It is small wonder that people find “free choice” a confusing idea: [it] appears to refer to what the person being judged…does, whereas it is actually what the person making the judgment…thinks. – Thomas Szasz
I will never understand why people feel compelled to stick their noses into others’ business. Everyone is different, and has different needs and desires; we also each have different strengths and gifts. If one person has something another wants, and that other has something the first wants, and they agree to a trade, how is that anyone else’s concern? If you’ve got money and want food, and a grocer or restaurateur has food and wants money, and the two of you agree to an exchange, that’s business; both parties go away happy. And if one of you is dissatisfied with the transaction – say you thought the quality of the food was poor or the service was lousy, you simply don’t go back; you instead find another food vendor who will give you what you demand for your money. That’s competition, and it’s what keeps the free market free. Some ridiculous people want to claim that it’s somehow exploitative to sell people things they want, and some even more ridiculous people claim it’s exploitative to offer to pay someone for something. These people are living in a fantasy world; here on the material plane, there is nobody who doesn’t need or want something, and very few who have absolutely nothing to offer in exchange. As long as the transaction is voluntary, nobody else has the right to say boo. It’s only when someone is actually coercing the other that there is an issue.
“But Gloria,” you ask, “what if one party’s need for whatever the other one has is so strong it constitutes coercion in and of itself? What if the customer is addicted to the product, or the seller is so poor he’s desperate for money?” Well, what of it? You’re probably addicted to caffeine, so does that mean Starbucks is exploiting you when you walk in for one of their overpriced lattes? You could just as easily go to McDonald’s. As long as there’s a free market, you can still choose who’s going to get the money you spend on your caffeine addiction. The same goes for food, medicine, shelter and everything else. And yes, even labor; if one company offers poor wages and another fair ones, who is everyone going to apply to? It’s only when there is no real competition because there’s a monopoly or a cartel, or because a coercive government fixes prices or establishes a restrictive licensing regime or the like, that exploitation arises because the one who needs the artificially-limited thing is at the mercy of whoever can provide it.
And that is the crux of my ethical dilemma.
In my youth I developed a strong sense of morality and fair play, and despite considerable pressure to abandon it I have never compromised. But now I find myself in the uncomfortable position of having a local monopoly on the service I provide, and I’m extremely concerned that I might begin maltreating my clients because of it. I’ve even toyed with the idea of initiating another lady so that I’ll have a competitor, but the only problem with that is I couldn’t be sure she would maintain my high ethical standards. See, the service I sell is…well, kind of addictive I suppose. Once a man has experienced my…attentions, he tends to want them again and again; the temptation to take advantage is therefore very, very high, and I think it’s very likely that any self-created competition would not be as resolute as I am. In other words, in trying to avoid exploiting my clients, I would almost certainly expose them to greater exploitation.
As you’ve probably guessed, I’m a Lady of the Evening. Yes, I know that term sounds so old-fashioned nowadays, but “prostitute” is so legalistic, “sex worker” so vague and most of the other choices so vulgar…and I sincerely doubt most Americans would even know what “demimondaine” meant. And yes, of course there are plenty of others around; there are probably hundreds of women of every type and stratum within an hour’s drive, all easily contacted via email. But I offer a very unusual service, catering to a kink that used to be relatively rare but is now increasingly popular. See, in the past I could count on that rarity to keep me honest; so few men were interested in what I was selling that I had to carefully cultivate each one lest I “kill the golden goose” as it were, and be caught with fewer clients than needed to maintain my preferred lifestyle. But now, I could treat my clients like dirt were I so inclined, drain each one dry and then discard him, secure in the knowledge that there would be plenty more where he came from. And that’s not only wrong, it’s dangerous; in my line, one has to avoid attracting undue attention.
Ah, well, I didn’t really expect you to have a solution; I mean, it’s not like you’ve ever been in my position, now is it? But sometimes, it just helps to talk to somebody, to voice these things out loud instead of merely letting them rattle around in my brain. Thanks for listening; how much do I owe you? Maybe we’ll talk more another time; I really must fly now. I have to meet a gentleman at eleven, and it’s after ten now; I don’t have far to go, but it takes a lot longer to make sure one looks nice when one can’t make use of a mirror.
Very clever and marvellously erotic.
I’m sure Gloria could make time in her busy schedule for you, but remember she only does evening appointments. 😉
Aha, I remembered you mentioned you were going to do this story earlier. You might enjoy this book I read as a child:
http://www.amazon.com/Clutch-Vampires-These-History-Literature/dp/0821205943
It’s just a general exploration of various ideas about vampires. It has a few different short stories, too.
