The "Sugar Baby" Trap: Sex, Lies, And The Illusion of Power

She joined a sugar daddy website. She thought she was entering the VIP lounge of adulthood, where savvy women leveraged male desire into luxury and lifestyle. What she didn’t realize was that she was stepping into one of the most exploitative pipelines on the internet, one that preys on financial insecurity, youthful naivete, and the female desire for safety, protection, and attention.

“I was 21. I thought I’d found a clever way to win the game,” Urick explained on a recent episode of Bridget Phetasy's podcast, Walk-Ins Welcome. “But I was being played.”

For five years, Urick worked behind the scenes at one of the most notorious sugar daddy websites on the internet, first as a user, then as its polished public spokesperson. And for years, she sold the world a lie: that this was not "sex work," not exploitation, not dangerous. It was modern dating. It was glamorous. It was empowering.

It wasn’t.

What Are Sugar Baby Sites?

Sugar baby websites are online platforms designed to connect typically older, wealthier men, so-called "sugar daddies," with younger women seeking financial support, gifts, or lifestyle upgrades in exchange for companionship. On the surface, they're marketed as dating sites with a "mutually beneficial" twist, where mentorship and romance supposedly meet. But behind the airbrushed ads lies a much more transactional reality, one that often blurs the line between consensual dating and prostitution.

These platforms operate in a legal gray area, carefully avoiding explicit references to prostitution while facilitating arrangements that look, feel, and function like it. The men often view the money they offer as payment for intimacy. The women, many of them students or financially vulnerable, may convince themselves they’re simply being strategic. But as Brooke discovered, the reality is far more coercive.

The Dark Reality Behind the Sugar-Coated Image

“The truth is, these websites are full of men who want to pay for sex,” Urick now says. “They don’t call themselves Johns, but that’s what they are. Most of them are married. Many are looking to discreetly exploit very young women, some barely 18.”

Urick joined the platform after seeing a casting call for a reality show. At the time, she was already living what she calls the "Vegas lifestyle" of clubbing, being paraded around by wealthy men, and flirting with status. "I thought I was already doing the sugar baby thing," she says. "The website just seemed like the formal version of it."

She got cast in the show. The producers fed her lines. She performed. And soon, the company hired her in a more official capacity: to sell the fantasy.

Her job was to pitch a lie to media outlets and college-aged women: that this was about mentorship, relationships, maybe even love. It wasn’t prostitution. It was a new way to date. And for a while, she believed it.

The Consent Illusion

But the deeper she got, the more disturbing it became. The website operated in a legal gray zone and used that ambiguity to hide behind terms of service, anonymize predators, and downplay the very real risk of coercion and assault. Women were instructed not to use real names or photos, allegedly for their own protection, but, in reality, to protect the men.

The danger wasn’t just physical. It was psychological. “The entire system is set up to make women think they have agency,” Urick says. “You get to choose your date. You negotiate your rate. You feel in control.”

But when a man gives you $1,000 and you’re already in the shoes he bought you, in the hotel room he paid for, the power dynamics shift quickly. Consent becomes implied. “You’re not explicitly agreeing to anything,” she says, “but you know what’s expected. And at that point, are you going to run barefoot into the hallway to escape?”

And it’s not just the clients who manipulate women. The websites do too. Urick helped create content under the guise of a mentorship blog for sugar babies. It offered advice on how to "safely" monetize your desirability. "It was all PR," she admits. "I was selling them a fantasy while slowly convincing myself I wasn’t part of something dangerous."

Eventually, she stopped using the site herself. "The men on there were so unsavory I didn’t even want to date them anymore," she says. But she continued working for the company until she couldn’t justify it any longer.

From OnlyFans to AI: The New Digital Pimps

Urich believes the sugar baby lifestyle was simply a precursor to today’s rampant OnlyFans culture. “It’s all the same ecosystem,” she says. “You start out thinking you’ll just post feet pics. Then it escalates. The girls who make real money are doing hardcore content. And the top creators? Most of them are prostitutes too. That’s where the money is.”

With AI now entering the chat, the stakes are even weirder and more dangerous. In Japan, AI-generated child pornography using real kids' photos has become a growing issue. And in the West, AI sex bots and chat services are replacing human intimacy entirely. “We’re not solving exploitation,” Urich warns. “We’re just digitizing it.”

Today, Urick is taking the truth on tour. She partners with anti-trafficking organizations and speaks to young women at universities about the real risks of sugar dating and digital prostitution. She dreams of launching a seminar titled "How to Get a Sugar Daddy" that baits attendees with glamor and then delivers the truth.

“I’m not here to tell girls what to do,” she says. “But they deserve the truth. If they know what they’re walking into and still choose it, that’s different. But right now, they’re being manipulated. And that’s not empowerment.” She’s also developing her story into a film and launching a Substack to continue her work.

The Real Revolution? Self-Respect

What does Brooke want now? Not fame. Not millions. Not a hustle.

“I want a soft life,” she says. “I want love. I want to feel safe. I want a family. I want women to stop thinking they have to trade their dignity for a rent payment."

She’s not calling for puritanism. But she is calling out a culture that dresses up exploitation in empowerment’s clothing.

“Sex isn’t evil,” she says. “But using it to fill a void? That’s where it all breaks down. You can’t heal through performance. You heal through truth.”