Editor, I wish to react to the article, “Sugar daddies: How ‘sweet’ are they?” (The New Times, August 23). These are completely mercenary relationships in which each party is in them solely for the commercial, material or physically sexual and/or ego-boosting benefits the participants can derive from them. It is quite clear from the article that the actors (whether the older men or the young women) in this rapacious game know exactly what they want and are prepared to pay the going price. Let us hope these kinds are still the minority in our society, otherwise I wouldn’t give much for our future with this kind of ready moral flexibility and lack of self-worthy such practice represents. These kinds of mercenaries would certainly never have sacrificed everything to go to the front line and put their lives on the line to liberate themselves and their fellow Rwandans. They are only driven by their base desires and urges. And today’s similarly materialistic get-rich-quickly “religious” preachers and churches are not the solution to the decay in our traditional morality. No, they sup at the table of Mammon, not that of the shepherd of Nazareth; and their shameless money-grubbing is a contributory factor to this decline. Mwene Kalinda, Rwanda
