City of Prostitutes

I recently had a friend visiting me from somewhere. I forgot where he came from as I did not pick him up at the airport. All I knew was he spoke a different language. Anyway, I took the opportunity to show him around my home city known as City D worldwide. In the underground train, he asked me what activities the people in City D usually did. I shot him a blank gaze and answered: sleeping, eating, clubbing, working, wasting their time and having sex. He then laughed a bit and looked into another direction, avoiding my sight. I wonder why he laughed and looked away. Is it that the people in his hometown have a different lifestyle? Or is it because he thought the people in City D wasted the time of their own lives in a trivial manner? Or did he just laugh at the point that we had sex to kill our time? I did not show my discontent towards his reaction. I just imagined things.

Fifty years from now, the government would have banned having sex (before they could do anything about smoking indoors). The government makes this stunning decision not because of the prevalence of a particular fatal bug that could spread to other individuals through different sexual acts, but that the city residents are diagnosed to be more and more lonely and isolated with the accumulation of sexual activities they engaged in. Medical practitioners claim that many people in City D do not fuck for a reason. This is what the report says: “Participating in various modes of sexual activities (including masturbation), to people of different sexual orientations, has become a daily habit for people living in City D. 87% of the respondents stated that they regarded having sex equally common and habitual as brushing teeth, showering and talking on the cell phone. 79% of them do have sex more than once a day, if not as frequently as they talk on their phones. When asked about why they had sex, an alarming 97% of interviewees could not give a solid and logical answer. They either gave a pass to the question or answered that they did not believe there was a why because they presumed it was what most people were doing and hence there was nothing wrong about it.”

The report goes on like this: “City D residents should be alerted that the purposeless but habitual sexual activities are strongly linked to the increasing cases of suicide caused by depression. The government has been trying to educate the public about the treatments and prevention of depression but the hideous linkage between the mental illness and the sudden rise of post-sexual emptiness is neglected. In order to strengthen the social unity to better the economy of City D, we need to have citizens who are more clear-minded and determined in all aspects of their lives. Therefore, evident with the data provided in this report, such a vague concept on the motivation of any sexual activities could do nothing but harm the progress of the city and it is suggested that having sex (both indoor and outdoor) should be banned.”

The government listens to the opinion given by the medical professionals and enacts the law. Anyone who violates this law will be castrated – the men will have their dicks cut off while the women will have their vaginas sown up. The residents in City D do not rebel, but a month after the law is passed, they do find it difficult to get used to living with one regular habit forcibly removed from their daily schedule. Since they do not consider having sex as a part of their civil rights, there is no massive protest and demonstration. They just take it as another case similar to the previous ban on selling poultry (both edible and inedible) in order to stop the bird flu virus from contaminating the city. Successfully, a few months later, they residents replace having sex with another leisure activity, classical Chinese calligraphy. The government is very happy about the positive response of the public and its cooperation with the city planning. However, its economy does not progress rosily as predicted. There is a huge number of prostitutes out of job and every day they line up outside different government offices to apply for social aids and bankruptcy. The news in other cities also report the situation and the government in City D is mocked at. The government admits that they have underestimated the number of underground whores in the city and suggest all the whores should form a union to come up with more concrete policies on how the government can offer help through different means. Since most of the whores are better at dealing with genitals than the brain, it is reckoned that it will take ages to negotiate with the government officials. During this period, the government has spent billions to provide the unemployed with urgent financial needs and the deficits have reached its new high. City D is now a more united city, but the people are not any happier or cheerful even though they still spend most of their time in eating, drinking, sleeping, working and Chinese calligraphy. The city itself is getting poorer and poorer and they start to worry that they could not eat what they like, liquors will become more expensive, they may need to work over-time to keep their jobs. At times when the financial situation is at risk, high culture stuff like Chinese calligraphy will become a luxury and useless. They are prepared for the worst. They will probably miss the forever-satisfying entertainment by putting their own genital into another’s body when they do not even have a dime in their pocket. This could only happen in their imagination but not in the reality. Having this thought, they will only become more devastated. Depression is bound to come back.

The train finally arrived at the station and I told my visiting friend that it was time to get off. I would bring him to see other places in City D, a place I did not know whether he liked or disliked. All I hoped was that he would not laugh and look away again like he did on the train. It was such a despising act on our local culture. To show a visitor your own city that he does not find amazing is definitely a waste of time. Don’t worry. I am used to it. Wasting time is in our daily schedule.