"Sugar Baby: n. Slang. A young person who gives intimacy or companionship to an older man or woman in exchange for expensive gifts."

Welcome to SeekingArrangement, the modern website designed for the aspiring gold-diggers of the world. Or, if one wishes to be more direct, the concubine-networking website. SeekingArrangement differs from the infidelity-facilitating AshleyMadison site by specializing in brokering money for sex relationships. Think of it as an on-line pimp.

Now, the Scoreboard wants to make it clear that SeekingArangement is much better and nicer than a real pimp. It doesn't beat up its women, presumably. It doesn't take a percentage of its women's bounty for selling her sexual favors. But it still is doing the job of a pimp, though in a slick and well-packaged form.

Well, some may ask (and given the frenzied and indignant defenses of AshleyMadison still regularly arriving in the Scoreboard's mailbox, some certainly will), so what? What's the matter with two people agreeing to a relationship in which one provides security, luxuries and cash, while the other provides sex? It may resemble prostitution, but it eliminates most of the objections to that practice. These are long-term relationships, not quickies in cheap motel rooms. They don't pose the same health dangers to women, at least no physical health dangers. It is not necessarily a route to infidelity, and the absence of that pesky pimp is certainly a plus. What, in short, is unethical about this site?

We have to be careful, because the "Ick Factor" in SeekingArrangement (and its sister site, SeekingMillionaire---and no, I am not making this up!) is high, especially for the romantics among us who really believe that society benefits from intimate relationships based on love, respect and trust rather than a checkbook. But if both parties perceive benefits from the Sugar Daddy-Sugar Baby relationship and nobody is harmed, it can't be wrong, can it?

It can. Ethics involves deciding on conduct that is good for society, not just individuals in that society. HBO libertarian scold (he was once a comedian!) Bill Maher thinks that drugs should be legalized because he, a millionaire celebrity of above average intelligence, can afford them and use them in moderation without any ill effects. Never mind that the most vulnerable Americans would not be able to do likewise: although drugs are illegal to protect society from the damage it would suffer from drug-users who are nothing like Bill Maher, Maher is indignant that he has to obey the law too. Well, too bad, Bill. Stoned school children and scores of addicted citizens is too big a price to pay so you and your celebrity friends can have swinging parties. And our culture decided long ago that reducing marriage to a financial arrangement undermined the status of women, supported gender inequality, and discouraged stable family units. The Sugar Daddy-Sugar Baby life style might be great for an Anna Nicole Smith and her senile tycoon, but it still represents a step backward for civilization. SeekingArrangement is an argument for taking that backward step, and as such is an attempt to replace love with cynicism, and intimacy with commerce.

Not surprisingly, the rhetoric on the site is not exactly ethically literate. The Scoreboard's reactions are in brackets and bold:

It's also natural for younger women to seek out men who are successful, specifically those who have the means of providing a woman with comforts and luxuries. [ Natural, that is, for jaded pragmatists who are psychically wounded and afraid of emotional commitment. What is natural is for women to seek out men they are actually attracted to.]

While some society may have laid down a set of unsaid rules about extra-marital affairs …[ Such "unsaid rules" (perhaps they mean "unwritten"?) are known as morals, ethics, and values.],

who is to say what is "right" or "wrong"? [ The classic and intellectually bankrupt argument of the amoral and non ethical. WE are to say; you are to say; everybody is to say...because societies must reach some consensus on what constitutes right and wrong. We all make our cases, pay attention, and then settle on the kind of conduct we think will lead to a world worth living in.]

In the past, kings, shahs and emperors have had multiple lovers or concubines. [The "Everybody Does It" fallacy with an especially moronic twist: "Kings, shahs and emperors did it!" Kings, shahs and emperors also tortured their political enemies, enslaved religious and racial minorities, and lived like kings, shas and emperors while their people lived in poverty. SeekingArrangement sure has interesting role models. It also seems to approve of harems.]

It is human instinct to be attracted to beauty, as it is to be attracted to wealth and power. Remember, that life is short and you only live once... so, why not explore what it may be like to find an ideal arrangement today? [Ah, yes…the "life is short so why be responsible or care about anyone but yourself" theory. Also popular with Henry the Eighth, the Sha of Iran, Caligula, and Mack the Knife.]

Ultimately, the Scoreboard must conclude that any website designed to help women follow in the footsteps of Anna Nicole Smith is a really bad idea. Anna Nicole got her Sugar Daddy, and then spent the rest of her life besotted and in litigation, giving birth to a newborn infant of dubious parentage and dying unmarried before she was 40. Her life story should be featured on the SeekingArrangement home page. The Sugar Baby lifestyle sure worked out well for her, didn't it?