Being a sugar baby helps me escape my ordinary life as a primary school teacher

My name is Madeleine, and I am a 26-year-old sugar baby. Whether or not that makes me a sex worker is still a controversial topic, but in my eyes it’s completely different.

Being a sugar baby means I get to do things and see places I wouldn’t have even dreamt about before. I’ve had great holidays in yachts, gone to Picasso auctions and never been short of cash.Thanks to my sugar daddies, anything can happen in a heart beat.

But during the week I have a very normal life as a primary school teacher. I love my job but it can be quite stressful, so I use my weekends to escape. It’s my release and it’s amazing – I get spoiled, get the attention I need and can do whatever I want.

Before I started dating sugar daddies, I was fed up with normal dating. The same conversations, the same kind of people from my own city and I wanted  something more. While my friends were getting married and pregnant, I just wanted to have fun.

The two men I see now are Dylan and Richard. They’re both British, seven and twenty two years older than me. They are quite different from each other. Dylan is a really funny guy, he got his money through playing poker and is really social. He takes me to fancy parties and yachts full of other really wealthy people. It’s interesting seeing into their lives, see what they spend money on.

Richard is different. He’s still spontaneous, but very calm and quiet. When I told him I want to see more of the world and have traveled very little, he immediately arranged a trip to New York. Being with him helps me escape the daily grind of work and my ordinary life.

He always surprises me with gifts – VIP tickets to events, designer clothes, Iphones and he even bought me a pet bunny once. I can get money whenever I want – £20, £500 – I just let him know what I need.

Maybe it’s to do with my up-bringing, which was a struggle. I grew up alone with my mother after my parents divorced when I was very young. I barely saw my dad, sometimes it feels like I didn’t even have one. Call it “daddy issues”, but this it could be some deep-rooted psychological reason why I date older men.

I will never forget my first date. On the way to the expensive restaurant (that I had chosen) I was suddenly wondering if the man would take me seriously. Would he really pay the dinner? Was it going to be awkward? But to my surprise, he was actually really nice. We had a great evening, but sadly there wasn’t that spark so we both went home alone. I was surprised how easy it went. There was no match, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t feel guilty or seedy or wrong, it felt perfectly normal.

I used to have this false idea of what sugar dating was going to be like. I initially thought of it like a sort of prostitution assuming dates would end with sex, which isn’t even allowed. When I signed up, I never had the intention to bring men into bed for money, but more for the causality and the benefits that this type of arrangements brings. But of course, if the evening goes well and the chemistry is there, I would jump into his bed without even being asked to. Of course sugar babies have sex with their sugar daddies, like in any other relationship. But this doesn’t mean we are doing it for money, we are doing it because we want to. If the chemistry is there and it’s what you want to do, why wouldn’t you? I do not feel pressured to sleep with anybody. And if I ever do, I’m out the door straight away.