So, I was reading someone's take on the Corps in the Blindness thread, and that got me thinking:

How far will the corps really go? I know way back, in Greece, Semer, and a few other ancient civilizations, they had temple prostitutes, where all or most of the money they made from plying the worlds oldest profession went straight to the temple...

But, do the Corps, in an effort to keep their employees happy, have a "Sex Services" division, with prostitutes for their happy workers, where the prostitutes get paid either a fixed rate, or, a fixed rate, plus a comission(thus encouraging the Corp Hookers to be more productive, and make more money for the corp!)

Or..do people think this would be probably where the cirps do draw the line at?(I mean..they gotta draw a line SOMEWHERE, right?)

Would you like to see the menu?

Well, first, only the americans really have such a hang-up with regards to sex. The rest of the world doesn't freak out over it as much as the US. In a global economy, with most megacorp cultures not following current US mainstream, I don't see anything that would make most employees blink at this.

Second, corps are efficient. Anything that hurts the bottomline has a short life expectancy. And sex can be a security risk. Expecting your high-level execs not to indulge in sex is too stupid to work, so the corps will make sure that such activitis will not hurt them - so even those corps who are a bit pruder might bite the bullet and offer such services in-house, to avoid information leaks. (Of course, some execs might still seek such services elsewhere, to avoid blackmail opportunities by the internal security division.)

Third, if you can imagine corps killing people for profit - and not just "letting them die due to unsafe waste disposal/products", but actually hiring assassins, and having zero zones like Mitsuhama, then sex is really small fry.

Companies and organisations have prostitutes on call now [media stars, business executives, politicians, military]...
...Why would this change in the future ??

As now, their existence might not be public knowledge...
...But sex is too important and useful a reward, to stop.

What exactly do you not understand about "dystopic dark future cyberpunk world"?

I can answer my take on it with a sample corporate enclave I drew up. I think it's out there somewhere. The advertising blurb ran as follows:


Sorry, long winded, but that little bolded part was corp-speak for on staff prostitutes. The hab rings also contain "discretion rooms" which is where an employee nips off to when it's not convenient to go elsewhere.

I certainly think that corps would keep such matters "in-house." Large ones, anyway. Which would they prefer? One of their busy executives calling up "Male Order Ltd." when she needs to relax and getting some unverified, unvetted stranger turn up on the compound (or else she goes to some unsecured location), or the approved corporate specialist who they can trust.

For me, one of the dystopian aspects of SR2070, is the trivialisation and mundanification of sex. Everyone has the "I'm entitled to do whatever I want" attitude that pervades the USA today, but taken even further. Anything goes except love. An intolerance of one's partner's affairs might be considered a psychological weakness ("he just can't deal with it."). Love is the greatest barrier that the corp world faces in truly subverting those employed by them. The more that sex can be separated from intimacy, the better for them.

I certainly see no reason why the moral climate of SR2070 would make a corp look bad for running in-house prostitution, and given what they would perceive as the advantages, I could well see them adding it as one of their quiet pluses in recruiting literature.

But I also think the corps would keep a tight record of such activities. I can well see it being brought up in an employees psyche evaluation, and I can well see someone bagging a recording of a colleague's sexual escapades with one of the company specialists to show as a joke at the winter party.

As to the employees themselves, I see semi-routine visits to Whole New You for a change of look, along with accent chips or (even low-level p-fix chips voluntarily used and never mentioned) to create a semblance of variety. After all, they don't want intimacy developing. (Or maybe some corps do and use that).

My thoughts,

Khadim.

As long as they also run an In-house day care service, I see the whole thing balancing out.

I invite you to come to Egypt sometime. But without triggering some of the usual misconceptions about sex in Islamic countries, the US does have an idiosyncratic hang-up about sex. Certainly compared to Europe. There was a line in the original London sourcebook for Shadowrun which went something like: "The difference with sex between Americans and the British, is primarily an oral one - the Americans talk more about it, before, during and after." The British just considered it something you do. And Europe certainly has more gender-equality than the US in this area. British and European women are much more free to make choice and initiate things without consequence than those in the US. The US has severe issues about it. The Middle East doesn't have issues with it in the same way that the US does - the idea of a loving marriage is still very much held up as an ideal. The US seems to be plunging into an objectification of sex that separates it out from all notion of intimacy. Certainly there's hypocrisy and prostitution in Egypt (for example), but in embracing greater sexual freedom, America seems to have renounced genuine love and sacrifice as well. The Europeans have, despite all the sexual marketing they are blitzed with, managed to embrace sexual freedom without as much giving up the notions of intimacy.

