Key Takeaways

Safety is paramount in the dating industry, including — and especially — in the sugar dating industry, where relationships are built on power dynamics, money, and discretion. In both worlds, the fear of scams, inauthenticity, and betrayal looms large. Now, sugar dating platform SugarDaddyMeet is behind a groundbreaking attempt to make sugar dating safer. 

SugarDaddyMeet is the first dating platform to require its 8 million users to participate in Selfie Liveness Verification. 

Selfie Liveness Verification promotes safety on two fronts: It authenticates the user’s identity by comparing their live selfie to their profile photos (this is done with proprietary AI technology), which protects against identity spoofing, bots, and catfish. 

Secondly, users who successfully complete the Selfie Liveness Verification receive a virtual verified badge on their profile, which signals to potential matches that they’ve been cleared as a trustworthy profile. 

The site, which facilitates connections between “respectful men and attractive women looking for mutually fulfilling relationships,” suggests that selfie verification is an important step in making sugar relationships truly mutually fulfilling. After all, authenticity is the backbone of the sugar dating industry. 

“Authenticity isn’t optional — it’s the foundation of every connection,” Dani Johnson, a spokesperson for SugarDaddyMeet, said in a press release. “By verifying 100% of our community, we ensure every member you meet is verified. No exceptions.” 

SugarDaddyMeet is taking safety a step further than other sites by making Selfie Liveness Verification mandatory to all users, not just new ones. 

“We’re not just raising the bar — we’re rewriting the rules,” Johnson said. “‘Every Interaction Verified’ isn’t a slogan; it’s our commitment to redefining what safety means in online dating.” 

Selfie Verification Does Not Prevent All Kinds Of Danger 

Not everyone is convinced that Selfie Liveness Verification will significantly improve safety in the sugar dating industry. Venus, founder of Venus Connections Matchmaking, a service for people interested in female-privileged relationships, told DatingNews that selfie verification is a long overdue innovation in the sugar industry — and still may not be the safety guarantee people are hoping for. 

“This should’ve been in place years ago,” she told us. “There is a very valid fear that women have for their safety on dating apps and also a very valid fear that many men have of being romance scammed or extorted.” That said, the power imbalances and/or distrust that can arise in sugar relationships isn’t something that selfie verification can fix. 

Sugar relationships work best when each person benefits, but Venus told us that selfie verification protects one party more than the other. “I think this new requirement will certainly help the gentlemen feel at ease, knowing they are talking to the actual person shown in the profile photo,” she said. “However, it does not effectively address the safety concerns that so many women have.” 

There’s An Opportunity To Take Even Stronger Safety Measures 

It’s no secret that sugar dating can have a dark side. Power imbalances, money, and ego can be a dangerous mix, and can invite distrust and even violence. 

A former sugar baby said as much when she opened up to Psychology Today about her experience. “I’m lucky that nothing bad ever did happen,” she said. “If any of [my sugar daddies] had ever had bad intentions they could have easily done anything to me… there’s a lot of things that could go wrong, you could get ripped off. It’s risky … You could talk to someone and they seem super nice and then they end up not being genuine.” 

Venus suggested that sugar dating sites should give sugar babies the power to publicly recommend — or not recommend — sugar daddies based on their experiences. “I know of one dating app that has this,” she told us. “The gentlemen are required to have an invitation code to join and they can only get that from a woman, so in essence they have to be referred by a woman to get in.” 

She pointed out how the responsibility for staying safe online disproportionately falls on women’s shoulders. “On most dating apps it is up to each woman to filter out the profiles and figure out who is a safe person and who is dangerous or potentially dangerous,” she said. 

Venus came up with a unique way to protect her female clients. “Over the years, I have put together a ‘Loser List’ with the information of these men who should be avoided, and I share it with other women privately, and they add new people to the list when needed,” she told us. 

The Industry Must Consider The Sugar Baby Experience

If selfie verification isn’t enough to keep sugar daters safe, then what is? The answer changes depending on who is answering. 

Venus told us that her Loser List is “just one way that women can help each other to stay safe in the dating world.” Perhaps the only way to keep both men and women safe in sugar relationships is to normalize talking about sugar relationships in the first place. But given sugar dating’s discrete nature — which, for some, is part of the appeal — it’s hard to say whether this will ever happen. 

Journalist Nicole Minton interviewed sugar babies for Desert Companion magazine and found that some women become sugar babies because they feel that it does, in fact, require more communication and honesty between both parties. 

“Something that came up with both of these interviews was, ‘Men are looking at us anyways, and men are seeking ways to harm us regardless. So why not try to benefit from it in a way that can feel a little bit more stable and a little bit more safe, since … there’s so much more open communication and transparency that goes into this sort of arrangement,’” Minton said. 

Selfie Liveness Verification plays an essential role in protecting men and women from bots and scammers. But as Venus told us, staying safe in the sugar industry requires more than AI technology. It takes communication, cautiousness, and experience to stay out of harm’s way — and even these tactics are no guarantee of safety.