The British Nigerian writer Chidera Eggerue, more popularly known as “The Slumflower”, has gone viral many times over the last decade for her contentious dating advice for straight people. She recommends a form of dating that openly embraces the subterranean financial reality that has underpinned a lot of traditional dating – the idea that the man pays and the woman has everything paid for.
Dating, to her, is a financial exchange. Men must have “expenses allocated”. Dating a poor man is a waste of time for a woman and poor men wishing to date are “problematic because…[they] have nothing to offer a woman that she can’t do for herself”. A lot of what she recommends (dating older wealthy men, not dating for love) noticeably veers into sex work territory, and her advice is admittedly great if you are looking to secure a sugar daddy.
This is a sentiment that has proliferated through popular culture for some time now. The Miami rap duo The City Girls even had a song with Yo Gotti called “Broke N––” that states repeatedly that “broke n–– don’t deserve no pussy”, a line that led to one of my favourite tweets of all time from June 2020 from @kev_the_hope: “City Girls music so mean. Like I don’t deserve no pussy cause I’m financially unstable? Like no pussy at all?”
Suggested Reading
The strange death of sex in the movies
Both the phrase and the blending of sex work advice into dating advice can be traced back much earlier to fellow Miami group “Taz’s Angels”. Taz’s Angels was – outwardly – a group of social media influencers before the word influencers existed, a revolving cast of hot women of different ethnicities who lived together in a mansion and built a following and a huge platform via Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram by recording their daily lives.
Taz’s Angels helped launch the careers of a number of extremely successful influencers such as Demi Rose and Chantel Jeffries back in the early 2010s and were responsible for hashtags such as #BBLU (Bad Bitches Link Up) and #broken*****dontdeservepussy, the former of which I used to tag my Instagram photos with in 2014.
They were directly inspirational to a young prostitute like me, and impacted the culture more widely and subtly through hanging out with, partying with or dating celebrities such as Kylie Jenner, Justin Bieber and Tyga. To another working girl they were obviously escorts, and though that has been both constantly leaked, intimated by past members and hinted at by the arrest of one member, Ruby Sayed, for prostitution in Florida, it has never been explicitly and publicly confirmed.
Naturally the concept that dating is transactional already existed; there are plenty of men who feel entitled to something physical after paying for something for a woman, and women who subscribe to that belief too. I think of the viral Instagram story of a British girl explaining her attitude to dating: “If I went out… and a man is spending more than £35 on me, listen body count is going up… you owe him”.
And there are social media influencers who acknowledge that their dating advice comes from whore culture; American YouTuber Leticia Padua, otherwise known as “SheraSeven” or the “sprinkle sprinkle lady” has said she was heavily influenced by the 2014 G. L. Lambert book Ho Tactics: How to Mindfuck a Man into Spending, Spoiling and Sponsoring, which was interestingly written by a man.
What I find most fascinating about all this is that when it comes to romance in our personal lives, sex workers are not looking to use or repeat our work dynamics – the last thing we need is another client. In the 2001 film Moulin Rouge, which is based on the 1848 book Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas fils and is inspired by his own relationship with the courtesan Marie Duplessis, the worst insult the protagonist can give to his lover is suggesting she gives him her body for money not love, by throwing cash at her feet and reducing her to her profession.
Suggested Reading
When straight women become obsessed with gay men
Ex-escort and porn star T S Madison has said that every man who dates her comes to her with a preconceived notion of her as most people have already seen her “butt naked” on the internet. I myself have written about how people always fuck me in the shadow of my work, unable to separate me from it and saying things like “I fucked you gently to show I respect you, unlike your clients”.
I find it ironic that some civilian women are wanting to replicate a sex worker/client dynamic in dating when so many sex workers just want someone to treat them like a normal person, untarred by work. Of course if you want to use sex worker tactics such as freestyling (waiting around in bars or hotels to be picked up by an affluent man) in your dating life, go ahead.
Just don’t kid yourself that it’s not a sex worker tactic and know that it is likely to generate a power dynamic between you and your partner which may not be conducive to a healthy relationship. As @solarystix said on X: “Your boyfriend is not a trick!” In dating I want to treat and be treated like an equal, not seen as pitiable or someone to be rescued, or a prize to be won.
