Society (AWAM) has been pressuring the government to table the Sexual Harassment Bill for more than a year now, albeit without much progress.

Not only do we deserve to decide what work we pursue, but we also deserve protection in our employment. Although I’m not against consensual sugar-dating, I certainly don’t favor such a relationship being normalized. I don’t believe it is in any woman’s will to engage with a man they have no sexual interest in, if not for their financial vulnerability pushing them to do so. It all boils down to the sociological conditions that the government must address instead of the social problem that is sugar-dating or sex work.

Truth be told, the economic problems created by the government leave individuals, especially women, vulnerable to significant financial debt. Of the ‘Top 10 Sugarbaby Universities in Malaysia’, eight are private universities. In Real Life conducted an interview with a sugar baby who asserted that platforms like Sugarbook were critical in helping her sustain her tuition fees, and even in preventing her from dropping out. She revealed that her sugar daddy paid her RM6,000 per month, which is more than double the salary of the average fresh graduate. She noted that her friends were also sugar-dating to cope with tuition costs. Evidently, tertiary education fees are simply too expensive, driving many to engage in sugar-dating just so they can afford to remain in university.

Although students and graduates make up for most of the sugar babies registered on the website, Sugarbook revealed that many sugar babies were also entrepreneurs, nurses, teachers, lawyers, and so forth. Women of any occupational background are vulnerable to significant financial burdens, influencing them to exchange sex or company for extra income. And yet, the government has done less than the bare minimum to sustain the economic progress of their citizens. The minimum wage remains alarmingly low at RM1,200 per month, workplace discrimination against women continues to prevail, and unemployment insurance is almost non-existent despite the collapse in employment and incomes caused by the pandemic.

How can we make a decent living for ourselves?
The government cannot simply remove the primary source of income for these women and expect them to acquire work that can better sustain them financially. If the government wants to ban sugar-dating and prostitution, they need to compensate by providing better job opportunities and financial support to address the issues that drive women to turn to sugar-dating and sex work for income. We cannot dispel someone’s way of living without providing an adequate solution.

In other words, the government needs to step up as the nation’s sugar daddy and create better economic conditions for us to thrive in if we are expected to study, work and live in this country. Fortunately for the government, they banned Sugarbook before it could release more controversial information. However, they did so at the expense of revealing the widespread economic inequity and hardship endured by women throughout Malaysia.

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