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Speaker 4: When the Matt Gates scandal broke in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: I was reached out to by the New York Times
Speaker 4: and by ABC twenty twenty. Those stories never came out,
Speaker 4: and those journalists don't talk to me anymore. They tout
Speaker 4: it as what's wrong with an older man giving someone money,
Speaker 4: but the reality is much more sinister.
Speaker 5: Did you see situations where either intelligence informants that type
Speaker 5: of thing, or very powerful people were entangling themselves.
Speaker 1: The website Seeking Arrangement has gotten a little bit of
Speaker 1: time in the limelight because of the controversy surrounding Matt
Speaker 1: Gates his and his failed attempt to become Attorney General.
Speaker 1: People may not know the details of this, but some
Speaker 1: of the scandal that Gates was involved in appears to
Speaker 1: begin with this website, Seeking Arrangement, which is described itself
Speaker 1: as a place for sugar daddies and sugar babies. And
Speaker 1: one of the apparently underage people that was that became
Speaker 1: involved with Gates through I guess his friend Greenberg, Joel
Speaker 1: met Joel Greenberg through this Seeking Arrangement site. So it
Speaker 1: just so happens that there's a new book out by
Speaker 1: Brooke Burick called Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge. Sexual Exploits and
Speaker 1: Secrets from Inside a Sugar Daddy Website, which we could
Speaker 1: put up here as well, which is something of a
Speaker 1: blowing of the whistle about the about the site and
Speaker 1: also a personal memoir narrative about how Brooke went from
Speaker 1: a sugar baby user of the website to it's spokesperson
Speaker 1: later to then outside critic of the organization. Brook is
Speaker 1: here to talk with us about the book, about her life,
Speaker 1: about what this this site is. Brooke, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us and apparently you're you're viewer of the
Speaker 1: show as well.
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you so much for having me. I am
Speaker 4: a counterpoints breaking points Stan. What you guys are doing
Speaker 4: which better? Honestly, I like this is this is it
Speaker 4: for me? I like your banter better a little bit more.
Speaker 4: It's like not as serious.
Speaker 1: That's Soger and Crystal.
Speaker 4: I just like love Emily so much, Like think she's
Speaker 4: my favorite. Yeah, No, I like Ryan too very much.
Speaker 4: But the discourse that you all have on this show
Speaker 4: is everything. I think people the country needs this right now.
Speaker 4: And the more people that become aware of this show
Speaker 4: and can see that they can agree with people on
Speaker 4: both sides of the aisle, I think that's really important.
Speaker 4: So like, kudos to you guys.
Speaker 1: Thank you very kind of you to say. So, let's
Speaker 1: start with Matt Gates. So I'm not sure how much
Speaker 1: you can say about this, but tell us what you
Speaker 1: can say. My understanding is that you've spoken with some
Speaker 1: people involved in that scandal, some of the girls who
Speaker 1: are now women. What do you know about the role
Speaker 1: of seeking arrangement there and what do you know about
Speaker 1: what went on there?
Speaker 4: Well, it was a couple of years ago that I
Speaker 4: was contacted and to be.
Speaker 1: Perfect affected by one of the girls.
Speaker 4: No, by an attorney. Okay, so let me just be
Speaker 4: clear that, like I don't know what happened behind closed
Speaker 4: doors with Matt Gates. I've never met Matt Gates, don't
Speaker 4: know him. I don't but I do have some personal
Speaker 4: experiences that have led me to believe certain things, and
Speaker 4: I will share those with you. So as you know,
Speaker 4: I used to work for this company, and I contacted
Speaker 4: a nonprofit called the National Center on Sexual Exploitation because
Speaker 4: I found a really interesting article they'd written that sounded
Speaker 4: like I'd written it, and it was after I'd had
Speaker 4: some other experiences with mainstream media not publishing this story,
Speaker 4: and I reached out to them, and they actually contacted
Speaker 4: me with an attorney who was representing the minor, and
Speaker 4: what he told me is that he was suing them
Speaker 4: or she was sing seeking arrangement, and Matt Gates he
Speaker 4: was suing them on her behalf. And he contacted me
Speaker 4: to ask me some questions about the mechanics of the
Speaker 4: site and how it works, and so I gave him
Speaker 4: that information. And at the same time, I was corresponding
Speaker 4: with a journalist from ABC and that journalist told me
Speaker 4: that the reason the indictment was dropped was because that
Speaker 4: girl believes that the relationship was consensual and she settled
Speaker 4: with him privately out of court, in addition to settling
Speaker 4: with seeking arrangement privately. So that's what I know, and
Speaker 4: that's led me to believe that there was something that
Speaker 4: happened that transpired. I don't know what it was. It
Speaker 4: leads me to believe that that girl was indeed underage.
Speaker 4: And I know that there are plenty of underage users
Speaker 4: on the site because it happened all the time while
Speaker 4: I was working there. But if I had to speculate
Speaker 4: on what went down in that situation, I would say
Speaker 4: that Greenberg is probably the procurer or the sex trafficker,
Speaker 4: if you will, the pimp colloquially we call them, who
Speaker 4: uses the website to find the girls to then move
Speaker 4: them to another place to have them paid for sex
Speaker 4: by any party or something to a party. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: I think there's a common misconception about like what sex
Speaker 4: trafficking is. Like we hear it a lot in the media,
Speaker 4: and people think, oh, like children immigrants being bought and sold,
Speaker 4: which does happen, But a lot of times the people
Speaker 4: who are being trafficked are actually like willing participants who
Speaker 4: believe that it's consensual and don't really realize until years later.
Speaker 4: Then then when they're looking back that they were coerced
Speaker 4: and manipulated into doing that. And if I had to guess,
Speaker 4: I would say that most men in power like oftentimes
Speaker 4: aren't users of the site. They are friends with people
Speaker 4: like Joel Greenberg, who are the ones who procure the
Speaker 4: young girls for them.
Speaker 1: And they may not know actually, right like, because if
Speaker 1: you're Joel Greenberg, you wouldn't be like, oh yeah, by
Speaker 1: the way, I used the website too, You might not know,
Speaker 1: and I think they would carry their way. It's not
Speaker 1: a difficult and Berg.
