How many miles to Babylon?
Three score and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
Aye, and back again.

If your feet are nimble and light,
You'll get there by candlelight.

 

 

''Frisco Babylon' is an outline for an unfinished

'SLIDERS'   fanfic premise challenge that you

can  help  brainstorm and develop!                     

                               

Premise:

 

It comes to pass that the SLIDERS end up stranding an incorrigible teen hooker on a largely Polynesian dominated world of Free Love, where he or she can find no demand, what so ever, for any sort of Sex Industry.

Join in

and help flesh out the story!

Backstory, Babylonian America:

As has been aptly pointed out by the poster Yeontoo, age of consent may vary from culture to culture. And so, conceivably, the character of Zhona can be either not only younger or else, for that matter, even actually quite older than such as we might expect from the world we live in. After all, developmentally, the emotional growth of a prostitute tends to be arrested at the age they enter the world's oldest of profession. At least, so it is on our world. For that matter, individuals or classes of people may be singled out, condescendingly, as child-like, life long. As, for example, the retarded or as a cultural holdover from Feudal Japan, people who's given names therefore end in "ko". And, indeed, in fictional speculation, there can be all manner novel variants on the the theme as regards the relations of entirely imaginary or hypothetical classes of people. [note]

And so, perhaps not in the alternate dimension of Babylonian America, where prostitutes are still sacred. Or, at least, the temple cult prostitutes, the Qadishtot, that is. If we recall our ancient history, the estate of the lay prostitute, or zhona, was less exhaled or valued than the better esteemed position of the Qadishtu, who are praised as a blessing and a gift of the gods. Indeed, zhonot might well be no better off than the streetwalkers anywhere else, and no less bitchy. And then there where the slave girls and boys, for the pleasure of their masters. Perhaps many become runaways and zhonot...

And so, might there actually arise Class Struggle among sex workers in Babylonian America?

Backstory, Zhona:

Perhaps, ironically, the double of the self important High Priestess of Astarte will be the sex therapist and social worker reaching out to the runaway on  Freud world. Both may be doubles of Wade! Perhaps the runaway is another double of Wade's sister Kelly (seen in 'Seasons Greedings')? Of course, that'd make her (surprise!) the estranged and denied sister of the self important High Priestess of Astarte.

And this may be kept obscure, initially, because the hooker has never been called by any other name but Zhona (Bitch!) and her sister has always been addressed as Qadishtu, Blessed One, the sacred prostitute among all sacred prostitutes.

Of course, Kelly, who's double was portrayed by Chase Masterson, is Wade's elder sister. But could Wade/Quadishtu possibly have been born first on the world of Babylonian America? How? Because Kelly/Zhona's embryo was frozen, and re-implanted later. Though conceived first, she was born second. Thus Quadishtu, wittingly or unwittingly, may be the usurper.

 

The storyline:

In the news playing on the TV set in a seedy bar room dive, Judge Ito has summoned Qadishtu, that he may lay with her, have congress with the Divine, cumming to horasis of the will of Heaven before dispensing justice on Earth. Meanwhile Zhona takes a quick stand up in the ally in back of the seedy bar room dive, from a scary John who's getting just a little too rough. And so, Zhona dashes into the Dominion Hotel to escape a beating. But it seems as though she is even being maneuvered there, deliberately...

But in Babylonian America perhaps sliding is restricted to the privileged, just as in New Alexandra ('Slide Like and Egyptian'). That would explain why Zhona needs to sneak into SLIDERCON at the Dominion Hotel, under cover of the distraction of the altercation between the Sliders aided by the CliqueBusters TM  against those obnoxious conniving and controlling kinkier-than-thou Relational Bullies known and reviled as the Nouveau-Whipped.

 

 

WHAT If: Adolph Hitler had been a patient of Sigmund Freud?!

 

And so, as if the throngs of of the same eight faces, again and again, where not quite unsettling enough, exiting from the Dominion hotel out onto the streets, Zhona soon experiences a real culture shock in a society where Prostitution simply does not exist!

For, as BinarySystems suggested on 8.13.99 (SIY), the hooker soon realizes that no one on this world (with the singular exception of one Sam Becket, an annoying, peculiar and earnest do-gooder and gadfly pressing unwanted help and advice*) has the least bit of interest in her, at least on her terms, and, given Zhona's stunted social skills, mistrust and attachment disorder, if she is ever to be 'loved' again, she comes to believe that he or she is now the one who must offer cold hard cash! Thus, oh irony! Will the hooker ends up this world's first 'John' (Or 'Jane')?

And so, thoroughly disoriented and finding her way back again to the Dominion hotel, Zhona falls in with the relationally bullying clique of the Nouveau-Whipped, familiar as she is with their routine. (Because, leave us face it, cliquish Relational Bullies are kinda pimp-like, come to think of it, aren't they?)

Perhaps it even turns out that the unruly John from whom Zhona flees is actually one of them. The shill from whom they can "protect" Zhona along with any other women they can socially isolate, deceive, intimidate and exploit. At least until they can scapegoat the Sliders for that purpose. (Relational Bullies are that obnoxious, after all!)

