A controversial billboard ad at Ontario and Clark streets bearing the message “Because the best job is a b**w job,” has become a symbol of a new direction the online dating world has taken. Companionship isn’t the only thing some online daters seek. They also want cash.

The billboard features a photo of former pornstar and ArrangmentFinders.com spokesperson Bree Olson, who appears to be wiping something off the side of her mouth. The billboard was located in the busy River North neighborhood, close to family-oriented restaurants like Portillo’s and the Rock N’ Roll McDonalds.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the billboard owner voluntarily took down the sign after 42nd ward Ald. Brendan Reilly convinced him to take it down. But the online “sugar dating” website it was promoting, ArrangementFinders.com, is still up and running, and a Tweet the company published on Feb. 20 reads “Extremely OUTRAGED by our Chicago Billboard being taken down. Not our doing at all.”

ArrangementFinders.com and other websites like it are becoming more and more popular among the college student demographic, particularly among young women in college. These websites negotiate dates between people in which one person, usually a young woman, is paid to go on the date. AJ Perkins, CMO for ArrangementFinders.com, told FOX 32 News that Chicago has the most members on the site than any other major U.S. city.

“I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that sex was almost always had for gain, and that’s what we’re talking about here,” said Greg Scott, a sociology professor and director of the Social Science Research Center at DePaul. “We’re talking about sex for some kind of gain. In this case it’s material gain.”

Despite the fact that someone is getting paid to go on a date and do whatever that date entails, Scott does not consider it prostitution, nor does he consider it morally wrong. It’s simply an aspect of the market economy that structures U.S. society, he said.

“This is the world we created, a world in which it makes perfectly good sense if you’re a college student to seek out alternative funding streams,” said Scott. “And if you’re comfortable with entering into a sex-for-gain relationship, then this is the sort of website that facilitates that.”

SeekingArrangement.com (not affiliated with ArrangementFinders.com, but features the same concept of the site) encourages college students, in particular, to join. The website is free to join if the user is in college and can provide an email address that ends in “.edu.” According to Angela Bermudo, a spokesperson for the website, 44 percent of users – about 600,000 people – are college students.

“When we created these websites we did not look to target college students,” said Bermudo. “But we do believe that the increasing trend of college students can be attributed to the lack of resources for students mixed with the anemic economy.”

The question of whether dates organized through these “sugar dating” websites constitute prostitution is a potential problem for websites like SeekingArrangement.com.

“It’s a legal and moral slippery slope,” said Kelsey Landis, a second year master’s student in new media studies at DePaul.

Landis does not know anyone who uses online “sugar dating” websites, but she would be skeptical of the older men who use them, she said.

“I don’t know about right or wrong, but it seems dangerous,” said Landis.

Scott expects these websites to eventually run into legal trouble, due to the efforts of groups such as End Demand Illinois, a group that pushes law enforcement to take more action against sex traffickers and “people who buy sex.” In some cases, the sugar daddies on these websites technically are buying sex.

Lauren Barnes, a senior geography student at DePaul, knows people who use “sugar dating” websites, but she said she would not use them herself because of the stigma attached to it.

“People look at it as more of a taboo rather than a dating website,” said Barnes. “It’s a little weird.”

Although the idea of “sugar dating” online is relatively new, “sugar dating” itself is an old concept, said Bermudo.

“The notion of dating someone successful to better yourself and lifestyle is not a new notion,” said Bermudo. “Money is the catalyst of a majority of large arguments between couples. Dating a richer and more generous man actually reduces the stress of a woman, leaving them to enjoy the relationship instead of focusing on financial shortcoming.”

SeekingArrangement.com touts “mutually beneficial relationships” and “mutually beneficial arrangements” between “the modern gentlemen” and the “goal seeking sugar baby.” One person gets what he wants out of a date, or several dates, and the other person gets her financial or material wants satisfied.

Scott said these kinds of arrangements can actually further the cause for gender equality by erasing what he calls “the princess narrative.” He sees it as a chance for women to make their own decisions about their bodies and how they use them (or don’t use them) in the marketplace

“I think this demonstrates terrific initiative on the part of college students who are facing a very bleak landscape right now and whose own institutions and government aren’t doing much to help them afford education,” said Scott.