PHASE 2 of the CARGO'verse

Worldbuilding kinky weirdness delivered with a straight face for my alternate UK

Photo by Erik Lucatero on Unsplash

My CARGO’verse is a fairly normal version of the modern UK, except that both Male Chastity and actual F/m hard power exchange are normalised and supported by both the NHS and the law — if you’re not familiar with it, go look at the series bible.

The first phase of the CARGO’verse — Shona’s Surprising Slave — is about the social change that happens when you embrace the darker side of humanity, and how that in turn makes submissive men confront what we really want.

In the Phase 2 — about 15 years on — “Gen C” has come of age, and all this is normal and the stories are about navigating a world where power exchange is real and chastity is actual chastity; I like to think that I am following in the footsteps of Tom of Finland and giving my people an imagined foundation myth.

To most people under 30, this is just how one corner of civilisation works: if you are drawn to “power exchange” then your natural trajectory is to become a Virgo or a chaste (lower case refers to all variations) and ultimately enter a CARGO partnership.

(CARGO and Artemis Industries also support distictively gay chastity and power exchange, but my fiction doesn’t really cover this.)

Older cohorts, especially those coming out of long marriages, are just discovering this brave new world. Some of them are rather enjoying it. Others are niaive and get themselves stuck.

Meanwhile, CARGO has eaten both the real life BDSM community and the online male chastity scene. Now people are doing it “for real”, BDSM consent culture feels like a lot of fuss and bother to achieve a poor simulchrum. The straight scene has thus dwindled to sex workers and older men interested in “pay to play”, tops and bottoms with no interest in power exchange, and actual perverts. Similarly, CARGO’s hard male chastity effectively calls out the fantasists and dabblers.

Since CARGO culture is established, the Health Secretary (responsible for the UK NHS) has started rolling out several provisions from the original bill, without much additional scrutiny (“Aurelia’s Sharpe’s work has served us well thus far, who are we to question it?”)

That’s what this article is about…

The Treasure Option

• Any chaste can be a Treasure.

• CARGO Partners may assign their Treasures to any new partnership deemed to be more beneficial to their welfare.

• Single Treasures (“Strays”) can be “claimed”.

• Grace Periods for humanitarian or mental health reasons.

• Grace Periods do not apply to hookups.

• Basic Marriages can have the Treasure option in abeyance.

• Transitioning to Treasure ends existing partnerships but resets clock.

Treasures surrendor control of their life to the collective wisdom of women.

Since single Treasures are deemed “vulnerable”, separating partners can ensure “continuity of security” by assigning the Treasure to their next relationship. (This provides a better path to partner transfer, currently achieved through manipulating the polecule laws.)

Likewise, Treasures who started off or became single, can be “claimed” by any Virgo kindhearted enough to take them in. Claiming entails her getting her phone within range of his transponder, then navigating to the correct screen of the UK National ID Database App. (No HrLckr account required, however 3G connectivity necessary.)

Widowed Treasures and divorcing Capons have an automatic “grace period” proportional to the length of the partnership. Others may apply for a grace period on the basis of psychological screening. However, any Virgo who hooks up with the Treasure (via HrLckr) can ignore the grace period and claim him. This also applies if she can prove cohabitation for more than six months.

Basic — i.e. non-CARGO — marriages involving chastes can have the Treasure option in abeyance, triggered at the Wife’s discretion.

Chastes wishing to exit existing partnerships can transition to Treasure by simply attending a Post Office with their phone or appropriate documentation. Obviously, they can only do this once, and there’s nothing preventing the ex partner or her agents from claiming him back. Unfortunately, this option resets their “clock”.

The brakes on claiming are:

• Economic — a Treasure must be fed and clothed and accommodated. Though dominant partners have veto on contract signing and bank account use, they cannot simply siphon off the subordinate partner’s assets.

• “One male body per relationship rule” — to prevent harem building, and the recruiting of unwilling staff.

• Chaste can vote with his feet — as long as he is prepared to live off soup kitchens and sleep in hostels, the chaste can simply abscond and hope that his partner will want to clear her male body slot for her next relationship. (He can also try to sue for maintenance or claim intolerable cruelty.)

The Capon Identity

• Legally and practically permanent.

• All partnerships automatically CARGO.

• All Capons are Treasures.

• Transitioning to Capon ends existing partnerships.

A Capon is a chaste with a standard chastity cage installed, with the twist that the neo-coral grommet and PA hook meld with the penis, making safe removal physically impossible, even if it were legal, which it is not (because, “Safety”).

Any partnership with a Capon is automatically a “CARGO” one, meaning that female partners have guardianship (mostly veto) on aspects of the male partner’s autonomy, especially contracts and bank accounts, and in the case of desertion can sue supporters and lovers for “alienation of affection”.

Needless to say, all Capons are Treasures. However, a normal chaste Treasure wishing to escape a partnership may attend an NHS clinic and transition to Capon. Grace

The aim was…

…to create a durable and sustainable quasi-gender, supporting a minority of vulnerable men in their natural sexual and emotional expression.

(Less official political reasons included “…making porn addled male degeneracy self punishing… amplifying this madness to its most extreme so that it will collapse into a black hole of its own filth and iniquity... LOL this will never happen what kind of idiot would do this to his dick? …. Let’s vote for this to make the libs look stupid.”)

Since Capon is pretty extreme, Artemis also revived the infamous Red Button familiar from the early days of CARGO.

The Red Button Capon Device

• Best ever keyed chastity cage, free or budget prices.

• Confers no legal status until sealed.

• Pressing the Red Button irrevocably “caponises” the wearer.

The Red Button Capon Device is initially the best possible keyed male chastity device anchored by a piercing with propriety grommet. This confers no special status on the wearer, and does not give them access to the HrLckr dating ecosystem (unlike the original Red Button Chaste Maker devices).

