Seeking Arrangement.com is a straight-up business transaction site matching up ‘‘sugar daddies'' and ‘‘sugar babies.'' Of the 300,000 or so site members, about a quarter of the "daddies" are seeking men, and while there are a number of older "sugar mommies," and a range of "baby" ages, it's generally about the traditional older rich, often-married guy/hot young girl dynamic. And, as one dude says, it's "the best fishing hole I ever fished in" - with ten potential mistresses to every benefactor. For one thing, women register for free, while guys pay $44.95 a month - "and an optional $5 to ensure the site's name doesn't show up on credit-card statements. For another $1,200 a year, a sugar daddy can become a Diamond Club member, with his income and net worth verified and his profile featured at the top of the home page."

As in all such cases, after the initial distaste, one can't make any assumptions about the relationships. Transactions range from straight-up sex-and-allowance to one guy who, anonymously, just wanted to help his "sugar baby" with her tuition - in return for her keeping her grades up. Another gives his mistress money to visit her boyfriend. While some of the women want to be "spoiled" and showered with Fendi, others are strict pragmatists who take cleaning jobs on the side. Some women consider it prostitution, others hate the idea and tout their love connections. Ads range from gross to poignant, nakedly acquisitive ("immediate financial assistance needed") to kittenish and coy. As one might expect, the range of dynamics is just as broad: some couples say theirs are real emotional connections; others that it's just for money or sex. Says one "sugar baby,"

‘He pays for it, takes me shopping, we talk, laugh, go out to eat and do whatever we want to do for our days together. . . . I don't bring up mundane problems about my home life, and he does the same. . . . If I wanted someone to talk to about my life problems, I'd get a boyfriend or a therapist.''

The piece makes the obvious point that A) these relationships are as old as time and B) the internet makes them more transparent, is all. The bigger question the piece begs is, why are we so fixated on this kind of thing? Last month, Salon ran a smart article in which Rebecca Traister suggested that our - and especially the Media's - fixation on this kind of traditional, unattractive dynamic is a source of perverse comfort in uncertain times. Pepsi brings back a retro logo to give us the warm and fuzzies; the papers bring back old-school mistresses.

And of course, it's legitimately infuriating: why are we being forced to read about this tiny segment of the population at a time when women, in fact, are especially prominent in the Recession-era workforce? Why instead do we hear over and over about those looking for free rides and clinging like limpets to rich men instead of to jobs like everyone we actually know? This, to women, is offensive and sad. And maybe there's schadenfreude: obviously when the cultural We feels down, it's comforting to play Church Lady and judge: do what you want, we sniff; some of us support ourselves without selling ourselves - although that's your prerogative.

But is that all? I mean, the level of coverage is getting crazy, from our slavering over virginity-vendors to the Times breathless coverage of seemingly every oldest-profession transaction out there. Is there, somewhere, some cultural wistfulness, cloaked in judgment? As the article points out, the Internet takes all this stuff public - and in a way, takes some of the mystery out of it. It doesn't really feel all that different, in a way, from setting up any dating profile - not like the distant world of street corner prostitution and madams, which bore no resemblance to our lives. Ironically, as these stories feed our outrage, they desensitize us to the dynamic. The lurid escapism of such stories also contain a grain of "happily-ever-after" unlikely love - and there's a reason Pretty Woman, objectively predicated on a kind of horrifying premise, was a monster hit. I know I click on every one of these stories, even though they're always the same, and always depressing. What are we looking for, here? Comfort? Judgment? Escapism? Romance? Or just a little "There But For the Grace of God Go I," in these perilous times. You know what? No.

Keeping Up with Being Kept [New York Times - not online]

Earlier: Recession Casualty: Female Solidarity?

His piece starts out a little annoying: "Mistresses," he says, "is conceived, structured and run by women. I am a man who largely does as he's told (which not only reflects the reality of the rest of my life, but that of most men I know)." This women-really-run-the-world stuff is pretty tired, and it's also a way for men to curry favor with women without supporting any changes to the status quo.

Warlow goes on to say that in dramas centered around women, "there's a particular soul and strength, toughness and vulnerability that wouldn't be afforded by the presence of men." This is a little gender-essentialist, but it's true that a heroine offers the writer different opportunities than a hero, especially if that heroine is situated in a society like ours, where gender is still such a fraught issue and being a woman can be uniquely dangerous. Warlow cites The Silence of the Lambs, and it's easy to see how Clarice's isolation in a nearly all-male world of criminal investigation made that film all the more powerful and chilling.