Speaker 5: You can speak to this actually as you're answering that
Speaker 5: how does it work? Like you're literally the spokesperson you
Speaker 5: were for seeking arrangements. So could you just give us
Speaker 5: a little bit of background on mechanically, like what happens,
Speaker 5: how people are contacted, how they get on the website
Speaker 5: For broad I think context as we discuss your story
Speaker 5: and people keep in mind what maybe happen with Gates.
Speaker 4: That's a super important question because the website touts itself
Speaker 4: as not being a place for prostitution and sex work. Right,
Speaker 4: They say they're a dating website, but if you are
Speaker 4: actually a user of the site, you'll learn very quickly
Speaker 4: that it is a site for buying and paying for sex,
Speaker 4: which is very confusing, especially for young people who get
Speaker 4: on the website and the marketing, the advertising. What people
Speaker 4: say is, oh, no, sugar daddies aren't paying for sex.
Speaker 4: Oh no, sugar babies aren't sex workers. But the fact
Speaker 4: is there is no difference. They are sex workers, but
Speaker 4: they are reframing it and coining it to be something different.
Speaker 1: Like what are the differences?
Speaker 4: There are no differences, That's what I'm.
Speaker 1: Social straight up, Like, well, what we.
Speaker 4: Did while I was working there, And I started working
Speaker 4: for the company when I was twenty two, so I
Speaker 4: was also very young, and I didn't really understand and
Speaker 4: the entire scheme of what was going on. It took
Speaker 4: me a long time to really unpack that because they
Speaker 4: tout it as being oh, just looking for an older
Speaker 4: guy with deep pockets, and what's so wrong with that?
Speaker 4: What's wrong with an older man giving someone money? But
Speaker 4: the reality is much more sinister. Not only are the
Speaker 4: men on the site looking to pay for sex, But
Speaker 4: there's also a lot of like fraudsters and scammers who
Speaker 4: either will say they'll pay you for sex but then
Speaker 4: don't because the victims are vulnerable and of course discredited
Speaker 4: because they were asking for it on a website that
Speaker 4: pays people for sex. But which is it. Is it
Speaker 4: a website where oh no, no, no, it's not that,
Speaker 4: or were they asking for it on the website, So
Speaker 4: it just makes it make sense, and it's very confusing,
Speaker 4: and victims are ashamed of what they've done. Because of
Speaker 4: the stigma and secrecy around sex work, people aren't willing
Speaker 4: to come forward out their experiences, which allows the predators
Speaker 4: to continue to perpetuate this. So back to your question,
Speaker 4: the way that people get on the website was when
Speaker 4: I was working there, it was through the marketing, and
Speaker 4: they've pretty much quieted their accounts. They've completely changed the website,
Speaker 4: scrubbed it from what it used to be. Probably because
Speaker 4: of this case and of other cases. They shed their skin,
Speaker 4: so to speak, over time to code as more vanilla.
Speaker 4: But the core user base knows exactly what it is
Speaker 4: and the word of mouth they know exactly what it is.
Speaker 4: So people join the site thinking it's a dating website
Speaker 4: where you can pay people for sex, right, So people
Speaker 4: come to the website of their own volition, and that
Speaker 4: has for a long time left the website not liable
Speaker 4: for the interactions between their members because of Section two thirty. Right.
Speaker 4: And I'm sure like a lot of your audience probably
Speaker 4: knows what section two thirty is, but I'll just break
Speaker 4: it down real quick. So there's this provision. It was
Speaker 4: actually written in nineteen ninety six, before anyone knew what
Speaker 4: the Internet would become and that the Internet would be
Speaker 4: like ninety percent user generated content, So it's very outdated.
Speaker 4: And it's the provision that says websites are not held
Speaker 4: criminally liable for the content that their third party users
Speaker 4: post on the website. So I'm sure you remember, like
Speaker 4: Mark Zuckerberg and back in twenty seventeen was talking to
Speaker 4: Congress about wanting to section through thirty to stay in place, right,
Speaker 4: And it.
Speaker 1: Is important to Interruptrow briefly has its merits in the
Speaker 1: sense that as this show, for instance, I read a
Speaker 1: bunch of the comments on down in the comment section
Speaker 1: on YouTube, how you learned you were seeing exactly? I
Speaker 1: don't want to be liable for the garbage that people
Speaker 1: are posting in our comments section like that. I'm not
Speaker 1: doing that, yeah now, but anyway, that's just that's the
Speaker 1: counter argument. But there's it's so layered and complicated after that,
Speaker 1: because what is is YouTube elevating some of this is
Speaker 1: Facebook elevating some stuff over other stuff, And then are
Speaker 1: they responsible for that if they're doing blah blahlah anyway,
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 4: Well it goes back to publishers of books, and the
Speaker 4: distributors of the content are not treated as the publishers
Speaker 4: of the content, which yes, which is fair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're just shipping the book.
Speaker 4: Totally fair, understandable and rightly so. And without it, the
Speaker 4: Internet wouldn't be able to be what it is, and
Speaker 4: no one would be in the common section, and we
Speaker 4: wouldn't have this wonderful discourse. So I fully understand that
Speaker 4: that's a protection that there was a yeah, of course.
Speaker 4: But when it comes to dating websites, Backpage was a
Speaker 4: huge section two thirty case. Well, yes, that is my
Speaker 4: next point. So in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, actually while
Speaker 4: I was working for the company, backpage was shut down.
Speaker 4: The founder was arrested and then on sex trafficking charges
Speaker 4: and then he committed suicide in prison. So anyway, and
Speaker 4: that was.
Speaker 1: A result of that FASTA setsa yes, So let's give
Speaker 1: us that background there.
Speaker 4: In twenty eighteen, after Backpage had been shut down or
Speaker 4: the process of a backpage being shut down, and the
Speaker 4: resulting legislation was fast ASSESSEDA. So it's the Freedom of
Speaker 4: Human Sex Trafficking Act, and it was. It's basically an
Speaker 4: amendment to the Amendments, right, So it's a provision in
Speaker 4: section two thirty now that states websites that facilitate, assist,
Speaker 4: and support sex work or sex trafficking are no longer
Speaker 4: covered by section two thirty. So Backpage was shut down.
