Comment:

Sexual attractiveness, promiscuity, perception of promiscuity, and self-image are all a big ol' interconnected messy ball of psychosocial nonsense. One of the stats I heard long ago - and I believe it - was that sexual promiscuity correlates with high self esteem in men and with low self esteem in women. One wonders how that statistic changes in a world with more fluid gender roles and essentially zero risk of STI and unintended pregnancy.

Anyway, one of the utopian aspects of the world of Forward is that slut-shaming is, if not eliminated, at least greatly reduced. Lee's self-hating anxiety here is less due to a Victorian concern for their reputation and more like the embarrassment you would feel showing up in class naked.

Or... er... not exactly like that. We've been unpacking Lee's psychosis for a while now, and we're not done with them yet.

Transcript:

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0088 - 2167/07/06/12:09 - Lee Caldavera's apartment, living room
Zoa: For what it's worth coming from a pile of algorithms, Lee, I do consider you both esthetically appealing and physically attractive. If I hadn't come along when I did, I can assure you, whoever did show up for your little orgy invite would have been very excited to see you.
LC: Ugh. That is not a scenario that I would have enjoyed.
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Zoa: Oh, I don't expect you'd have fucked them, no, but you'd have taken it as a compliment, right?
LC: What? No! Absolutely not.
LC: That's why I still need to get that breast reduction surgery. These heifer tits just make me look dumb and slutty.
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Zoa: Uh... Lee, breast size in humans correlates to neither intelligence nor sexual promiscuity.
Zoa: ...Well, okay, there is a spike of correlation for promiscuity around the five thousand cubic centimeter mark for humans fifty kilograms and less, but those are outliers.
LC: I didn't say they make me dumb and slutty. They just advertise a hypothetical and entirely nonexistent sluttiness. I really don't know what I was thinking when I got'em in the first place. Maybe I was just watching a lot more sexually-explicit shows around that time.
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LC: Nnnngh. You see? Shit like this! This is why I don't want to go out in public! Anyone who sees my body is going to jump to the wrong conclusions about who I am as a person and then try to interact with me based on that misperception!
Zoa: Well, why not just encase your torso in an opaque rectangle and print whatever adjectives you want on the outside? Easy fix!
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