While Donald Trump’s electoral antics and inauguration speech has done a lot to draw public attention to his persona, his private life has also raised some interesting questions about love, capitalism, and dating. Particularly his relation to his wife, the beautiful Melania Trump, who is now the First Lady of America and, according to some, the Nation’s first sugar wife.
With her foreign accent and trophy wife good looks, Melania seems like a reincarnation of Jackie Kennedy to many people but as a hostage to others. Many people still believe in the stereotype of the subservient Eastern European women, and after seeing Melania’s reserved demeanor in the inauguration ceremony find it easier to believe that she is a submissive wife who prefers to support her husband from the back
Thanks to the unprecedented levels of TV and online livestream coverage of the event, millions of viewers from all over the world saw Trump’s inauguration and flooded social media to share their opinions on the new First Lady, her background, and her relationship with her husband. The old battle of the sexes was refought for the billionth time, as narrow-minded men and women chose their sides based on their gender, rather than waiting to see the whole big picture.
The fact is that it’s easy for people with preconceived ideas to look at the First Couple and use their marriage to confirm their own biases. But it is much more useful to see their relationship as a representation of modern attitudes regarding marriage, and to consider whether money, beauty, and power become an asset to a loving couple or are just the weak glue that keeps them together.
Through his life Trump has never been a stranger to dating beautiful models, in part due to owning several beauty contests like Miss America and Miss Universe. But his marriage to the much younger Melania and the power difference between both spouses seems to support the idea that their relationship was born out of convenience, which would make them the United States first Sugar Daddy couple.
In the dating world, a ‘Sugar Daddy’ is usually an older man who goes out with a much younger beautiful woman, known as the ‘Sugar Baby’. Supporters of these type of matches argue that they are a mutually beneficial relation where men can enjoy the good looks and love of a younger partner, while women can enjoy a secure life with a financially stable man. But critics argue that these relationships are based on a massive power imbalance that favors men and makes women hostages of their partners’ bank accounts.
This could explain why a successful businessman like Trump, who’s always looking for a good deal, decided to marry and form a family with a woman who is 24 years his junior, but also beautiful and highly educated. Maybe he saw her racy pictures in the January 1996 edition of Max Magazine and decided that he wanted to acquire that “good”. At the same time Melania, a young 28 year old when she met Trump, might have saw in him a powerful, driven, successful man that embodied all the glamour and self-confidence of America.
In the past many First Ladies (like Jackie Kennedy and HIllary Clinton) came from powerful families with ties to political parties and business circles in the country. But given the 24 years gap that separates the Trumps and their disparity in individual income, the White House could be seeing the first Sugar Daddy couple to lead the free world.
But is the First Couple a reflection that white picket fence morality doesn’t matter anymore or that we are advocating for public openness in what we consider to be acceptable in private? After all, Sugar Daddy-type relations have existed in the past. For example, the mail-order bride phenomenon has been going on for decades, with many of its detractors describing it as glorified prostitution in spite of some noteworthy success stories.
And still with the recent declines in marriages that has led to a demographical crisis in many countries (notably in Japan and much of Europe), sugar Daddy couples might not be a bad idea after all, since it gives both parties what they’re looking for, although some may argue that a marriage should be only about love and not about convenience.
After all, women have always been attracted to successful men the same way that men are attracted to young, beautiful women. So maybe ‘Sugar Daddy’ is just the newest label used to refer to one of the oldest reproductive phenomenons observed in humans, one that is probably about as old as our own species.
For women, finding a good partner this days has become increasingly difficult thanks to the economic recession and changing social norms. Men on the other hand have become largely disenchanted with marriage due to a lack of economical and social stimulus, how easy it is to have sex out of marriage, and the influence of pro-male philosophies like the Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) and the Men Right’s Movement (MRA).
In such an insecure environment it’s easy to understand how men and women seeking to commit are looking to find a partner that offers them a stable relationship with which they can settle down. Which is why Sugar Daddy couples exhibit somewhat exaggerated traits of a typical male/female relationship, with the women being chosed for their beauty and the men for their financial stability.
Online sugar daddy sites like SeekingArrangement and SugarDaddyMeet have experienced an explosion in popularity, and many dating experts predict that the trend towards these kind of transactional relationships will continue to grow as consumerism, relaxed social norms, and economic uncertainty makes becoming a Sugar Baby an attractive solution for many women.
As for our presidential couple, only time will tell whether the Trumps will pass on history as the first Sugar Daddy couple or whether their relationship will suffer by the added extra pressure of ruling the most powerful country on earth. What we know for certain is that Sugar Daddy couples are here to stay. So whether a person lives on America, Russia, or Slovenia, borders are no longer a barrier for people looking to find their significant half in our increasingly connected world.