The Sweet and the Salty: Women's Definitions and Negotiations of Power in Sugar Relationships.

Abstract

There has been increased interest in sugar relationships among academics over the last decade. Given the concern that these relationships can be disempowering and exploitative, there has also been a growing discussion regarding the power dynamics in these arrangements. Adding to this expanding body of literature, I drew from 48 in-depth interviews with women in the United States who have been in a sugar relationship. Specifically, I delved into how women defined power, how they negotiated power in these arrangements, and the various experiences that they defined as empowering and/or disempowering. Overall, my participants conceptualized power as power over, power to, and power as domination. In particular, they drew from the "power over" model when discussing having power over their benefactor in the way of acquiring money, controlling the time and attention they devoted to him, and using their appearance as a form of currency. Second, they used the "power to" and "power as domination" paradigms when they discussed feelings of autonomy, particularly as it related to control over sexual interactions and safety from violence, stalking, and sexual harassment.