Yoshida looked at me with a faint smile. “Well, that’s why I like this world. There are no thieves, and there is no one with a negative mindset. No one lacks anything. No one wants anything from others that they’re not willing to give or share. On the contrary, everyone here is happy to share what they have because we have more than enough.”

“What if someone wants to harm your daughter, then what would you do?” I asked.

“The paradigm of the people back in our world is based on fear,” Yoshida explained. “Because of this fear, preventive measures are then created. But the more we prevent people from doing something, the bigger the temptation becomes for them. That’s the mechanism by which our world exists. But here in this world, nobody has any thoughts that are based on fear. And as they don’t worry about not having enough, they don’t need to take anything away from anyone else.”

“As for your question, if someone would try to harm my daughter … Well, let me put it this way. Two things influence the people’s way of life here: societal factors and societal attitudes,” Yoshida started explaining, but for me his explanation didn’t make any sense at all.

“What? That’s quite confusing!” I retorted.

“Please be patient, I’m going to explain it to you,” Yoshida said.

“First, the way of living shaped by societal factors means that because society has sufficient resources, no one has the sense of lacking anything, and no one has the need to hold on to anything. Therefore, everyone is willing to freely give away everything they have, even sex.”

“Uh …” I was about to question that.

“Hold on, please don’t ask anything yet. I know you have a conflicting thought,” Yoshida interrupted.

“Sex is complicated. I understand that because I have lived in the same world as you have, where sex is regarded as highly personal, shameful, and even disgraceful. One has to keep it secret, even though every person has the same urges and desires. This attitude is very different here,” he explained.

“Children here are educated more virtuously, where the desire to have sex is considered as the mechanism that encourages us to create and pass on a seed of life from one generation to another,” Yoshida continued. “Therefore, the physical beauty of young women and men stimulates these activities. Children are not taught to be overly self-conscious about their bodies. Quite the opposite, they take pride in their beauty, similar to the people in our world, who are, sort of, proud of owning expensive clothes, shoes, or handbags.”

“Oh, that’s what it is then,” I replied. “No wonder why people here do not feel ashamed when swimming naked in front of strangers,” I added, thinking about the today’s earlier events.

“I felt the same when I first arrived here. Is it clearer to you now?” Yoshida asked.

“Yes, thank you, much clearer now” I replied.

“But not only that,” he went on, “people here are not embarrassed about their bodies; they also have this attitude that having sex is a gift from God. In our world, both children and adults are programmed to believe that only men can have sexual desire. I don’t understand where this attitude came from. This means that men are taking advantage of women when they copulate. Here on this planet, men and women have equal sexual desires, so the concept of sexual harassment doesn’t exist,” Yoshida explained.

“As a result, a society is more mature when it combines favorable factors with the right attitudes. No one here has suppressed sexual desires, so no one has extreme sexual urges, unlike a lot of people in our world. Here, people desire only the ones they love. Simply put, both parties must have a mutual sexual interest in each other to have sex. There is no harassment, as sexual pleasure cannot arise if the other party is not willing. When both parties experience the same desire, it is something to celebrate, as the universe always wants the seed of life to flourish throughout the planets,” Yoshida concluded.

“Oh God!” I exclaimed.

“Did you say that because you truly feel that way, or out of habit?” Yoshida asked.

“Er … why do you ask?” I wondered, as Meen had asked me that same question before.

“Never mind. It’s probably a habit,” he said, and I felt that he always seemed to be able to guess what I was thinking.

“Let’s get back to what I do around here,” Yoshida said, changing the topic. “My family is not only working as caretakers of this forest and walkways,” he said proudly.

“What else do you do?” I asked him.

“I make paper. All the paper used by the leading artists in this city is produced here, and it’s all specially made. Tomorrow I’ll take you to see the production process. The three of us make it in a workshop next to my house,” he announced.

“Fascinating,” I said.