Sugar on Top: Confessions of a 43-Year-Old Sugar Baby

Introduction: I Was a 43-Year-Old Sugar Baby

Leonardo DiCaprio, 47, and girlfriend Camila Monroe, 25, recently hit a "rough patch" and called it quits. Some are saying that "rough patch" was Monroe's age. DiCaprio is famous for breaking up with his girlfriends as soon as they hit the quarter-century mark.

DiCaprio's taste in women may be suspect but it isn't bizarre. Throughout time, older men have been known to prefer younger women. In the words of Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused: "I get older, they stay the same age."

But is it really true that men prefer women years younger than them?

After my divorce, I became a 43-year-old sugar baby. I made a profile on a popular sugar-dating website and my inbox was suddenly flooded with requests to meet. I'm not proud that I lied about my age. I said I was 35 in my profile but I wasn't sure that I could even sugar date at 43.

Even doing it at 35 seemed like a stretch. Wasn't the age of the typical sugar baby more like 22?

Men didn't care that I was 35 though. Some didn't care when I was honest that I was 43. I learned hotness had no age. I was still desirable, which made me feel great after my unhappy marriage that lacked intimacy.

My sugar daddies appreciated that I had been married before and was a mom. We had something to talk about as they recounted their marital problems and underlined their desires to be good dads. I was mature and well-spoken, a great dinner companion. I was even older than one of my sugar daddies.

But obviously, every experience wasn't rosy. I didn't reveal my age to one of my sugar daddies, and he lectured me on how women lose their value as they get older. He didn't know he was paying a 43-year-old woman for a date.

I also met men who seemed to be sugar dating just to inflate their egos. They wanted to throw around their money and feel like alphas. They were bitter about women. I believe they wanted to date younger women to feel in control.

They wanted to be selfish in the bedroom and protect their financial portfolios by dating younger women they never planned to commit to.

Maybe this is the real reason men prefer to date younger women.

But had they met me when I was in my early 20s, I doubt they would have liked me. I felt more sexually free at an older age. I was no longer racked with guilt about exploring my sexuality. I didn't care if a relationship was based on sex.

I wanted pleasure and had disabused myself of the concept that I was being used if I slept with a man without a commitment. I now saw men as in service to my pleasure.

Still, this doesn't mean I would recommend sugar dating to every woman. I started sugar dating with pie-in-the-sky fantasies about how exciting it would be. I had some good experiences, and yes, I earned the money I needed to survive as a single mother of two young children after my divorce.

I felt sexy and alive again. I explored my sexuality and found pleasure and excitement. In this sense, you could say that I made sugar dating into a feminist act.

And yet, I can't deny that many aspects of sugar dating are sexist. The practice perpetuates old stereotypes that women can only get ahead with their looks and bodies. They need men to mentor them and pay their bills. (Many sugar daddies I met said they saw themselves as "mentors.") Being judged on your looks and expected to satisfy your sugar daddy's sexual needs isn't exactly "empowering."

And still, for a short time, sugar dating was fun for me. Men didn't care that I was an "older woman." They liked me better because I wasn't an "insecure 25-year-old" (their words).

Some older men may swear by younger women, seducing them at 20 and giving them the boot at 25, like DiCaprio. But I found many men could see the benefits of dating a "woman of a certain age," who was sure of herself.

This is the true story of my experience as a 43-year-old sugar baby.