Speaker 4: And if you're not familiar with Backpage, it was like
Speaker 4: a classified's website for sex workers. I actually first became
Speaker 4: familiar with it when I saw my cousin on it
Speaker 4: scantily clad offered at three hundred dollars an hour, and
Speaker 4: I was like WHOA. I was like, this is a thing, right, and.
Speaker 1: It's more explicit, right, And when you just said at
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars an hour, like that's putting a price
Speaker 1: tag on whereas seeking, which is now just seeking as
Speaker 1: you write in your book, they drop the word arrangement
Speaker 1: because arrangement is like, what's the arrangement on? Never mind,
Speaker 1: it's just seeking. What are you seeking? Well, never mind
Speaker 1: worry about there. It's not exploit it's not okay, this
Speaker 1: act will be three hundred dollars for this amount of time.
Speaker 1: It's more like we're going to kind of work it
Speaker 1: out on our own ish, Like, what would explain the
Speaker 1: difference is between Backpage and Seeking?
Speaker 4: Yeah, good question. Backpage was more explicit, and they had reviews,
Speaker 4: so sex worker or a John right would have reviews
Speaker 4: of their profile on the website so that someone else
Speaker 4: would know they were safe. So it was actually a
Speaker 4: safer place for sex workers. And when it was shut down,
Speaker 4: a lot of sex workers saw that as a bad
Speaker 4: thing because this was a place where they could be safe,
Speaker 4: and many of the people who were kicked off Backpage
Speaker 4: went to Seeking because the website is intentionally anonymous, which
Speaker 4: absolves predators right. But what Backpage was really doing and
Speaker 4: why they got caught was because they were coaching their
Speaker 4: members on what not to say and what not to
Speaker 4: do on the web website, which Seeking does through winks
Speaker 4: and nudges which basically are little slaps on the wrist
Speaker 4: that say, oh no, no, no, don't do that on
Speaker 4: the website, so they come back a little wiser.
Speaker 1: Back page was explicit, but not totally explicit.
Speaker 4: Sure, because they were trying to make it not seem
Speaker 4: like that on the outside.
Speaker 1: Would be like per hour, but we're not telling exactly
Speaker 1: what that.
Speaker 4: And they do that by flagging certain words and having
Speaker 4: people agree to terms and conditions things like that that
Speaker 4: basically teach them how to absolve themselves through the website,
Speaker 4: and the website counts on those nudges to make themselves
Speaker 4: not liable. So like, there's two parties that are liable, right,
Speaker 4: is the users of the website and the website itself,
Speaker 4: and the website pushes all of that blame onto the
Speaker 4: users without taking any of the accountability itself. And how
Speaker 4: did you?
Speaker 5: People should read the book for the full story, but
Speaker 5: could you just give us a quick, you know, explain
Speaker 5: of how you got involved and then ultimately became disillusioned
Speaker 5: with the experience.
Speaker 4: I was told about the website by a friend, which
Speaker 4: is usually how you're told about the website, and.
Speaker 1: I was twenty one.
Speaker 4: I was twenty one and I live in Las Vegas.
Speaker 4: I mean, being twenty one in Las Vegas, you go
Speaker 4: out a lot, you know, cute girls get paraded around
Speaker 4: like we're a commodity right in Las Vegas. So it
Speaker 4: really didn't seem that far off to me to seek
Speaker 4: out rich guys or like, oh, I'm partying partying them
Speaker 4: with them at the club all the time. Anyway, Like
Speaker 4: what's the difference? You know? And I actually joined the
Speaker 4: site because my friend told me they were doing a
Speaker 4: reality show casting, so I was like, oh, like yeah,
Speaker 4: the next kim Ka, you know, So that was really
Speaker 4: in my mind. Like so I actually did end up
Speaker 4: getting cast for the reality show, which was not a
Speaker 4: reality show at all. It was a bunch of bs,
Speaker 4: and I was coached and told to lie on behalf
Speaker 4: of the company. I was also paid for my appearance,
Speaker 4: which journalistic integrity dictates that you can't pay case studies.
Speaker 4: So what they do is they make case studies sign
Speaker 4: a contract that says they won't say they were paid.
Speaker 4: But each and every case study is coached, paid and
Speaker 4: coerced essentially and made to sign a contract that says
Speaker 4: if they don't appear that they'll be sued. So they're scared.
Speaker 4: And that changed a lot during the company. It got
Speaker 4: more and more intense the contract did between the case
Speaker 4: studies and the company.
Speaker 1: When I was what are these case studies used for?
Speaker 4: So sugar baby, sugar baby case studies essentially sex worker
Speaker 4: case studies that go on air and say they're not
Speaker 4: sex workers, and yeah, that's like in the contract is
Speaker 4: you can't say you were paid for sex, when in
Speaker 4: fact most of them certainly were. And the problem with
Speaker 4: that is that it's a bunch of lies.
Speaker 5: The sex is just downstream of the friendship and the fun.
Speaker 4: Yes, but the problem with the psychology of it is
Speaker 4: that the girls don't think they're sex workers because the
Speaker 4: marketing told them that, so they don't. They don't think
Speaker 4: they're sex workers, but they're willing to be paid for sex.
Speaker 4: And the guys, oh, no, no, I'm not a john,
Speaker 4: but i'll pay you for sex. So what the website
Speaker 4: did is is codify that idea between the two that
Speaker 4: absolves them of legal responsibility because neither one of them
Speaker 4: think they're participating in sex work, right, so are they?
Speaker 1: And what Matt Gates said in his defense was that
Speaker 1: people were mistaking his generosity to his girlfriends for paying
Speaker 1: for sex, And in reading your book, you can kind
Speaker 1: of see that, like there's a bunch of the guys
Speaker 1: that you're involved with are like buying your shoes or
Speaker 1: like watches or and here's some money. It's walking around
Speaker 1: money and to enjoy yourself. But then the sex is separate,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, obviously it's not, but like you can
Speaker 1: you can see how everybody involved rationalizes it and tells
Speaker 1: themselves that. Although from your perspective, did you tell yourself
Speaker 1: that in the beginning, or were you like, this is
Speaker 1: a way for me to make money and get shoes
Speaker 1: and stuff.
