In 2017, I was two years into my first open and Dom/sub rela­tion­ship. It was a fraught and fre­quent­ly stoned time in my life. On the one hand, I’d come into my queer­ness and was hav­ing the kind of sex­u­al and roman­tic adven­tures I’d pre­vi­ous­ly only fan­ta­sized about. On the oth­er, my pri­ma­ry part­ner­ship with a man named Adam was increas­ing­ly char­ac­ter­ized by gaslight­ing and jeal­ousy.

I’d recent­ly formed an intense text-based friend­ship with Adam’s long-dis­tance girl­friend, Leah, and was steel­ing myself for her week-long vis­it to Los Ange­les for Adam’s birth­day. I felt a pres­sure to be a “cool polyam girl”—to be “good” at non-monogamy, and to have just as much of my own shit going on. Which indeed, I made sure I did.

Below is a chap­ter from my forth­com­ing report­ed mem­oir, Open, called “Reverse Pret­ty Woman.” It tells the sto­ry of my time dat­ing a sug­ar dad­dy dur­ing this peri­od. Like many expe­ri­ences in the book, it exem­pli­fies the seem­ing­ly con­flict­ing ways in which I found myself feel­ing both increas­ing­ly sex­u­al­ly liberated—and yet also more under the thumb of patri­ar­chal stan­dards than ever before.

Adapt­ed from OPEN: An Uncen­sored Mem­oir of Love, Lib­er­a­tion, and Non-Monogamy, copy­right © 2022 by Rachel Krantz. Used by per­mis­sion of Har­mo­ny Books, an imprint of Ran­dom House, a divi­sion of Pen­guin Ran­dom House LLC, New York. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be repro­duced or reprint­ed with­out per­mis­sion in writ­ing from the pub­lish­er.

Sum­mer 2017 — Los Ange­les

I met Silas on OkCu­pid. His pro­file made it clear he was non-monog­a­mous, with a pri­ma­ry part­ner. At 46, he was old­er than any­one I’d ever gone out with, but I liked the fact that we were in sim­i­lar rela­tion­ships. (I had­n’t had much luck with being inter­est­ed in any­one else who iden­ti­fied as non-monog­a­mous besides the woman I’d been dat­ing, Miran­da.) I felt a lit­tle starstruck and flat­tered when I real­ized who he was. He was­n’t famous, but his busi­ness­es were.

“I don’t have time to play games, and I’m not look­ing for some­one to see more than once a week.” He smiled over our 15-dol­lar rice bowls. He was so forth­com­ing for a first date that it was actu­al­ly refresh­ing. “My cur­rent girl­friend was my sec­ondary part­ner for many years, until my wife and I got divorced. She’s not pos­ses­sive and real­ly likes to share me. She’s the one who actu­al­ly encour­aged me to get back on OkCu­pid. She thinks it’ll keep things healthy between us. But I don’t have much time, and I’m not into sleep­ing around casu­al­ly. I’d like some­one steady, no dra­ma.”

“I’m look­ing for some­thing sim­i­lar,” I replied. “Won­der­ful,” he said, and smiled con­clu­sive­ly. “I have to get back to work, but I enjoyed meet­ing you. Can I take you to din­ner next week?” I felt like I’d passed the first round of a job inter­view.

After our sec­ond date, Silas revealed more clear­ly that he was also into Daddy/little girl dynam­ics, with a finan­cial com­po­nent. I appre­ci­at­ed the fact that non-monogamy was help­ing me be more open to dif­fer­ent types of rela­tion­ships, less judg­men­tal. Hav­ing a sug­ar dad­dy was some­thing I’d nev­er allowed myself to con­sid­er while audi­tion­ing “the One.” Weren’t those guys just buy­ing the girl­friend expe­ri­ence and call­ing it some­thing else? But it turned out even the idea of being kept that way turned me on, and now I felt free to explore that. I’d nev­er even gone out with a man who reg­u­lar­ly paid for din­ner. (Adam always threw down the card, but it was our joint account.) How had I nev­er con­sid­ered that the Inter­est­ing Con­ver­sa­tion in a Tight Pack­age Ser­vices I offered could be com­pen­sat­ed beyond bike repair and fur­ni­ture assem­bly? I felt duped by my con­di­tion­ing, like real­iz­ing thick brows are in after a life­time of over-tweez­ing. I’m already almost 30—my best years and brow hairs are behind me! I will appre­ci­ate my still perky(ish) tits and get wise.

