SUGAR, SPICE, AND EVOLUTIONARY MOTIVATION: AN ANALYSIS OF SUGAR RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH SEXUAL STRATEGIES THEORY

Sugar relationships, an increasingly popular form of transactional relationship, display indications of relevance to evolved mating strategies yet are rarely researched in evolutionary anthropology. In the current study, motivations, benefits, and preferences for sugar relationships are explored in relation to constructs of individual variation and compared with short- and long-term relationships. Motivation and benefit composite variables were constructed by factor analysis, and mate preferences were collected through a budget allocation task; then, each was analyzed for similarities across relationship contexts (sugar, short-term, and long-term) and moderations caused by variables of individual variation (sociosexual orientation, mate value, dating satisfaction level, etc.). Whereas sugar daddies and sugar babies displayed motivations and benefits closer to short-term relationships on average, some constructs of individual variation moderated motivations and benefits closer to long-term relationships. Mate preferences were less influenced by suspected moderating variables, however, female sugar babies preferred a characteristic profile of sugar partners similar to that of long-term partners, while sugar daddies and male sugar babies preferred sugar partners that resembled a combination of short and long-term partners. These findings suggest that individuals in sugar relationships employ mixed mating strategies to identify ideal sugar partners and construct sugar relationships with preferable dynamics.