Welcome back to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst. In episode 11, we’re discussing the transactional nature of modern dating. We’ve noticed a trend of women online who post content about finding rich men to date and marry, alongside conversations about how couples split their finances, and we wanted to explore the macro trends that might be informing this behavior. 

We leveraged two primary texts for this conversation. The first is a journal article by Megan Sawey that explores the reasons why women engage in sugar dating, while the second is, of course, Toni Childs. We use both of these ‘texts’ as a vehicle to discuss the dating market, how women invest in beauty to increase their perceived value, and how, ultimately, the “sprinkle sprinkle” mindset is a class mobility fantasy that could have negative outcomes for women.

As always, if there’s anything you want us to talk about on the pod during our office hours, email us at: [email protected]. Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back with a new episode in a couple of weeks!

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• Exit Lane by Erica Veurink
• The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
• Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico

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