Speaker 4: That's a very good distinction because there is both on
Speaker 4: the website, right, Like at first I didn't think that's
Speaker 4: what I was getting into, and then I realized, like
Speaker 4: I was getting into that, and then I was like, okay,
Speaker 4: pay me, and then I realized quickly that that's not
Speaker 4: what I wanted. I was only paid for sex a
Speaker 4: few times, like I would say directly, and I decided
Speaker 4: that wasn't for me. And I really wanted a rich boyfriend,
Speaker 4: someone to spoil me or whatever. And I guess that
Speaker 4: does happen, but most of the time it's just people
Speaker 4: straight up paying for sex, and the defense that, oh, no,
Speaker 4: it was my girlfriend and I was being generous. That's
Speaker 4: a great defense, like it, I mean, it is, yeah,
Speaker 4: And that's not necessarily the problem I see, right, Like
Speaker 4: it's not all bad, like a broken clock is right
Speaker 4: twice a day. But that doesn't negate the fact that
Speaker 4: this website is being used to lure coerce juveniles into
Speaker 4: lives of sex work. And I've heard so many horror
Speaker 4: stories about people who are threatened by their traffickers and
Speaker 4: children who use this website because it's just a dating website.
Speaker 4: So are you over eighteen? Yes, and you can get
Speaker 4: on the website. While I was working there, there were
Speaker 4: always people that were emailing us saying, hey, my daughter's
Speaker 4: on the website, and it's hard to get them off
Speaker 4: because there's no protections in place for the users. They
Speaker 4: don't care about the users. They especially don't care about
Speaker 4: the sugar baby users because sugar babies don't pay to
Speaker 4: be on the site. Only sugar daddies pay to be
Speaker 4: on the site, so the site is geared towards sugar
Speaker 4: daddy preferences and indiscretions.
Speaker 1: What would the response be in your experience from the company.
Speaker 1: If a parent reached out and said, hey, daughter's on
Speaker 1: this thing, an underaged My underage daughter is on this thing.
Speaker 4: They would ask for her ID. But the problem with
Speaker 4: that is the site is anonymous, so.
Speaker 1: She could just open a new one.
Speaker 4: She could just open another account or use someone else's ID.
Speaker 4: A lot of people don't have pictures on the website
Speaker 4: of themselves. Most of the men don't have pay pictures
Speaker 4: at all. And that's the problem is when underage people
Speaker 4: or predators, scammers, bad actors get kicked off the site,
Speaker 4: they can just make new accounts. So it was my
Speaker 4: observation while I was working there that they stopped kicking
Speaker 4: them off because it was easier to keep track of
Speaker 4: them when they weren't kicking them off, because they could
Speaker 4: just make a new account. And especially for the sugar daddies,
Speaker 4: it was a terrible user experience to be kicked off
Speaker 4: the account and lose all your messages and have to
Speaker 4: make a new email and all of this, so they
Speaker 4: would just leave them on.
Speaker 1: You're writing the book about the allure of the toxic
Speaker 1: Prince Charming myth, and you a couple of minutes ago
Speaker 1: you were saying like you were kind of hoping to
Speaker 1: find a rich boyfriend that that would spoil you. So,
Speaker 1: like talk a little bit about how that draws people
Speaker 1: into the site.
Speaker 4: People are disillusioned with the idea that they might get saved,
Speaker 4: especially in the ecoun I mean we're in right now.
Speaker 4: People don't see a way out, and most of the
Speaker 4: girls on the website are susceptible, impoverished, vulnerable communities who
Speaker 4: truly do see that as a way out. And I'm
Speaker 4: not saying that never happens, because certainly it does. Like,
Speaker 4: certainly there are relationships where he saves you, but that's
Speaker 4: usually a myth, and most people on the website use
Speaker 4: that farce to lure in people and trick them into
Speaker 4: sex or whatever with that sort of false promise and
Speaker 4: the fact that we all kind of buy into that
Speaker 4: Prince Charming fantasy is part of the problem. And you know,
Speaker 4: social media adds to that, with people only posting their
Speaker 4: best shots and glamorous vacations of you know, rented cars
Speaker 4: and rented handbags and edited photos. Yeah, right, but people
Speaker 4: believe that. And like Crystal actually mentioned something a couple
Speaker 4: weeks ago that the online world is becoming more real
Speaker 4: than the real world. And that's exactly what's happening here,
Speaker 4: is people perceive what is real based on what's online,
Speaker 4: but then what's actually happening is so much further from
Speaker 4: that reality, but what's being perpetuated is what's online. So
Speaker 4: it's this paradox that is like just absolutely confusing, and
Speaker 4: it's happening at so many levels right now. So I mean,
Speaker 4: that's what makes this really interesting is it's a layered
Speaker 4: story that kind of reveals all these patterns that are
Speaker 4: happening in a lot of places that have to do
Speaker 4: with the anonymity of the Internet and of these demented
Speaker 4: algorithms and an AI. Right when you think about these
Speaker 4: populations of vulnerable, susceptible communities on this website that are
Speaker 4: destitute looking for money, what would happen if we fed
Speaker 4: that information to AI? How are we going to retarget
Speaker 4: these vulnerable populations? What are we going to do to
Speaker 4: those populations. It's very scary to think what the Internet
Speaker 4: has created and what it's become. Obviously there's good and bad,
Speaker 4: you know, two sides of the coin, but it's just
Speaker 4: something to consider.
Speaker 5: Well, and let me ask a really dumb question, is
Speaker 5: there good and bad to seeking arrangements? Is there are
Speaker 5: there case studies where people, do you know, sort of
Speaker 5: use this service to pull themselves up by their proverberal
Speaker 5: bootstraps and find their print charming and the website sort
Speaker 5: of facilitated the happy ending. I guess that's a little
Speaker 5: bit of a double entendre. But let's just take the
Speaker 5: devil's advocate argument there Or.
Speaker 1: Are there I'm sure you'd hear about college students who
Speaker 1: are just making money on the side, or something like
Speaker 1: do you like, what's your experience with that was at
Speaker 1: all negative? Like what's your assessment of it?
