Sugaring, Circles and Psychology

I am a clinical psychologist in private practice in downtown Los Angeles. I do couples and individual therapy. Most of the people coming for individual psychotherapy are having anxiety- or trauma-related problems, mostly abuse and sexual assault. Over time, I noticed that the percentage women coming through my door, who work as escorts – or otherwise identify as sugaring – keeps increasing. Although less than 50% of the women who come to see me work as escorts, nevertheless I wondered, why is this group increasing? And here’s what I think: Whereas non-sugaring patients don’t say to their colleagues, “Hey, I found a therapist who really gets me. He’s helped me a lot,” escorts/sugaring women only tell other women who are also living the sugar life. Why? Because non-escort women talk about their lives with all sorts of other people, not all of whom might be interested in coming to see me. But women pursuing the sugar life generally can only share about their about whole lives—be whole people— with other women doing the same thing, because only others who sugar both understand and won’t judge them using a double standard. Sugaring women not only feel safer sharing with each other, they need each other to do this being-a-whole-person with. Having to keep a big part of your life secret really works against ever feeling like you’re even occupying your own skin. Just ask anyone who has come out of the closet.

Before someone jumps to make the following point, let me say upfront what this blog is not about: I’m not writing about the psychology of all sex workers. I write about the psychology of women I have the honor to know, who enjoy and take pride in their mastery of sugarcraft/escorting, and about what we can learn from them. It is an unworthy psychologist who does not learn from his/her patients.