Microstory 783: Joy Girl

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I wanted to take a moment clear a few things up about my approach to sexuality in my stories, because the way they do things in these worlds may be a bit confusing. As I believe I’ve said before, homosexuality has never been condemned on these so-called “fictional” worlds. People tend to identify as bisexual, recognizing sexual acts as independent of love and/or procreation, but not always. But this sex positive position goes deeper than the acceptance of diversity. In our world, we have strong opposition to certain positions, like exotic dancing, pornography, and prostitution. Even the word pornography means “obscene painting”. Likewise, the word prostitution has a longer history of referring to dishonorable harlots than it does the job itself, meaning you could be called that in the 16th century as an insult, before sex workers adopted it the term more formally. But that’s just us, and it’s not how it has to be. In other universes, these people are respected for their dedication to their trade as much as a stockbroker, or a coal miner. Dancers and adult film performers are treated as artists, who provide a necessary and specific contribution to the world of entertainment. Similarly, sex workers provide a service for clientele in a more intimate, and usually private, setting. They don’t use that vile word, instead choosing to be known as paramours, which carries with it an interesting linguistic twist, in that it’s a portmanteau of para + amour, signifying their status as more ‘parallel’ to love, rather than in true love. There’s a lot of stigma surrounding these jobs, a lot of it evidence of ignorance. They say that the only reason a woman would walks the streets is because of some psychological trauma they’ve been unable to come to terms with by “healthier” means. The most common of these claims is daddy issues, but setting aside my fiction for a moment, I want everyone to look at their wall and see if there’s a fucking psychology degree on it. If there is, I then want you to look back at your records and check if you ever even had a fucking conversation with these women to make a reasonable conclusion about their motives or history. To be more general, let’s all take what any pundit or commentator says about the mental capacity of a politician, celebrity, news subject, or subculture, with a grain of salt, and appreciate the fact that that is not goddamn how science works. To be sure, this stigma does not exist in my stories, and I do this to illustrate how our world could look like if you rethought your judgy intolerance for one second. People claim there’s a lot of abuse, danger, a drugs attached to these jobs, and that’s true. But those are peripheral consequences of the laws and opposition towards them, not the industries themselves. If these things were both legal, and socially accepted, plus regulated, do you think those actual crimes would continue? Localized data suggests otherwise. This became more of a tirade against our (in)justice system, when I set out to simply codify my narrative canon, but if even one person starts questioning their judgy attitudes towards other people’s choices, then maybe I’ve helped, even only in some small way. This story is dedicated to all the joy girls out there, empowered by their sexuality, not ashamed of it. They are the best kind of wild cards.