Speaker 4: I did meet many people who had good experiences. But
Speaker 4: and however, if you think about how predators work, right,
Speaker 4: if there is one good experience, if there is someone
Speaker 4: who finds Prince charming, well they get off the site, right,
Speaker 4: So that's one that's one percent. But the predators returned
Speaker 4: to the site to bait their next mark, and one
Speaker 4: predator can hit dozens, hundreds, thousands of users. There are
Speaker 4: some men who've been using this website for nearly two decades, right,
Speaker 4: they get older and the girls stay the same age.
Speaker 4: And just because there are a few cases where it
Speaker 4: does work out, it doesn't mean that a website that
Speaker 4: directly targets and praise on vulnerable populations should be allowed
Speaker 4: at all. And while I was working there, yeah, I
Speaker 4: did hear some okay stories, But ninety nine percent of
Speaker 4: the time the people who I met while I was
Speaker 4: working there that were users of the website, they had
Speaker 4: a horror story. For me. It was pretty shocking. And
Speaker 4: when I was working there, I rationalized I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: you know, they just always want to talk about the
Speaker 4: bad stuff. But as I grew to be more aware,
Speaker 4: I realized that it's actually mostly bad stuff.
Speaker 1: And it seemed like it it's set up in a
Speaker 1: way that girls and women are just it's set up
Speaker 1: to lose in this. And there was one moment in
Speaker 1: your in your book, and you can talk about this
Speaker 1: a little bit, where you quit a job because you've
Speaker 1: got a guy that you think is like now going
Speaker 1: to start paying you and you need money and you
Speaker 1: hit him up like hey I need money, and he
Speaker 1: like ghosts you for like a week, and you realize, oh,
Speaker 1: like I now I pushed too hard, which then tells
Speaker 1: women that Okay, there's an arrangement, but it's an unspoken
Speaker 1: kind of arrangement. And so if you push too hard,
Speaker 1: then the big prize that you're looking for is never
Speaker 1: going to come through, which then would allow ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of the guys there to just exploit that exactly.
Speaker 1: So how like that basically seems like the most common
Speaker 1: experience there.
Speaker 4: Is that, right, absolutely correct? Yeah, And that's what I
Speaker 4: learned through meeting many sugar babies and through my own experience,
Speaker 4: was that in order to be successful, you have to
Speaker 4: be complacent, which I think is common in lots of industries.
Speaker 4: The ones who are good little sheep are elevated, and
Speaker 4: that's what happens to sex workers as well, the ones
Speaker 4: most off. Oh yeah, sure. And yeah, the second you
Speaker 4: expose yourself as not being in love with him or
Speaker 4: maybe being a little bit too holding him accountable for
Speaker 4: his bad actions, then you don't get the money anymore.
Speaker 4: So you're taught to be subservient and have sex easily
Speaker 4: without question. And that's what young women are taught to
Speaker 4: do in our society. Right They're being fed birth control pills,
Speaker 4: telling being told that they can have casual sex and
Speaker 4: you're empowered and in my opinion.
Speaker 5: With no consequences except for empowerment.
Speaker 4: With no consequences, of course, But what I've learned is
Speaker 4: that's actually not biologically possible for women to have casual
Speaker 4: sex because of the hormones that we excrete while we're
Speaker 4: having it. And in my belief that the birth control
Speaker 4: is a way to easily control women and to get
Speaker 4: them to have sex easily without question, and the money
Speaker 4: is a way to keep them doing that. So it's
Speaker 4: really hard when you're when you're in it, and when
Speaker 4: you're don't have a lot of money, and when you're
Speaker 4: when your basic needs aren't being met, it's it's hard
Speaker 4: to say, oh, don't go after that, like, don't chase money.
Speaker 4: But the more you get older and the younger those
Speaker 4: girls look, and as you're looking back, things look much differently.
Speaker 4: And that's what I exactly try to dictate in this book.
Speaker 5: Can I just say how powerful that is for a moment.
Speaker 5: Because these websites, we don't get a lot of insight
Speaker 5: into them. They're very you know, obviously hard to penetrate
Speaker 5: the all of the layers because they're intentionally obfuscating what's
Speaker 5: going on, and you don't hear a lot of perspectives
Speaker 5: from people like yourself, who have come from one side
Speaker 5: and have said you were literally the spokesperson like that
Speaker 5: is to go from one to the other based on
Speaker 5: your own experience and being honest with yourself and talking
Speaker 5: about you know, I don't suspect that you're some like
Speaker 5: evangelical Christian moralizer, but to come to that perspective, I
Speaker 5: think on the sexual revolution and some of these technologies,
Speaker 5: having you know, the double edged sword of something like
Speaker 5: birth control, I just think that's really really powerful, and
Speaker 5: it's probably.
Speaker 4: Not easy to make that case in media.
Speaker 5: So I don't know what your experience has been. Like
Speaker 5: I was curious of actually going to ask you about
Speaker 5: if I went back. I went back and looked at
Speaker 5: some of the media coverage of seeking arrangements, and there
Speaker 5: are some stories that are like almost glamorizing it, and
Speaker 5: you were facing the media.
Speaker 1: I pitched some of those stories.
Speaker 5: You may have, yes, So did you find I mean,
Speaker 5: I remember ABC did this kind of glamorous look at
Speaker 5: only fans a couple of years ago. It was like
Speaker 5: an episode of twenty t twenty I think, and I
Speaker 5: remember just being like the only negative They spent like
Speaker 5: a couple minutes on people potentially being subjected to violence
Speaker 5: or something like that. I was like, nothing about the owners.
Speaker 5: It was a lot about empowerment and nothing really about
Speaker 5: the dark side of the business.
Speaker 4: Did you find the media to be.
