Sugar Relationships: Sex, Affection and Consumption in South Africa and Brazil

In this article, I analyze the values attributed to affective-sexual relationships in South Africa, known as sugar relationships, which are established through the mediation of websites and applications. It is an intergenerational arrangement, in which men of more resources, known as sugar daddies or blessers, engage in affective-sexual-material exchanges with younger women. I present an overview of how sugar relationships have been depicted in mainstream media alongside with efforts by the local academic production to challenge the morality regimes that inform the public’s dispositions concerning these arrangements. In searching for the interconnections between Brazil and South Africa, I point to the ways according to which Brazilian academic production has been dealing with similar debates and contexts.

Keywords:
Sexuality; South Africa; Social Markers of Difference; Digital Media; Sexual Economies