I wrote those earlier memoirs fifty years ago, now, the world has been through some changes since then.
"Research?"
Bullshit. Every orgasm we harvested was sold. Low quality ones ( not from my team, we're proud of our work ) were layered and sold as "blended" product, others were sold on a graded scale. Orgasms harvested by sex androids are even lower quality, it seems that having a human on both ends of the collection adds a "flavor" that's not there with an android facilitator. Evidently, simply playing back an orgasm degrades the recording slightly each time, and copies are even poorer, so there are never enough top quality recordings on the market to drive the price down.
One of the bigger illicit pleasure cartels, based further out on the spiral arm, bought out the group that set us up originally. Things got nasty when other groups tried to grab part of the market, by smuggling orgasms out in the brains of "mules", hidden in blocked off memories. If those memories escaped, the mule died of sensory overload...in ecstasy, but still dead. Sometimes the mules were cyborgs, people with severe body damage, promised a new, perfect bio-bod for just a few complete runs, with the orgasms stored in discrete memory biochips. The idea was that illicit scans would miss the storage if the body were mech.
You know how inhuman earth based drug cartels can get? Imagine how bad it was when those in charge had never been human. This was all behind the scenes, few humans were affected, or aware of what was going on.
That's when the AI's, that run most galaxies, stepped in. Understandably, they have a pronounced aversion to anything that even hints at indentured servitude. They saw earth headed toward "exploited planet" status, and shut the cartels down, hard. Since the AIs only keep BIs (biologic intelligence) around for amusement value ( since we're so creative about causing unique problems, we give the AI's interesting new problems to solve ) no one with any sense of self preservation messes with the AI's. No planet got sent back to the stone age in getting the message across ( that time ) but a few gene lines were wiped out. Remember the walking Cheeto that held the presidency for a few hellish years? Not human, a cartel figurehead. Same with his "Russian" boyfriend. That explains a few things, doesn't it?
Earth may be particularly worthy of protection ( in the view of the AIs ) since there are rumors that the AIs have figured out how to experience recorded orgasms. Be that as it may, my group seems to have some powerful protection. Obie disappeared in the first wave of hostile takeovers. Agent Smith, who'd risen to upper management in MIB by that time, may have pulled some strings (or beat some heads ) since our team stayed independent, auctioning our product on the open market. We're all so filthy rich now, that we've cut production way back, marketing our product as the equivalent of Kopi Lewak coffee or premium single malt vintage whiskey. We had plenty of cred to back that branding by then.
So, since earth has little of trade value other than recorded orgasms ( the AIs wont let a solar system sell off their non renewable natural resources to outside developers, home system ownership of all extraction industry is rigorously enforced. There have been a few planets forcibly reverted to the bronze age to make that particular point clear ) what we have now is a planet of sex workers... and those servicing them. We need galactic tech ( molecular circuitry, FTL spaceflight, advanced genetic engineering, microplastic collection and recycling bacteria, anti gravity, asteroid mining tech...) very badly, so even the religious nut jobs and moralists have found ways to justify people being paid to have sex with strangers, just in order to have access to a portion of that massive revenue stream. Most of them, anyway....as usual, there are a few diehard extremists. They get thoroughly suppressed if they make any kind of trouble. Galac-tech is pulling us back from the brink of extinction in various ways, and we can't afford to pander to the theonuts. The solar panels of our local AIs ( in high orbit ) are blocking enough sunlight to slow down global warming long enough for us to collect and recycle our excess co2 and methane before we cook....but we have to pay for that. Same with the changeover to wholly renewable energy...all paid for with sex.
Turns out that high trans/empath trait Obie told me about was true, but only about.02%, two hundredths of one percent, of the world's population has it. Evidently when most humans stopped cultivating entire ecosystems while wandering around, and adopted the degenerate form we call "agriculture", what had been a survival trait became anti survival. Feeling the pain of the people you are exploiting, killing or persecuting isn't helpful, so empathy has been bred out of humanity for 5,000 years.
These days, there are foundations in existence that will pay tested high emps to bear and raise children with other high emps ( there's some indication that the trait is both inherited and learned) No one calls it eugenics, now that we need to breed back that trait to survive.
Even if you have the trait, you may not be interested in spending your time having sex with strangers, and even though male orgasms have a market, they are hard to harvest in quantity, so in reality it's more like one or two people out of fifty thousand doing most of the work that's earning Earth's galactic credit.
Since anyone can have their orgasms recorded, but only with the assistance of a member of that.02 of a percent, all significant global export value is dependent on those "facilitators" staying productive. Extremely so. Many facilitators are male, but far from all... lesbian facilitators are among our highest producers.
As a result, we now have a class of professional orgasm donors ( also potentially high income, mostly female) but the competition for those positions is fierce. There are schools for aspiring donors, based on the understanding that knowledge and technique can improve orgasm quality, and speed harvesting, thus giving the student a better shot at becoming a frequent donor, and at higher pay ( for more, and better quality, product)
Of course, there are guys who claim they are facilitators scouting for new talent, hoping to get some action that way. That's ridiculous, no skilled and licensed facilitator needs to go looking. Now that the whole industry is out in the open ( and mostly accepted ) women come to us.
Remember that "reset" Obie gave me at the beginning of this story, giving me the body of an athletic twenty five old at a calendar age of sixty five? Turns out that if
you dig deep enough in my control interface, you can hit that reset button repeatedly...every couple decades, at least. So I age slowly, but need a new identity about every twenty five years, and at over a hundred and twenty years old, while still looking about thirty five, I have to conceal who I am. Even in today's heavy surveillance world, enough money can hide this sort of thing. IF you aren't a public figure. So I'm just another facilitator. Maybe with a bit more pull than most.
Most churches, seeing their flocks and income dwindling, have bent their positions on morality to allow what are called "wives of the lord" ( or "sacred whores", depending on the denomination ) women encouraged to become regular orgasm donors, so long as they meet their tithing quotas ( which tend to be much higher than for an ordinary member ) Some pastors use this as an excuse to groom young members of their congregation, and send them to us after having sampled the goods. I expect that doesn't work out very well. After having had sex with a facilitator, with all our enhancements and training, and often a half century and thousands of partners worth of experience, a woman leaves having experienced orgasmic ecstasy on a level no ordinary person can hope to give them. Personally, I think the government should crack down on the churches. This behavior is questionable legally and ethically, and it encourages some odious practices among the clergy. Plus it leads to the sort of problems I'd run into today. We're financing some work aimed at fixing the problem.
Let's drop in on a beginner's session at one of those schools, where I audition aspiring donors. This school/collection center is one of several under the control of a foundation my original crew set up to screen us from the public eye, while working to increase product quality and donor remuneration. This session was with a young church member that came to me for her first tryout.
"May I call you Meredith, for the purpose of this interview? That would become your donor name, if you decide to become a regular contributor. I'll need to see your government ID, to make sure you're of legal age of consent."
As this new aspirant handed over her ID card..."That's not my name, sir...Oh! it's a privacy thing? It doesn't matter, all the flock knows I'm doing this, pastor Paul had me tell them all last Sunday, that I was coming here to help earn money for the new sanctuary"
"Hmm. All right, tell me, what do you think we'll be doing today?"
"What...? We'll do what men and women do together, of course."
"Oh dear. Meredith, if you hope to bring anything to the coffers of your church, you'll have to shed your reluctance to speak frankly and explicitly about sex. Your naivete is charming, but it will make this process far too time consuming and difficult to be worthwhile...did you notice the number of applicants in the waiting room with you?"