However, the device also has a red button. Pressing that triggers the onboard biotech to complete the fusion process, turning the wearer practically and legally into a Capon.

The official intention is…

…the RB Capon device empowers couples “to try before they buy” and single chastes to explore their feelings before committing to this identity.

Unofficially, this is a way to get middle-aged married men into chastity devices which they may not intend to seal.

There are rumours that bored or exasperated wives have taken to pressing the red button so as to demote their fetish addled husbands to permanently chaste subordinate partners. Research shows that this has actually saved a lot of marriages, especially ones blighted by erectile dysfunction (which can then belatedly clear up).

Ideal Husband Identity

(Details in progress…)

• Married men only.

• Standard Artemis Device

• Provisonal Chaste or Neuter identity.

• Minimum two years, after which IH may apply for release:

  • Slots for release each year are limited and there is a 10% - 20% knockback rate.

  • Applicants are prioritised according to recomendation by couple therapist.

  • WORLD BUILDING OPTIONS:

    • (a) Wife effectively has confidential veto on release, with the knockback rate giving her deniability.

    • (b) A hi-tech lie detector reveals the preferences of both parties.

  • Reapply after 12 months.

• If the marriage ends, start on the provisional identity.

• Ideal Husbands cannot escape the marriage via Treasure or Capon.

The Ideal Husband identity is aimed at mature and middle aged husbands for whom a collar would cause problems.

It involves installation of a standard Artemius Chastity Device and selection of a provisional identity. (He only needs wear a collar for Chaste.)

The Identity continues for at least 2 years and then until the wife triggers the Cooling Off Period, which lasts 50% of time served, i.e. a minimum of 1 additional year. She can cancel this process at any time via the UK Nationional ID Database App.

In all other ways, the marriage remains as was. However, in case of divorce, the Ideal Husband resets to the start of the provisional identity, e.g. a becomes a Neuter with 10 years to serve.

For reasons of “clarity”, the escape routes via Treasure and Capon are not available to Ideal Husbands.

NB This one was rolled out too late for Sarah and her “hanky hubby”.

Additional CARGO Provisions

• “Chastity Lottery” offers income to participating chastes, at risk of being subject to Wild Cards received by the Virgo winners.

• “Volunteers” for designated good causes may earn expedited release.

• Clarification of assault and harassment laws for CARGO partnerships.

A new Chastity Lottery “offers the Nation a bit of fun… like a naughty Premium Bonds.” Any chaste — or his partner(s) on his behalf — can enter. The prize money comes from tickets sold to registered Virgos, who each hope to win a Wild Card. Fully tradeable, these can be applied to participating chastes with effects ranging from: restarting the release clock; imposing treasure status; a voucher for a husband training institution, and — rarely — claiming a chaste from another partnership and making him her treasure.

Meanwhile, chastes volunteering for good causes bring their release closer. They must serve in a role that only a chaste could play, for example in sex therapy or the exciting new “primal rage catharsis” treatment.

Chastes have already lost some protections against harassment and moderate assault by women, especially if this is of sexual nature, since this vulnerability is deemed to be part of the chaste’s identity. The law now clarifies that men in CARGO partnerships have no protection against “moderate” assault or false imprisonment by their female partner(s) or their female agents. This enables female partners to access private security and mental health teams for their own safety and the wellbeing of their subordinate partner.

Conclusion: On-Ramps and Off Ramps

The theme of the mature CARGO’verse is “marriage, relationships and virtual slavery”, rather than hedonism, which still however goes on.

There are nasty slippery slopes:

• “Marriage makes a capon of a man” when a wife presses a red button on a device actually acquired for selfish sexual reasons.

• “Marriage keeps a man chaste”. Even in standard marriages, the female partner has veto on change of chastity status, except to Treasure or Capon. In Women’s Choice Marriages (aka “Catholic Special”), only the wife can grant divorce. Thus, a chaste who expected to endure five years can end up “stuck”. In this case, if he can’t catch her in infidelity with another male body, his best bet is to become a Treasure… and try to escape her.

• “Treasures don’t always like the women who claim them.” Once you are a Treasure, the only way out of a bad but not legally abusive situation is to become a capon. This is not an option many men take, unless utterly despairing of their lot and tempted by another Virgo.

• “Beware rich women.” If she can afford it and knows how to frame her words correctly, a woman can subject her subordinate partner to considerable physical coercion, including all-female security teams to administer punishments and cell time. There are also of “Institutions” devoted to husband training. These are expensive, but grants are available.

• “In particular, beware a secretly rich wife who enters you in the Chastity Lottery.” It’s possible to enter your partner in the lottery, then buy a Wild Card online and apply it to him.

• “Ideal Husbands often aren’t.” If a wife consents to her husband’s transition to Ideal Husband, it is usually not because she has a chastity fetish… yet.

There are however somewhat imperfect off ramps, that also serve as an upper limit to the mistreatment a chaste will endure:

• Escape to Treasure: If you are not already a Treasure and don’t mind losing progress towards release, get to a post office or other government building with some ID and declare your new status. This cancels your existing partnership, but you can be immediatly claimed by any Virgo in range, including your ex.

• Escape to Capon: If you are not already a Capon, march into an Artemis clinic and become a Capon. This cancels your existing partnership and gives you a grace period before the treasure rules kick in.

• Vote with your feet: You can, of course, abscond, live off soup kitchens and sleep in hostels and hope that your partner will want to clear her “male body” slot and release you. It is technically possible to sue for maintenance or intollerable cruely though this is difficult in practice.

As the leader of the Liberal Traditon Party remarked, “None of this is a very good idea in practice.”

---