Speaker 5: Kind of credulous when you sort of fed them the
Speaker 5: feminist line or the sort of line about empowerment.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, And like you said, we don't get a
Speaker 4: lot of insight into this, right, so media would use
Speaker 4: it for sweeps as a clickbait article. And when media
Speaker 4: does cover the website, or did cover the website, because
Speaker 4: the coverage has kind of subsided, they lend credence to
Speaker 4: the fact that it's not an illegal website, right because
Speaker 4: if it was illegal, then it wouldn't be around and
Speaker 4: the media wouldn't be covering it. So it basically solidifies
Speaker 4: the idea in these young girls' heads that oh, it's
Speaker 4: not that, because if it was, then what it on
Speaker 4: twenty twenty? So it's very confusing. And yes, the realizations
Speaker 4: I came to about feminism and third wave feminism particularly
Speaker 4: that kind of failed us a bit. They are from
Speaker 4: my own experiences, and you know, I'm sure some people
Speaker 4: do feel as though they're empowered or whatever, But what
Speaker 4: I found was that birth control made me crazy and
Speaker 4: it not uncommon, and it distorted my perception of what
Speaker 4: things really were. And once I got off of it,
Speaker 4: I was a very different person. And while I was
Speaker 4: working there, yeah, we were spoon feeding these narratives to media,
Speaker 4: and the fact that the media is covering them made
Speaker 4: me continue to do it. But also they pay people
Speaker 4: so much at the company, Like I didn't come from money,
Speaker 4: I was being paid more. There was more money than
Speaker 4: I'd ever seen in my life. So when you stay quiet,
Speaker 4: you get more money, and so it was very hard
Speaker 4: to break that. And that's what happens to sex workers too.
Speaker 5: Right, And what kind of man are you talking about,
Speaker 5: by the way, Like it's it has to be. I
Speaker 5: mean you're in Vegas and the money that's just in
Speaker 5: Vegas alone is astronomical.
Speaker 4: Do you mean how much did I make at the company? Well,
Speaker 4: just like, what.
Speaker 5: Does it look like when somebody who comes from a
Speaker 5: background of not having a lot of money gets on
Speaker 5: the website and can probably I would assume suddenly be
Speaker 5: living a very very different lifestyle.
Speaker 4: I mean, there is lots of money, it just depends
Speaker 4: like some guys paid two hundred dollars, some guys will
Speaker 4: give you two thousand dollars. It really just depends. But
Speaker 4: I mean, by the law of supply and demand, there
Speaker 4: are not enough sugar daddies to go around there. The
Speaker 4: expendable income of these men simply does not exist. But
Speaker 4: they use what the marketing that's seeking teas up and
Speaker 4: they just go in there and they say, oh, no, no,
Speaker 4: I'm going to take you to Aruba. I'm going to
Speaker 4: do this, I'm going to do that. But the reality
Speaker 4: is they're not going to. And I'm not saying that
Speaker 4: men don't do that off the website, but a website
Speaker 4: like this, the particularly praise on them. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: just it's criminal, and it's actually a criminal BYFOSTA but
Speaker 4: for some reason and it's not being prosecuted.
Speaker 1: Are there any through lines on the men here or
Speaker 1: is it just basically all men that you would that
Speaker 1: you would encounter using this site?
Speaker 4: Oh? I mean there were like sugar mommies on there,
Speaker 4: like a few like No, I don't know.
Speaker 1: What I mean is like the different kinds of men, Like,
Speaker 1: were they any characteristics of men that make them more
Speaker 1: likely to be on this this kind of site or
Speaker 1: in your experience like the men that you meet there
Speaker 1: are actually just the same as all men that you
Speaker 1: meet in the real world.
Speaker 4: No, they're not the same. If a man has been
Speaker 4: on seeking arrangement or has paid for sex and is
Speaker 4: not working on himself, he's not the girl for you, honey.
Speaker 4: Like I promise, these men are missing something in their lives,
Speaker 4: be it emotional maturity, intimacy. Most of the men on
Speaker 4: the website are married, so they're not receiving what they
Speaker 4: want from their wife. Maybe she's had a few kids
Speaker 4: and he doesn't find her attractive anymore, or whatever it
Speaker 4: may be. But no, the men on the site are
Speaker 4: not good guys. They do not come to the website
Speaker 4: because they're just good philanthropic guys. That's not how it works.
Speaker 4: And I think the prince charming fantasy is like rooted
Speaker 4: in our culture, so we're taught to believe it.
Speaker 1: Pretty Woman, the movie Pretty Woman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Pretty Woman pipe dream. Yes, lots of sex
Speaker 4: workers think that's going to happen. But I just don't
Speaker 4: think that Richard Gear's character in that movie is such
Speaker 4: a good guy if he really has to pay a
Speaker 4: sex worker, Because think about it, like, a real good
Speaker 4: rich guy has plenty of options. He doesn't need to
Speaker 4: go to a site like this, So it just it
Speaker 4: doesn't make sense to me. It begs the question why
Speaker 4: did you come to that website in the first place.
Speaker 5: Can I actually ask about the term sex work? Because
Speaker 5: I have mixed feelings on it myself. On the one hand,
Speaker 5: it's an oxymoron that you know, or I think it
Speaker 5: should be culturally considered an oxymoron. On the other hand,
Speaker 5: there's something powerful about conflating sex and work and sort
Speaker 5: of telling in and of itself. But I know a
Speaker 5: lot of people, especially in the right, are very uncomfortable
Speaker 5: with it because they think it normalizes exploitation, that work
Speaker 5: and exploitation are necessarily different. So when you are thinking
Speaker 5: about that, and this gets to the question about whether
Speaker 5: it's possible to do quote unquote sex work ethically, how
Speaker 5: do you think about that term yourself.
Speaker 4: I use the term because prostitution has this like negative connotation,
Speaker 4: and that people in the industry prefer the term sex work.
Speaker 4: And it's also all encompassing, so sex work isn't just
Speaker 4: having sex for money, it's actually sexual services as well.
Speaker 4: So only fans, models, porn stars, anyone who is doing
Speaker 4: sex acts or sexual services and then receiving money for that.
Speaker 4: It sort of encompasses everyone. And I mean as far
Speaker 4: as porn and stuff like that goes like, yeah, it's
Speaker 4: a very damaging industry. And as far as like do
Speaker 4: I think sex work should be legal in terms of
Speaker 4: like prostitutes or sex workers? I mean, I think people
Speaker 4: should make their own decisions. That's why I wrote the book,
Speaker 4: because I want them to make their decisions after reading
Speaker 4: my book with more context that you don't hear from
Speaker 4: the media's we just talked with more context exactly. I
Speaker 4: would not wish sex work on my worst frenemy. It's
Speaker 4: the most haunting and horrifying money you will ever make.