Perhaps the Nouveau-Whipped even know who Zhona really is, and have some political conspiracy in mind. The motivating goal put forth being to gain influence in Babylonian America to throw exclusive wild parties at which to abuse their sychophants, and from which to exclude their rivals and scapegoats. (Because that's what obnoxious influential cliques are all about.) And it is from this ulterior agenda that they offer to accept Zhona, however conditionally. Immediately, the Nouveau-Whipped (especially Sam's nemesis, the Evil Leaper*) enlist Zhona into their own petty vendettas and power struggles, instigating between Zhona and Maggie...

Next, the narrative shifts to the P.O.V. of the SLIDERS, in:

'SLIDERCON' over the same time period and events, before resuming again and advancing to the exciting conclusion in:

 

'Quantum Justice!'

 

Then post to the forum, to help improve and complete this story with your input!

 

But no matter how over the top Science Fiction speculation, even to the point of social satire, the truth revealed will be still the more lurid! 'Pimp Cult' is based upon actual events, situations and appallingly common practices, yes, the intimate connection between sex trade exploitation and ancient religion prevalent and surviving even to this day!

 

Bibliography:

For our background material, let us begin with a 'Definition of Prostitution' and move onto 'A Brief History of Religious Sex' with emphasis upon the 'Mesopotamian Holy Harlot' and then as a rebuttal, 'The Story Of Religious Controversy: Religion and Morals in Ancient Babylon'. Also see: Ancient Egyptian Sexuality and etiological reference.

 

 PAGE TOP  -  Also see: Bibliographical notes to 'Pimp Cult.'

Psychogeography

And long before the celebrated Bacchanal of Anthony and Cleopatra, there flourished the orgy cult of personality that was the royal court of Israel, as best chronicled (with "something to offend everyone") in The ® of 'The Song of Solomon.' Also see: Mary of Magdala

But beyond sexmagick practices and even affect, what of core ideology and world view? Even though, of course, it's Hindu, not Babylonian, nevertheless, if one disregards the somewhat seemingly equivocal denial and qualification, the article 'Hidden Secrets of Tantric Sex' offers provocative cultural background and thematic content for the story. Indeed, Stephan Beyer's description of the followers of the Vajrayana could be adapted into marvelous expository dialogue for the character of Arturo Maximilian!  See also:

And the article 'Whoring In Utopia' might offer interesting source material for adaptation as temple / state propaganda in Babylonian America.

Frisco Utopia Brothel Bonanza?

Marlene Dietrich opined that: "A country without bordellos is like a house without bathrooms." But isn't such clinical trivialization somewhat over simplistic?

The phenomena of prostitution and pornography marketed sexual services are also part and parcel of a total life style within a social network and varying background situation, with associated personal relationships, with customs and habits in that network manifesting the values thereof, indeed, in real life contexts with every bearing upon psychological effects thereof.

Hence, abandoning as quixotic any Moralistic effort to simply abolish all vice, one way or another, historical fantasies of Babylon are often looked to for inspiration in not merely amelioration but even exaltation of the miserable estate of the world's oldest profession. However, in the real life modern world, enfranchisement is safeguarded by secular institutions from which, nevertheless, taboo is still an exclusion. That is why, for Anti-Slavery International, the problem is very much one of labor reform. After all, the more progressive among sex workers (that's 'sociolator', to you, fanboy! -Or ship's ambassador...) have actually been known to even Unionize.

Nevertheless, the begged question remains inescapable, truly, is everything demeaning in sex work purely extrinsic? Indeed, as to any question of job satisfaction, why do even the most radical activist printed manuals for prostitution advise only faking interest and enjoyment, so as to better secure return business? After all, even actors who only feign dedication to their craft, may eventually find themselves called to task for being so damn pretentious! But perhaps the John's suspension of disbelief is the more willingly manipulated than just any other sort of audience. And so, it may be that any bullshit notion of more radical change in the subjectivity of the world's oldest profession may still remain largely at the very fringes of plausibility in speculative fiction under whatever guise. Which leaves plenty of ambivalence to motivate conventional drama.

BASE TRADE: THEATER AS PROSTITUTION

In the obscure conlang (constructed language) of Kilirna, 'zhona' is an adjective meaning: free (agency), with leisure (or flex time), having free choices. But?/And? Even in modern Hebrew 'zhona' is still the word for whore or prostitute, though nary any quaint Pagan fine distinction of laity from, nor much point of, the sacred prostitution of the once holy temple whores, the Quadishtot, is ever recognized or even much remembered save among the scholarly.

 

Also consult the Racy Writing Resources.

 

 

Notes:

1. In 'Star Trek' Science Fiction Space Opera, different species may see and relate to one another, as nigh godlike or childlike, a theme used to turn our own conventions upside down in the 'Star Trek: The Ship of Fools' fanfic virtual series spin-off, by the introduction of the new character, Security Chief Lycia, 15 years old and jail bait by Human (that is, conventional Western) standards, but within the Federation of Planets, as a superior Deltan actually held responsible and culpable as the adult, if she ever violates a required oath of celibacy with an emotionally fragile sexually immature species, that is to say, any mere vulnerable Human. Whereas, kidnapped among the Klingons, she has survived, according to their ways, only by sheer Stockholm Syndrome habituation, conditioning and socialization to the most flagrantly seductive manipulation.

 Copyright Aaron Agassi 2004 - 2012

 initially compiled from material copyrighted 2002 - 2005