Silas asked for my shoe, bra, and cloth­ing sizes; my favorite brands and foods, vaca­tion des­ti­na­tions I’d like to explore. He told me that whether I replied or not, I would begin receiv­ing things that week. He signed his email “Dad­dy.” As promised, bags of gourmet gro­ceries showed up at our door, along with the sec­ond air con­di­tion­er Adam had said we could do with­out. Eth­i­cal­ly made lin­gerie and shoes. An adult-sized baby one­sie that read “I ♥ Dad­dy.” Adam and I had a good laugh over that one—and then he threw me on the bed. Was it my imag­i­na­tion, or was he sud­den­ly treat­ing me with a lit­tle more respect, too?

When I even­tu­al­ly went over to Silas’s house, I felt like I was in a movie. I’d nev­er touched this lev­el of priv­i­leged-white-male wealth so inti­mate­ly. There was a big, long mir­ror across from us in bed, and as I looked at us hav­ing sex I enjoyed the dis­tinct sat­is­fac­tion of an over­achiev­er. I was desired. So desired that some­one not unat­trac­tive might even indi­rect­ly pay to do this with me.

7/29/17 — Jour­nal Entry

I’ve been rehears­ing for this role my whole life.

[Silas] chok­ing me [but] did­n’t want to send me back first time with marks

‘are you my lit­tle fuck hole?’ and I fart­ed and tried to pass it off as a queef, am I a whore now?

…[Adam] pro­posed sort of, ‘I’ve been think­ing about this I would mar­ry you’ and I looked him in the eyes, and I could­n’t say yes

These kinds of half-pro­pos­als from Adam were com­mon when­ev­er new sperm com­pe­ti­tion was in the mix. I did­n’t real­ly take them seri­ous­ly by this point; I did­n’t feel they “count­ed” as sin­cere, though look­ing back I’m not exact­ly sure why. Most­ly, I just felt smug instead—and annoyed the stig­ma around sex work had made me miss this poten­tial rev­enue-and-con­fi­dence stream until now. No more. I have to stop giv­ing away my time and body for free unless the per­son real­ly deserves it. Adam is lucky, I thought, briefly regain­ing my male-val­i­da­tion-depen­dent “self-esteem.” Yeah, that’s right, I said it. Lucky moth­er­fuck­er, to be with me.

Con­sid­er­ing I’d also start­ed dat­ing a Ger­man film­mak­er I was wait­ing to sleep with, I felt I was in excel­lent shape ahead of my meta­mour Leah’s impend­ing vis­it. Silas and I talked about get­ting me a hotel room close to where he’d be vaca­tion­ing with his kids that week. But as Leah’s vis­it drew clos­er, Silas still had­n’t booked the room. And was it just me, or was he being a lit­tle less dot­ing ever since we slept togeth­er? I began to spi­ral. To believe I’d been used and that my val­ue was now dimin­ished for hav­ing entwined sex with mate­ri­al­ism.

My increas­ing ner­vous­ness over Leah’s vis­it mor­phed into a grow­ing com­pul­sion to test Silas. I knew I was being brat­ty, but I need­ed him to come through and dis­tract me, faster, hard­er. For the high he pro­vid­ed to be as height­ened as pos­si­ble. I need­ed this now-con­stant cloud of gen­er­al­ized anx­i­ety hov­er­ing over me to be worth it. I knew nam­ing my feel­ings would like­ly pro­voke him to the point of reject­ing me. That part of what Silas was “com­pen­sat­ing” was an implic­it promise to ask of him no emo­tion­al labor. Yes, I saw what I was doing as I hit send on the email. I was con­firm­ing my fear that I was like my moth­er, pro­vok­ing rejec­tion as a form of self-sab­o­tage. And in so doing, I was also reaf­firm­ing that Adam was right to try to change me.

From: Rachel to [Silas] — Sub­ject: Dear Dad­dy

…I felt a bit like a call girl to sleep with you and not hear any­thing sweet from you for a few days… but I some­how felt I owed it to you after every­thing you’ve giv­en me. Don’t get me wrong—I want­ed to give it to you—but… [m]y com­ing back with an ask for some­thing con­crete [the hotel room] was an attempt to regain some pow­er, to assert my val­ue, to say I will not be tak­en for grant­ed.

Silas wrote back that he was “hor­ri­fied” by my impli­ca­tion he would ever pay for sex. He nev­er want­ed to see me again.