Speaker 4: And I worked for seeking arrangement, so I can tell
Speaker 4: you that. But it's hard to explain that to a
Speaker 4: young girl who has no money and she sees this
Speaker 4: website where she thinks she can make easy money with
Speaker 4: her body and what's the big deal? Well, hand her
Speaker 4: my book please, I'll tell you what the big deal is.
Speaker 1: And you had a line in here that I thought
Speaker 1: was quite profound about the money that you eventually were making,
Speaker 1: but professionally as a employee rather than through the sex work,
Speaker 1: And so you talk about the first transatlantic flight that
Speaker 1: you ever took, and you get booked in a business
Speaker 1: class and you write, I recline the seat into a bed,
Speaker 1: just like I've seen in the movies. It feels like
Speaker 1: I'm scratching the surf of stardom. I resist taking Instagram
Speaker 1: photos and just soak it in the sparkling wine, greeting,
Speaker 1: the zippered bag with an eyemask and socks and the
Speaker 1: tiny cup of warm nuts. This is the luxury a
Speaker 1: sugar baby should experience. And I didn't need to sell
Speaker 1: my body, just my soul. That last part of that
Speaker 1: line really struck me because it's because it goes to
Speaker 1: the way that everybody's selling something to get to that place.
Speaker 1: Because can you talk a little bit about that evolution
Speaker 1: that you went through.
Speaker 4: I mean, like I mentioned earlier, people who are complicit
Speaker 4: and who are willing to sell their souls are the
Speaker 4: ones who are elevated and the ones who get business
Speaker 4: class paid for by the traffickers. Because I was complicit,
Speaker 4: and I think they elevated me because I was a
Speaker 4: sugar baby and because I was okay with selling my body.
Speaker 4: So that's why they chose me, and I think that
Speaker 4: happens at many levels. I think it's happening in celebrity
Speaker 4: right now now as we're learning, you know, many of
Speaker 4: these child stars were preyed upon, you know, and that's
Speaker 4: why they were elevated, and then they turn around and
Speaker 4: prey on other people. And that's exactly what happened to me.
Speaker 4: Is I was told a young age that this was okay,
Speaker 4: and then as I got older, I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is okay, Like this is what people do. I
Speaker 4: was told this by people who were older than me,
Speaker 4: and now I'm older and now it's okay. But the
Speaker 4: more I became an adult and I had my own
Speaker 4: coming of age working there, I started when I was
Speaker 4: twenty two, I left when I was twenty seven, and
Speaker 4: you really start to see things differently, and those girls
Speaker 4: start to look so much younger, and you realize that
Speaker 4: you can't let them sell their souls, like we need
Speaker 4: to protect our children from this. And I know it's
Speaker 4: an awkward conversation to have with your kids, but the
Speaker 4: fact that we're not having that conversation is why they're
Speaker 4: being lured to this website in the first place.
Speaker 1: And maybe Emily's too young to have had this experience.
Speaker 1: But like when I go to a college campus now
Speaker 1: and look around, like, wow, these are kids. They look
Speaker 1: so young, And I think about myself when I was
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen, I didn't think of myself as young, just
Speaker 1: getting thought. I thought it was yeah, I thought I
Speaker 1: was just as big as everybody else.
Speaker 5: Being Irish.
Speaker 1: But I was just a kid. And now it's so
Speaker 1: clear to me when I look around a college campus.
Speaker 1: So how did you get to that place? Was it
Speaker 1: just slowly day by day or was there was there
Speaker 1: a moment? Although you talk about getting laid off, so
Speaker 1: in some ways, after this legislation was passed, the website
Speaker 1: thinks it's going under. You guys get laid off, So
Speaker 1: in some ways the decision was made for you. How
Speaker 1: did you then, like what was your own moral evolution?
Speaker 4: Like I wanted to leave the company for a long time.
Speaker 4: I was already looking for other jobs, but they were
Speaker 4: paying me like six figures and I had no skills,
Speaker 4: so I couldn't find another high paying job. And I
Speaker 4: had already set myself up for an expensive life because
Speaker 4: I was young. And that's what you do when you're young,
Speaker 4: and you make a bunch of you spend it. So
Speaker 4: my evolution actually came after I worked for the company
Speaker 4: and after I was laid off. When the Matt Gates
Speaker 4: scandal broke in twenty twenty one, I was reached out
Speaker 4: to by The New York Times and by ABC twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: who flew me out. ABC flew me out to New
Speaker 4: York put me up, had a day of production buzzing
Speaker 4: around me back at the beginning of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: and I told them my whole story, and I felt
Speaker 4: very seen by them, and by the New York Times,
Speaker 4: felt very seen. I thought that these big conglomerates, these
Speaker 4: hard hitting news pieces would really expose the website. And
Speaker 4: I felt like the journalists really understood me, and they
Speaker 4: knew that this website was a smoke and mirrors show
Speaker 4: for what's truly going on, which is like victimization and
Speaker 4: sex trafficking and mass and you know, those stories never
Speaker 4: came out, and those journalists don't talk to me anymore.
Speaker 4: And why do you think that is? Now? You're asking
Speaker 4: the right questions, like I don't know, but I you know,
Speaker 4: four years ago, back then, I was a normy reading
Speaker 4: the New York Times and watching ABC and thinking I
Speaker 4: was well informed, and it was through my own personal
Speaker 4: experiences that I began to distrust mainstream media. And actually
Speaker 4: that's how I found breaking points. I was talking to
Speaker 4: a guy and telling him about my distrust and he
Speaker 4: was like, you remind me of Crystal Ball many such cases. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And I was like, who's that? And now I'm flattered.
Speaker 4: But then I was like who is this? I was
Speaker 4: like what is this? Like what are they talking about?
Speaker 4: Like why? Why have I never heard of this before?