Warlow writes,

Most men I know, even the gay ones, are obsessed with women. I think that gives us a compelling qualification to write about them. I'm sure we indulge our own fantasies, preconceptions and hang-ups. I know I do. But isn't that what writing is about? The fact that we're not women may be what gives male dramatists' writing curiosity and passion. Our perspective might not always be as insightful as that of a female writer, but it's just as valid - and hopefully just as entertaining.

Not all men I know, even the straight ones, are "obsessed with women." But it is interesting to see our gender portrayed from the outside. The compelling thing about Madame Bovary (another example Warlow cites), isn't the accuracy of Flaubert's portrayal of a dissatisfied, self-absorbed, status-obsessed woman. It's Emma Bovary as a fictional character, a fake woman written by a man and thus unlike any woman you'd ever actually meet. A fictional woman created by a man is always going to be different from one created by a woman — or from women in the flesh — just as men written by women will never match up with flesh-and-blood males. But the cool thing about fiction is that it's different from reality, and hopefully more entertaining. So stick with it, Warlow — and don't let us women tell you what to do.

When a man writes a woman [Guardian]

"Melissa Beech" is a college student from a privileged background. "I was blessed to have been raised with class, sent to the best schools, and taught to be well read, well spoken and well traveled." Yet the world of higher learning proves a rude awakening!

But when I got to college, I spent the first two years straining for financial independence. I tried working, but in retail, surrounded by temptation all day, I spent more than I made. Waiting tables was exhausting. I went on several job interviews, but all of the internships were unpaid. As my years in college wore on it was evident that the job market was sliding into decline. When the economic climate grew worse, my friends panicked that their resumes and high GPAs wouldn’t be enough to give them a leg up on the competition, and my goal became getting my foot in the door before everyone else.

What's a girl to do? She goes on an interview and the guy - "in his early thirties, single and successful" -offers her a job as his mistress instead. Turns out the dude's in this businesslike world of mistresses and sugar-daddies where, as in 18th century London, these arrangements are understood.

There’s even a social networking website that connects sugar daddies and their beneficiaries. This man told me about it: SeekingArrangement.com. He had been referred to it by a close friend who was a hedge fund manager. At his urging, I logged onto the site and looked at his profile. It didn’t have a picture, for privacy reasons. But it did contain information: his marital status (single), the industry he worked in (media and communications), and—a key element—his salary (seven figures). I was encouraged by the fact that the website vets its clients and offers only Certified Sugar Daddies, whose tax returns have been carefully examined so you know that you’re getting. I also learned that he was attracted to bright, smart women—he wasn’t in the market for the dumb bombshell. His profile said he wanted more of “a Jackie Kennedy than a Marilyn Monroe.” I fit the type.

Basically, she'll be his girlfriend, and he'll support her. She asks that they wait to get to know each other before sleeping together; he accedes.

As for the allowance, he doesn’t just cut me a check. He simply ensures that I need never worry about expenses. I rent a $1,600 apartment in the city, for which he pays the rent in full. I carry an AmEx Black card in both our names, and use it for things like shopping, spa trips, manicures, and tanning; the bill goes to him. And the company car I drive costs him around $700 a month for the lease and the insurance. I’ve even managed to build up a little nest egg over the past year – at his insistence – putting away around $12,000. All in all, he probably spends in the ballpark of $5,000 a month on my lifestyle.

It seems hard to believe that this scenario could actually inspire moral outrage, even from those who consider it to be prostitution: neither party is married, and the arrangement is, as she says, mutually beneficial. (And if she and her benefactor are suffering from the now-official recession — as many mistresses apparently are — she gives no indication.) More than anything, it seems odd and unsatisfying — a bloodless compromise between a relationship and a business transaction. But whatever one thinks about her choices, her justifications ring false to any young woman who's been strapped for cash in college - which is to say, most of us. Retail tempted her? Waitressing exhausted her? Please. These easy rationales lose her a lot of sympathy pretty quickly. And her defensive claims that although "he didn’t hire me for the internship position, but because of him I have had several internships at well-known PR companies, and have plenty of networking opportunities, shoring up my future prospects for when I graduate this spring" don't win much sympathy, either. If this was all some plan to bolster her resume, it seems like there are more direct ways - and this can't bring much comfort to the qualified young women who failed to obtain the same jobs because, while they may have been restrained enough to work a retail job, they didn't have the prescience to nab a sugar daddy. If she wants to be some emotionally disconnected rich guy's mistress, it's her prerogative - it's not like couples haven't been doing this for centuries - but attempting to justify it on professional grounds is an insult to the rest of us.

My Sugar Daddy [Daily Beast]

Earlier: Girly Golddiggers Are Reeling From The Recession