Checklist for Gloria’s visit:
1. Invite her in the door, otherwise she’ll just stand there
2. Put crosses in drawers
3. Lay off the garlic
4. Lift weights, so all my blood vessels get nice and juicy and close to the skin
🙂
Great story, and I think I’ll have to borrow your first paragraph and repeat it all over the web.
Please do. And I literally LOLed at #1. 🙂
I wonder, if Gloria had a smartphone or a tablet with a front facing camera, would she have been able to do her make up; or, is she just an old-fashioned girl?
No. Vampires can only be seen by a sentient mind, not by any artificial device. They can neither be reflected nor photographed.
What about an artificial sentient mind – a replicant? The T-800? Data? Neo after he goes blind?
Can a vampire be heard or felt by machines? If not felt, how? Are they intangible? If heard, what about echolocation?
A vampire’s clothing can’t be seen either. If a vampire wears and removes clothing, can this be used for purposes of telegraphy? How fast does the being-worn signal propagate?
What happens with a two-person costume with a vampire in one half and a human in the other half?
Nope, not by any of those things. It’s a spiritual entity, not a physical one; its clothes are merely part of it for appearance, which is why they aren’t left behind when it turns into a bat, a wolf or a mist.
I get how that covers the T-800, and if you’re being snotty, Data. But that doesn’t seem to cover Neo’s second sight (even if he was a stiff character acted stiffly, he was human), and it certainly doesn’t cover the replicants. They were only slightly modified from being human.
Do you try to find loopholes in all the fiction you read? LOL.
I try to find loopholes in everything. I’m a physicist. Reality has no loopholes.
I was in a rush and missed the replicant reference; yes, they could see vampires because presumably they have souls, whether Data could would depend on whether such a being would have a soul in that fantasy world. I know nothing about the later Matrix movies; I presumed you meant Neo had some artificial sensing device. A psychic power could still see ’em.
The best mechanics I ever encountered for Vampires who had no reflection was in the book series The Vampire Files by P.N. Elrod.
Traditional vampires don’t work at all in a scientific universe; they’re based in mystical principles. Sure, you can invent pseudoscientific rationales for a lot of it, or just dump it as Anne Rice did, but I prefer to simply use a magical framework.
Even fantasy books need mechanics- rules, even magical made up rules, should be consistent.
P.N. Elrod’s books use supernatural mechanics, but they are consistent and clear, i.e., he has no refelction because of x reason, which also has the following y effects.
After all, science is not about knowing all the answers, but about using a logical method to find the best answers possible.
Yes, that’s exactly how my fantasy universe is! The actual mechanic in my world is that a vampire is made of solid ectoplasm, so even though it behaves like normal matter in many ways it’s still technically a ghost. In my universe, nothing made of ectoplasm is sensible to artificial perception; constructed creatures like golems are therefore unable to perceive them. The only exception is magical spells & devices specifically intended for the purpose.
Ah, that makes perfect sense then, well done! 🙂
Thank you! My friend Phil (who was also a DM) used to sometimes ask me for rationales for fantasy metaphysics that would be logically consistent. Of course, he was also a bit peeved when I decided that a “Time Stop” spell didn’t actually just stop time, but rather accelerated the wizard to roughly 1200x normal speed. Once I had put a number on it, another DM of our acquaintance took that ball and ran with it…
For vampires in a scientific world, try Mike Comb’s The Land of Eternal Night.
For the last vampire movie I actually enjoyed, there’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders.
I’ve always felt that the best interpretation for time stop, from spells to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066516/The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything was the caster, watch holder, or whatever being sped up a thousand times or more. I have to wonder how you came to the same conclusion.
I probably got it from the Star Trek episode “Wink of an Eye”, but embraced it because the opposite is an absurdity. Spells conserve energy like anything else; it takes much less energy to speed up one individual than to slow some large spell area (or the ENTIRE UNIVERSE) down by even a fraction of a second, much less stop it entirely.
In reading about that movie, The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything, I found that it’s based on a book, and that in the book we find that the “timestopper” is actually sped up to such a degree that, from his point of view, it seems that time is stopped. So it seems that this is the logical interpretation whenever people give the matter a great deal of thought.
I can’t believe I didn’t realize the narrator was a vampire after I read the last line. *facepalm* Re-reading the story, I now understand the double entendres Maggie left in the story as hints to her true nature.
Another vampire book Maggie might be interested in is Cameron’s Law by Mia Darien. In that book, supernatural beings like vampires and werewolves in Adelheid, CT have been granted citizenship and civil rights under “Cameron’s Law”, but there are still bigots who want to go back to the way things used to be. Interesting take on vampires to say the least. Good thing is that the book is free, but the bad news (if you don’t have a Kindle or a Kindle app) is that the book is only available in e-book form.
