Comment:

I've always had a soft spot for cheerful, enthusiastic, energetically sexual characters. Call me crazy, but I'm a big fan of fictional characters who live large, who enjoy themselves, who want others to do likewise - and if that happens to involve a sexual dimension, hey, that's a heck of a bonus. (Ideally, these characters play well off of other characters who are not thus, because that's how stories work, but who are amused and aroused and consenting, because that's how stories that are nice work.)

Zoa's not quite the same as those other characters, though. There's somewhat of a different vibe when one says "hey, I like you, I like blowjobs, sucking your dick would be great, hooray, let's do the thing (oh, and by the way, I'm not doing it unless you transfer me thirty credits first)".

But, of course, whether we acknowledge it or not, there's always something implicitly transactional in any sexual interaction, isn't there? Even if there were such a thing as a perfectly equitable interaction with absolutely no power dynamic or emotional codependence, there is usually at least an "I'll do this for you if you also do this for me" aspect. I mean, in theory, Zoa could just say "hey, this is a normal oral sex scenario, I'll go down on you if you go down on me. Oops, I totally forgot I don't have genitals, oh well, I guess giving me thirty credits is kinda like licking the alphabet on a clitoris, right?"

I guess that's why I've never had any real problem with sex work (other than, of course, trafficking and exploitation and whatnot). I mean, if you've ever endorsed the idea of sexual reciprocation, what you're really pushing, in a sense, is prostitution that happens to use the barter system.

Transcript:

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0083 - 2167/07/06/12:04 - Lee Caldavera's apartment, living room
Zoa: I ordinarily might have commented something lewd about your state of undress - perhaps suggested some activities we could do before you put your pants on - but I thought it might make you feel uncomfortable.
LC: Zoa, if your opinion could make me feel uncomfortable, I wouldn't have come out of the bathroom at all.
LC: Also, please put your eyeballs back in.
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LC: Do you see out of those, by the way, or it is like how you lipsync to the sounds coming out of your neck?
Zoa (picking eyes off the floor): They're my primary visual-spectrum inputs, yeah, but I also have microcameras along my hair- and jaw-line, in the middle of my chest, fingertips, the back of my neck, on my ankles...
LC: Ankles?
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Zoa (putting eyes back in): So I don't accidentally kick stuff.
LC: Mm. I could use a pair of those.
Zoa: Eh, it doesn't always work out the way it should.
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LC: So which camera detects people's penis sizes?
Zoa: Ideally, the one you saw on my uvula!
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