Is this prostitution? Maybe. So what?

Sex work is legal in most of the country and reform is on the way elsewhere, so even if the sugar baby-daddy arrangement does meet your definition of prostitution, what’s the issue?

Their parents — and prudes — may not approve, but increasing numbers of “sugar baby” students accepting money from older men to help pay their way through uni is an exchange as old as sex itself.

In the wake of a story about sugar-baby/sugar-daddy relationships becoming more popular with young women at some of Australia’s top universities, some have dubbed these “mutually beneficial” exchanges prostitution. So?

The only surprise about the news hundreds of tertiary-aged young women are signing up to be spoiled on their own terms by older men is that it’s raising eyebrows at all.

If no one in the arrangement is being exploited or coerced, just where does the problem lie? These are mature adults; any judgment of their choices says more about the person doing the judging.

This is not sex slavery or sex trafficking, it’s not even a case of desperate girls doing something they feel is degrading just to stay alive. More than a third of the women who responded to the Seeking Arrangement website survey were of middle or upper middle class (comfortable) status.

Dating one older man for an extended period (as the girls interviewed by news.com.au say they do) has got to be a lot less degrading than pole dancing in the laps of unpredictable drunks, another time-honoured occupation in which some students pay their way.

Still, I’ve heard girls who work the strip circuit also say they find the work (and the pay) empowering. Each to her own. No laws are being broken.

Sex work is legal in most of the country and reform is on the way elsewhere, so even if the baby-daddy arrangement does meet your definition of prostitution, what’s the issue?

Sex is not always a part of the arrangement, according to the girls interviewed, some men are after company or “love and companionship” or just someone to do “normal relationship things that normal couples do”.

One sugar baby student, Lola, goes so far as to argue exchanging love — and sex — for financial support is akin to marriage ... at which point I would draw the line.

“If a wealthy married man wants to pamper his wife by paying her money or giving her gifts, I think that’s fine. It’s fine if both parties are OK with it,” Lola said, straying a bit too close to implying married women are prostitutes.

That point is a distraction, though, from the question of whether a woman who decides to put herself in a relationship of her choosing with a better-off man is making any compromise with her self-esteem, or morally.

Here is the real news for some, though it shouldn’t be: each of those is a value judgment for no-one else but her.