French students with overdue tuition bills may have to find a new way to scrounge up money, because people in Paris want to prohibit a "sugar daddy" sex site. Local authorities recoiled on Wednesday when an advertisement went up near Paris-Sorbonne University and the Paris Descartes University promoting RichMeetBeautiful, which connects young adults with wealthy men and women willing to trade intimacy for cash, according to The Local.
Promising "romance, passion and no student loans," the ad instantly sparked a debate among students and officials who argued the service amounts to pimping. Police arrested a man on Thursday who helped display the billboard, while politicians with the Green Party demanded the government ban the site. A student group also filed a criminal complaint claiming that it was "aimed at attracting vulnerable students," France24 reported.
But the sugar daddy controversy isn't limited to France. Last month, the regional government in Brussels, Belgium, announced that it was forbidding RichMeetBeautiful from advertising in the city. At the time, the site's chief executive officer insisted the service—which describes itself as an "online social sugar dating network for adult men and women above 18 years of age that seek a mutually satisfactory relationship for both parties"—was just being misunderstood.
As RichMeetBeautiful comes under scrutiny abroad, similar services remain popular stateside. That site even allows people to sign up for free premium memberships if they have a. Curious where the sugar babies are in America? The colleges with the biggest recent growth on SeekingArrangement. Weekly magazine, delivered Daily Newsletter Website access.
