Why This Married Wall Street Banker Pays For Sex

An anonymous finance guy tells BuzzFeed Shift what compels him to seek out these arrangements: “I used to go to bars where I thought there’d be hot young girls… I could never seal the deal.”

I don’t see anything wrong with paying a younger, beautiful girl to sleep with me.

I work at a big name investment bank in New York and have been in banking since college. I interned my freshman year and was hooked. I love making money, but frankly, it was a lot more fun in the 90s to be a banker. I still love what I do and I’d never be one of those guys you see talking about how they got laid off from Lehman and went to bake cupcakes or some shit. No, I’m a banker through and through.

I have a wife and two kids. I live in suburbia, in the white picket fence sprawl outside Manhattan, but I often work late and have stayed in the city a few nights a week for years now. On those nights, I used to go to bars, frequenting various happy hours around the city where I thought there’d be hot young girls, and then sometimes alone. I would often end up failing miserably, though. I could never seal the deal, you know. Maybe was too nervous, or too old, or I was looking for the wrong kind of girls. I met a few women, but they were all older, never the young ones I wanted to be taking home.

I then read an article in The New York Times about a sugar daddy dating site, and it was a eureka moment. Basically, the site is a place where “sugar babies” and “sugar daddies” meet. The minute I got to a private computer, I went on and set up an account. I couldn’t believe there was this site where I could search through girls by age, looks, location, whatever.

I soon started meeting girls - and was just as quickly disappointed by what I found. Most of them said they were younger than they were, or fatter than their photos. Some of them just blatantly used fake photos, or maybe photos of them from 20 years ago.

I then got some emails from girls who seemed more legit and I started vetting them over the phone rather than meeting them right away. I could tell by their speech, by if they used “like” a lot in their sentences and the sound of their voices to gauge how young they really were, or at least that they weren’t completely off base. That worked a lot better. I met a girl who said she was a senior at Columbia University. She was so hot. Long brown hair, light eyes, perfect little body. We started an affair and I would give her a $4,000 “allowance” each month to meet once a week for dinner, or just to sleep together if I had a deal or a really late night in the office. Sometimes it was an hour of “small talk and sex,” which, really, isn’t a bad deal for her. $1,000 for an hour to spend time with me.

I felt like a stud, there’s no denying that, and I knew that she didn’t want anything from me but money. She would come and go away when I made the signal I was tired. Soon though, I started liking her more than I wanted to. She was smart and kind of had a sarcastic sense of humor I found funny. I asked to see her more and she asked for more money. I said I couldn’t do any more than that, and she said she couldn’t give more time. It was the first time I felt a little hurt, like: “This person just wants my money and probably thinks I’m some gross horny old dude.”

The next month, I gave her the envelope of $4,000 upfront instead of $1,000 each time. We had sex, chatted, drank some wine and she left. I never saw her again. She wouldn’t pick up her phone, then her phone was disconnected, my emails to her went unanswered, and her profile on the site was gone.

It was such a blow. Though, really, what the hell did I expect? I guess some warning. After that, I decided I was going to go for quantity and not quality. I want hot girls, but a lot of them and substance isn’t a huge deal. I have been with dozens of girls, and I give them money each time I meet them. I usually just meet them for a drink and then we got back to my hotel. I’ve lowered my price, too, and the girls seem okay with it. I’m not sure if it is because of the economy and that people aren’t getting as much, but I throw out a number and negotiate only if I really like the girl. Depending on “hotness” the range is now $400 to $600 a night to meet a girl and sleep with her.

The funny thing is often these girls are chasing me to sleep with them again, because it’s easy money, but I just scroll through and delete or ignore the messages most of the time. Men want to be with a lot of women; it is just the truth. I like being with a lot of women. It makes me more focused at work, and excited to know who may be out there next. Maybe that first girl was a wake-up call. I’m already married. I don’t need a steady mistress. But I have one or two I always go back to if i can’t find someone I like, which can happen a lot.

The site, though, has definitely changed since I first joined or maybe I never noticed the abundance of professional escorts on there before. There’s a lot. Like a lot. I can tell by how blunt they are and how open they are about showing their faces and full body shots right out there in public. Any of the normal college girls wouldn’t just put their faces out there. Sometimes I will meet some of the escorts, but I prefer normal girls.

I’m not hurting anyone by doing this. I’m always safe and I’m always upfront if I meet someone and know it won’t happen. I just pay for the drink and let them know and leave, like “No deal, sorry.” It is just like any deal. You have to know how to close it and have to know when you’re not interested in putting in the effort to see it through.

As told to Alex Belanger.