As a second warning, no, this is not by any means some kind of sick "wish fulfillment" story. The idea came from a self-challenge to eventually write the most horrid "realistic" thing I could come up with. It's also ultimately less horrible than its real counterpart, but that'd be something I just couldn't write.
This is an idea I had earlier this year after reading a bunch of newspaper articles. While it is adapted to Foundationverse from an independent idea, I feel it fits.
Basically, this would be a tale of a journalist (alternatively a PR agent or a Foundation agent posing as either) being presented with one of Marshall Carter & Dark's newer businesses: a non-sexual child escort/"prostitution" service1. Clients come and pay to take out the children of varying ages for some time to basically just act as if they were a family, with very harsh, nearly immediate repercussions2 if they try to hurt them in any way… not because MCD grew any kind of conscience overnight, but because "damaged goods" are bad for business.
Particularly important to the narrative is how these children are, if not completely, almost entirely non-anomalous. Not some child-like construct, not clones, not humans with a memory-altering function built in: normal children. Perhaps indoctrinated into being fantastic actors that go from "family" to "family" seamlessly, perhaps broken to believe that is reality, or perhaps just too scared to act otherwise.
This would be presented as a tour being given to the above mentioned protagonist of the facilities (or at least a facility) housing the kids, where she gets to interact and interview some of the people involved in the process. One of the worst part would be how she realizes that the employees, even behind the scenes, do buy into the by-line that they are doing the equivalent of an act of charity for these children.
As said, given the semblance to one of the most sensitive context matters, this is one of those things that I cannot possibly publish without getting a nearl-perfect execution, which will take a lot of time. I'd investigate into a lot of the field reports on prostitution and child slavery to get the tone right (of course, the exact style of the final piece would depend on whether it's a "professional" writing or the protagonist's notes/personal account).
So my question is: do you think that even with high quality execution this concept could survive here on the wiki, or do you think the readers' gut reaction would guarantee this getting downvoted to hell and back? I'd obviously consult a bunch of experienced writers about the draft to make sure that it doesn't come off as something that some abuse fetishist would use get off: this is something that must be written as uglily as possible, with all characters being treated as tri-dimensional beings.