Speaker 4: And that's what pushed me to find independent media and
Speaker 4: independent journalism and become so obsessed with you guys. I
Speaker 4: love the show. And I actually ended up finding Whitney Webb,
Speaker 4: who is the author of One Nation Under Blackmail. She
Speaker 4: wrote a two volume book about Jeffrey Epstein's financial crimes
Speaker 4: and then his sex crimes later on. And I was
Speaker 4: trying to find a publisher at the time, and lots
Speaker 4: of the big agencies would nibble, but no bites. No
Speaker 4: one was interested in this. And I wrote a badass
Speaker 4: book proposal, so I knew there was money to be
Speaker 4: made and I couldn't get anyone to take it up.
Speaker 4: But I'm just like, what's going on? And then I
Speaker 4: heard Whitney Webb talk about her publisher and she's like,
Speaker 4: this is a guy who publishes books that people are
Speaker 4: scared to publish, and I was like, I need to
Speaker 4: talk to that guy. And that's my publisher trying day.
Speaker 4: So I'm very appreciative of them taking a chance on me.
Speaker 4: I think it's going to pay off. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: if there's a Normy in your life that is worshiping
Speaker 4: ABC and The New York Times, send this segment to them.
Speaker 4: They need to know that these mainstream organizations do not
Speaker 4: have you in their thoughts or their prayers. Your best
Speaker 4: interest or public interest is not of their concern. They
Speaker 4: care about cornflakes and ozebic and politicians and lobbyists. That's
Speaker 4: who they're beholden to. And I learned that through personal experience,
Speaker 4: So it definitely changed the tune of the book. And
Speaker 4: what I try to expose is how the news is
Speaker 4: made at those mainstream organizations, which is their fed lies
Speaker 4: by criminal pr reps like I did, and then they
Speaker 4: pair it those lies to the public who willingly believe
Speaker 4: them and join the site and do lots of other
Speaker 4: things because they believe what's being parroted by these news organizations,
Speaker 4: and as Crystal says, they're crumbling, and I think they're
Speaker 4: I think this election has been super insane and has
Speaker 4: shown people how much they're crumbling.
Speaker 1: Now, you're right at the end of the book that
Speaker 1: in exchange for your severance you signed an NDA. Are
Speaker 1: you in trouble, like, are they coming after you? What's
Speaker 1: the what's the situation there, because obviously you're speaking, I.
Speaker 4: Am speaking, and I did sign an NDA. And the
Speaker 4: thing about NDAs is they can't be used to cover
Speaker 4: criminal enterprises. So I have a great lawyer, and I
Speaker 4: was expecting to receive a season desist or perhaps a
Speaker 4: lawsuit or something like that from the company. But I
Speaker 4: haven't received one. Nothing yet.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I do have one
Speaker 5: last question on that criminal enterprises point.
Speaker 4: Because it's full circle with the Gates thing. We're just talking.
Speaker 5: You were just talking about the kind of corruption that
Speaker 5: is almost fueled by disinterest in the press and just
Speaker 5: sort of by the political business establishment. So with Matt Gates,
Speaker 5: there's a question of whether he's compromised because his potential
Speaker 5: sex with minors is sort of used and has been
Speaker 5: used as a weapon, and if it's true, it's fairy
Speaker 5: use of a weapon. If it's not true, it's obviously problematic.
Speaker 5: And so I guess do you have insight into how
Speaker 5: seeking arrangements And I'm sure this is also true of OnlyFans.
Speaker 5: I'm sure it was true of Backpage can be used
Speaker 5: to compromise. I mean, did you see situations were either
Speaker 5: intelligence informants that type of thing, or very powerful people
Speaker 5: were entangling themselves in these quote unquote arrangements in ways
Speaker 5: that could be affecting business and politics just by virtue
Speaker 5: of the people who were involved.
Speaker 4: I saw on the website myself when I was working there,
Speaker 4: policemen using the website to lure men interesting operations or whatever.
Speaker 4: I remember when that happened. Originally, my boss told me
Speaker 4: to go through the users and see if I could
Speaker 4: find anyone who was a cop who was doing that,
Speaker 4: because that's against our terms, you know. So I did that,
Speaker 4: and all I did was just type in police into
Speaker 4: the like email search bar, and there were so many
Speaker 4: that came up, people using their using their police email
Speaker 4: addresses on the website, and so I was like, oh man,
Speaker 4: there's a ton on here, and so I start clicking
Speaker 4: them and they're users of the site, And I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I don't think he's like trying to lure anyone. And
Speaker 4: I think he's.
Speaker 1: Trying to lure but to get his own Yes.
Speaker 4: And I heard from many girls on the website that
Speaker 4: they were involved with politicians, very high profile people. And
Speaker 4: I mean the website's entirely anonymous, so I don't know
Speaker 4: who's the user of the site who's not. I mean,
Speaker 4: if they're smart, they're not putting their picture on there,
Speaker 4: they're not using their information and they don't have to.
Speaker 4: I mean, is it being used as a honeypot? Is
Speaker 4: it being used for sex trafficking? Yes? Yes, one hundred
Speaker 4: and ten percent. Yes, that's exactly what Joel Greenberg did, right,
Speaker 4: And I read too that he got the girl of
Speaker 4: Fake ID because of his status.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, he was like the register of whatever.
Speaker 5: Seminole County tax collector.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so king of Florida.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean I don't know of any personally, but I
Speaker 4: do know that.
Speaker 1: That happened an intelligence operation. I would send money traps
Speaker 1: onto the site in DC and New York, oh La.
Speaker 4: Vega, of course, yeah, yeah, And I'm sure they do.
Speaker 4: I mean I didn't I don't know about that, like
Speaker 4: through evidence, but I know about that anecdotally because I've
Speaker 4: heard about it many times. So interesting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I mean again, just your perspective is very
Speaker 5: much underrepresented in the media conversations about these services.
Speaker 4: So thank you, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: And so the book is Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge by
Speaker 1: Brooke Urick. You can find it wherever you buy books.
Speaker 1: I guess on online sexual exploits and secrets from inside
Speaker 1: a Sugar Natty website. Brook thanks for joining us, Thanks
Speaker 1: for watching.
Speaker 4: Thank you