Vampires … no I’m not interested in becoming a “client”. Wouldn’t you have to be a “sub” type male to enjoy this?
On another note …
I think there is something bred into the human female by evolution that makes them “titilated” by vampires.
The “Twilight” shit is one example – that’s an all female fan universe mostly.
I have dated several women who fantasized about Vampires.
One of them, dreamed regularly of walking alone in a graveyard – when a male vampire comes out of no where and rapes her. One of these dreams caused her to have a “wet dream” that was soooo wet – it would put any male wet dream to shame.
I don’t understand it – is it the power of the Vampire versus the “powerlessness” of the victim?
O/T but I just found out that U.S. Army Captain Will Swenson FINALLY received his Congressional Medal of Honor for the battle of Ganjgal.
Sometimes the right things happen! His “partner”, Dakota Myer received his medal quite some time ago. However, Swenson RIGHTFULLY complained about the cowardice of lawyers and others in the rear – who refused our guys support in that battle because of the fucked ROE that our soldiers have to follow in Afghanistan. Soooo … Swenson’s award submission was “lost”.
But a huge outcry from a lot of vets forced the administration to do the right thing. After a week of bad news for vets – I’m very excited about this.
I like vampires because I want to be one, not because I want to be dominated by one, but I’m the minority, I believe.
Vampires are mostly appealing to people who are sexually repressed, I’ve found. Vampires are “evil” and so they always do whatever they want, motivated only by their “carnal” needs. The weirdest vampire groupies are the ones who expect vampires to be unfeeling monsters except for them.
They are also super powerful, rich, and eternally young, which are standard “sexy” ingredients.
None of the girls I went out with were “sexually repressed”.
Yeah, well, the majority of twihard lunatics (twilight fans) are.
I absolutely loathe Twilight. I find it dreadfully written. But there are other vampire stories, especially erotic ones, that flip my switches big-time.
I would hazard to guess that part of the attraction is to have this creature who wants you so badly, so deeply, that (s)he literally wants to EAT YOU. Someone who needs to consume you, or they’ll die. That fantasy can be a powerful one.
Emma Holly’s Upyr series is probably my favorite erotic vamp series. JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood is pretty good too, although her writing style has been known to put people off. It’s more urban fantasy than erotic though.
Coming back to your free market-consenting adults points. Don’t you think for instance that it is problematic to allow vulnerable people to sell their own organs (kidneys, eyes, etc.)? The argument would be, even if people are acting freely, society has a duty to protect people from harming themselves for good and for ever for the benefits of richer others. The key points are 1) the damage is very serious and not reversible. ( As opposed to a non lethal physically demanding work.) 2) there is someone richer and or powerful taking advantage of someone in dire needs (as opposed to suicide.) If you admit this objection has something in it , then of course it is easy to extend it to prostitution, not because it is selling your body which is asinine as you made clear several times but because you could argue that some irreversible psychological damage could be inflicted. I know that most prostitutes are not vulnerable, nor damaged by prostitution and i know that the idea of psychological harm as opposed to physical is slippery but at least hypothetically some prostitute could suffer some real psychological harm and therefore i can see some logical merit in the argument. This is also an argument against great depression dance marathons a la they kill horses don’t they or any violent spectators sport.
I think you yourself explained why I would oppose such laws. I think questions of medical ethics should be left to doctors’ own ethics bodies, not imposed upon them by politicians who don’t know the Islets of Langerhans from the Islets of Mauritius.
How funny: selling organs is exactly the example I had in mind.
I want to sell a kidney, to save a kidney-affected sibling. Or maybe I want to earn money to feed my starving children. For whatever reason, as long as I am aware of the risks. I go through with the operation.
Someone wants to buy a kidney. They’ll die if they don’t get one, and a million bucks is a drop in the bucket for them.
The seller and buyer are both okay with it, but because it makes a third party feel morally icky, they shouldn’t do it? The seller gets what he wants and the buyer gets what she wants. There is no exploitation involved.
I don’t think “society”, whoever that is, has the right to make those decisions on my behalf.
Agreed. If people are really upset by the squick, they could set a “minimum organ price” or some such artificial economic insurance akin to minimum wage.
In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the titular character encounters Mina in the garden maze while feeding from her readheaded friend and, bloody-muzzled, utters this line to Mina :
“NO! Do not see me!”
Mina fails to register his presence. That suggests that their power encompasses mind control over human subjects. That might be the origin of the “imageless” concept rather than an absence of reflection; the Nosferatu control the minds of the humans.
Still, if you love somebody, what might you not do for her to keep her alive? 💓
Okay that was brilliant, funny and hot.