I'm talking in generalities. Absolutely no criticism is meant of any specific individuals and obviously dumpshockers are all excluded from the above comments being enlightened and sexy one and all. But American culture has always had this notion of being entitled to having it all. And I think when it comes to sex, this has led the US to a kind of greed that makes the idea of sacrificing for love somehow wrong. But it's been a while since I visited the USA, so forgive me if I see things wrong. The biggest issue I see in the USA that affects this area, and believe me, it's something I would notice, is the division between people based on gender roles. And that's the biggest difference between Europe and the USA in this area, I think: A woman or a man in the USA is a "woman" or a "man" first, whereas in Europe, they are an individual person first. Am I talking in absolutes? No, of course not, but the labelling of someone is definitely much more marked in the USA. Without question. So many questions in the USA of what it means to be a "man" or a "woman" or whatever. There is much less of that in Europe. And I think that affects attitudes to sex a great deal.

"Comfort Women"

Why would the corps let you go out on town, waste their good nuyen, and possibly get a disease that they'll have to pay for? There's also a matter of security. Having your workers scurry off to areas of ill repute to get their kicks opens a whole bag full of security breaches. Social engineering through prostitutes is probably a science at this point and all the major corps and orgs have a finger in the pie (or in you).

I'm sure that the officialness of prostitution varies from corps to corps but at some levels there's some amount of corps subsidized prostitution. It might be massage parlors for Ares, Stress Managers for Horizon, or straight up comfort women for a Japanacorps. And of course it all varies by how high up the corporate ladder you are. Execs probably do get a sexual menu with their morning commpad while low level workers look forward to hitting the special clubs after a 14 hour day. I envision that they don't have brothels as much as they have Hooters+, the plus indicating that if you slip a few cred to the right person you can get an hour with one of the waitresses. I also see institutionalized "By Me Drink Me Girls", kinda like half rate geishas that specialize in entertaining stressed out single men. They're not exactly prostitutes but you pay for their company and if you "tip" heavily they might take you in the a private room for some special attention. The house is of course getting it's cut, the drinks are watered down, and the girls know what's really going on.

But yeah...
I Was a Corporate Prostitute!: Confessions of a Shiawase Call Girl... trideo at 11.


@knasser: I certainly would charge that you are making a gross generalization but for terms of extracting useful for story telling I'll agree with you. It is insightful that you talk about the commoditization of sexuality and how that would drive certain corporate policies.

And I would be a fool for not admitting that Americans can have some bizarre ideas about sex and intimacy. The fact that we (well sections of "we") spazz out over nakedness is something that bothers me all the time. I'm not sure I agree with your assertions that Americans care little for love... In fact I would argue that we care too much for love (or lust as it usually is) and do not take into consideration the sound moral and financial agreements "successfully" married people must take into consideration. I don't know if we've gone so far as to renounce genuine love as embrace some systemically generated parody of it. I'd also say that a cultures concept of love is very rare if ever universal.



To spread some of the pain around let's hit on a few other cultures I'm familiar with:

Japan: If America has some odd hangups Japan is goddamn neurotic. I reflect longingly at a time when I could go into a porn store and see some light to moderate S&M as the height of sexual depravity. In contrast I can walk into a streetside magazine shop here and instantly get assaulted by sexual fantasies revolving around sexual violence, rape, abuse, incest, and pedophilia. These are all perfectly legal and acceptable themes provided, god help me, all the dangling bits are blurred out.
I will certainly miss some bits of Japanese/Okinawa culture, I will miss the food, the politeness (to me, who's Japanese. Not the petty rudeness my non-Japanese friends endure). But I am going to be glad to be done with the bizarre pent up sexual aggression of Japanese sexual fantasy.

India: Having had some very close contact with the Indian subcontinent over the years I've developed a profile of another society with some odd sexual mores and concepts about marriage. For the most part I'm struck by how marriage is very much a matter of finance and status and less to do with a union between to individuals. Arranged marriages might be a vanishing breed but the concept of your parents moderating who you meet and who you marry is still alive and well. Caste based marriages are also disappearing (at least in America) but that's in favor of looking at a person earnings and ranking. Are they a doctor? Do they make over X amount? etc etc. Truth be told it's something families of all cultures concern themselves with but the amount of judgment that rides upon these values is boggling to an American such as myself.
I find it amusing and sad that I've finally understood why arranged marriages can call upon such low divorce rates. It has nothing to do with your parents being better at picking mates for you (after all what do they know? It's not like they chose their love either.) It's everything to do with the massive social pressure to conform and pay respects to your families needs.
And their sex is wacky. Men can run around and whore themselves around for years as long as they finally settle on a nice educated Indian girl. Women can do the same but must maintain a lower profile and of course not get pregnant or... heavens! Fall in love with a non-Indian.


