But the affair, dubbed sugar dating in the 2010s, is considered consensual. The sugar baby, as the younger counterpart is sometimes called, gets gifts, trips, play money, and a plush lifestyle. The sugar daddy, no longer at his peak, gets the thrill of youth and beauty from this exchange. It’s not a relationship built on love, exactly. Put them together and you get the sugar daddy, that species of older man looking for sexual gratification in a younger partner, which he achieves through his wealth and influence. The second is daddy, a colloquial term for a man of some age-and power-also found in the 19th century. The first is sugar, slang for “money” and “expensive gifts” reaching back to the 19th century. There are two ingredients to sugar daddy.
