Sugarbabe by Holly Hill

I’m not sure what compelled me to pick up Holly Hill’s book Sugarbabe, like the sugary treat it evokes, I felt it may be a little hollow on literary calories. However when I gleefully succumbed, I ended up gorging and read it all in one day. Sugarbabe is the true story of one women’s search for a Sugar Daddy, it details the many delights and pitfalls of both finding and having one. Author Holly Hill lives the very picture of the Sex and the City lifestyle, in the city of Sydney. She has a beautiful apartment in Darlinghurst, a gaggle of gay friends, a party lifestyle and a professional job. When a married prince charming sweeps her off her feet and puts her on the ‘mistress’ plan (a generous allowance is return for 24/7 access), life seems even sweeter. But like all sugar high’s she comes crashing down when her lover leaves her with little notice and even less cash. Disillusioned with both love and work, she decides to maintain her champagne lifestyle by engaging a Sugar Daddy.

The book begins as a voyeuristic and slightly trashy description of her interviews and the trials of her Sugar Daddy’s. However it eventually gathers momentum and delves into some interesting and arresting themes. As most of her Daddy’s are married, the subject of marriage and male infidelity frames the book. What she offers is a perspective on relationships and cheating as seen from the other side. We become privy to the crushing physical and emotional isolation, that often sends men running into an affair. However, Hill does move beyond the cliché to successfully showcases a wide variety of the male species from an open stance. We see the serial good time cheater, the rebuffed cheater, the dominant controlling cheater, and the pathetic cheaters. By being prepared to expose herself, Hill brings to the surface a side of relationships and men not easily discussed.

The main premise of her book is that sex is a physical need, like breathing or eating. She argues that expecting a man to deny his biological instincts, is on par with refusing his basic needs. Where men see sex as physical, women attach sex with love. Thus for men cheating is a physical act and for women an emotional one. The problem she claims is not so much in the cheating itself but the lying and deceit that surrounds the act. What Hill suggests is that relationships could break out of their conventional bounds and operate under much more negotiated terms. Although we have seen this happen in other areas of marriage such as money, work and children. The issues surrounding sex seemed to have remained at a firm stance.

Having been on the receiving end of a cheating lover and having cheated myself. I have to honestly say that I think issue is much more complicated than the physical act or biological needs. I disagree that men cheat purely out of physical yearning. In my naïve youth I dated a serial cheater, who used his conquests to build his fragile self worth. I have also known women who cheat in order to fulfill the physical needs their partners can’t. For me what made Hill’s book interesting was her risk in itself, the willingness and bravery to pursue a profession often harshly judged. I admired her openness in penning a story that does not always flatter her character, and her willingness to refuse to judge others or herself. Her story illustrates the limiting bonds that society can impose, and encourages a pioneering spirit in questioning those boundaries. Although I wouldn’t classify this book as a must read. I have to admit that the questions and issues it raised stayed with me for sometime and made me re-examine some of my own ideas and beliefs about relationships and sex.