I suppose balance in all things... but I've once again strayed far far off the original topic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And what of the business women.....

You mean what he said could not count for the business women, too? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

But, seriously...I would expect that there would be both Comfort Men and Comfort Women, and, on their resumes, they probably even need to include their sexual preferences. And, of course, their on-duty AR displays probably say "Bi, Straight, Gay/Lesbian," their rates, they might even have women who go as a team and have a joint AR advert buy the time of one, buy the time of both type things...

Ah yeah i'm being terribly American and being gender specific. If my time in the military has taught me anything it's that the genders are more similar than we usually like to admit.

Fine! Comfort People. Are you happy now?! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I think what's available to you is largely dependent on what corps you work for. A place like S-K probably doesn't give a goddamn what you do on your off time while a corps like MCT (ostensibly run by stuffy old Japanese men) might consider such things (or even having sex with metas) a sign of sexual deviancy and something to pop on a psych exam.

But hypocrisy undoubtedly prevails as everyone lies about sex. Low level workers might be discouraged from having "deviant" sex while execs are catered to hand and foot. Enter some truly fucked up sexual dynamics (I only have sex with ork's because it's demeaning to them and proof that I'm superior to them.)

Yeah, I forgot about North Africa and Arabia - they don't come up as any significant corporate culture theme in Shadowrun, contrary to Europe, the US and Asia.

You are right. No corp-provided hookers for you. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

One single thing by which this is NOT a dystopic dark future is the way the social conservative religious freaks utterly lost the culture wars... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I think it will probably depend on the corporate culture (and maybe the country's culture too, where the corporate culture hasn't taken over). In some places it will be there, advertised as is and known to everyone, in other places it will be there but hidden or more subtle and in other places there won't be any.

I can also imagine some corps (Horizon?) having a far subtler approach:
"Citizen U124-74 records shows a lack of affection that threatens productivity, look if there are any compatible citizen according to its sexual preferences and arrange a meeting.
- Sorry sir, but we couldn't find any match. Should we send a professional? The benefits should outweigh the cost for the first 3 months, but there is a risk of a major depression at the end of the relationship.
- Perfect! The project will be completed in 2 months and U124-74 won't be of any use to us afterwards. How high are the suicide probabilities?"

And they would still outsource these services to another company, as no self-respecting corp is going to publicly admit to these things (except those that have entertainment as their core industry). Secondly, the Corp are still required to obey the law, and in many countries around the world prostitution is illegal, and it would like still be so.

If it wasn't there would not be any use for the Syndicates.

The risk of security in these cases is actually fairly neglectable as well. The only thing you need to watch out for is that the Escort Service itself is not becoming too greedy. If it does, you terminate business with them.

They probably exist, but they will be kept quiet and known only to the higher management levels. To the great unwashed masses, the company will prefer to be seen as a "family friendly" environment.

Hilariously likely.

Experienced Public Relations Executive

Education - MBA from Harvard
_ BS in Sexology from Cambridge


Experience - 2051-2054 Acolyte at the Temple of Ishtar in Lexington Virginia
_ 2055-2056 Wandered the world like Kwai Chang Caine.
_ 2057-2058 Studied Tantric philosophy and technique in Shambala, Tibet.
_ 2059-2060 Intern at Wuxing Public Relations Department
_ 2061-2063 Wuxing Public Relations Specialist
_ 2064-2067 Wuxing Advanced Public Relations Specialist
_ 2067-2071 Chief of Wuxing Public Relations Department, Seattle Branch


Special Qualifications - Adept follower of Ishtar

I doubt that any corp would bring an employee to suicide after a project is finished. Waste of ressources.

Bring, no, but you can still examine his lifestyle, history, and personality profile to calculate the probabilities and invest accordingly.

Well, yeah. As long as "invest" includes the possiblity of preventing suicide too.

If his P2.0 rating sinks below a certain level he is no employee of Horizon anymore anyway.

Ah yeah, that drek too. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)