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L.A. Background - the "Corps"

The Corporations

Standard Oil - Cocktail Culture
Like the Soviet Union in the age of Beria, Standard is driven by endless cocktail parties, lunches, golf dates, weekend parties.  They have the same implicit brutality as Stalin's cocktail parties, with the occasional "disappearance" at dawn.  Sexuality in Standard is kept very low key.  The average standard exec is expected to live in "Father Knows Best" style, but may also have a hispanic mistress in an apartment uptown, and his wife probably drinks excessively and takes pills.  Within Standard, cars, money, ostentatious houses, are real marks of power.
 
UFP - Mixed Culture
UFP is numerically the largest corp having sucked more concerns under it, though it is not "worth" anymore than Standard or ParaCentury.  UFP deals in volume.  It sells food and other organics in large quantities.  It's culture is mixed and proabably a little confused.  The BDSM culture of ParaCentury has made some inroads there, but the Cocktail culture is also fairly prevalent.  Within UFP there is more of a focus on entertaining, hosting, etc. though most UFP parties are not as decadent as ParaCentury Parties. 
 
ParaCentury - BDSM Culture
Within ParaCentury there is a higher tolerance for "flashy" extreme and sexual behavior.  BDSM has slowly gone from a personal kink to an element that shows power, control, and authority.  In addition to relations between some members of the Corp, keeping submissives, and throwing lavish parties with sex slaves is considered a mark of power. 

In the late 70s and 80s, the fetish culture became institutionalized, pushed by the rise of EDM Culture.  Fetish, submission and slavery became a fantastically attractive proposition to many girls in L.A.  The route to studio stardom was steep.  Fetish brought access to parties, and the patronage of powerful figures.  If it wasn’t stardom it was often the next best thing, in a state where falling “through the cracks” could mean a dismal fate.

Fetishized prostitution was seen as superior to “turning tricks” and gained traction.  To some extent the establishment of “Discipline Houses” was an attempt by connoisseurs to move fetish away from the domain of dolled up girls from apartments on Fairfax who were into fetish to get close to an Actor or Director, and establish it as a legitimate “artform.”  Proponents muse that it provides a model of discipline and restraint in the drug-crazed, alcohol swilling, sex-starved studio culture, and that is probably inarguable.

The Fetish culture, like the music culture supports a huge network of people who make their money from it and perpetuate it.  Leatherworkers, Semi-pro trainers, Session Dommes, all support a pyramid which at its high end has places like the exclusive training houses in Santa Monica such as Holland House.


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