The Bonobabes

The hundred years between 2011 and 2111 saw many changes to society, but perhaps the most astonishing is the ubiquity of genetically-engineered bonobo concubines, known colloquially as "bonobabes".

It all began in the late 2030s, when Gynecorp, a Brazillian/American biotech company, developed the technology to augment ape intelligence to human-like levels, and began looking about for ways to profit from the technology. Due to the expense of the process, it was decided to focus on producing ape servants for the wealthy. For some reason, the process did not work on orangutans, and focus-testing demonstrated that gorillas were too intimidating to be accepted as domestic servants. When it turned out that the already aggressive and violent behavior of chimpanzees was only made worse by the addition of intelligence, the decision was made to focus solely on the chimps' gentler cousin, the bonobos, which had experienced a somewhat miraculous recovery from their near-extinction earlier in the century.

The first run of enhanced bonobos proved highly successful, allowing Gynecorp to buy out several other biotech companies that had also been working on ape enhancement. It was decided to utilize the patents thus acquired to produce a new line, one genetically engineered for human service. The result, marketed as BoNubo, was not only intelligent, but instinctively submissive to humans, taller, and able to speak. In addition, due to a combination of the project's Brazillian nature, and the fact that the design team were horny nerds with a weird sense of humor, the female BoNubos were able to fill out a bikini very, very well.

Between that last, the sexualized nature of bonobo socialization, and general human perversity, it was expected that some who purchased BoNubos would use them for sex. What was not expected was the numbers; over 70% of BoNubo owners. It seemed that just as augment intelligence had made their chimp cousins more violent, it made the bonobos more sensual, and the combination of high libido, low inhibitions, and total obedience proved irresistible to many.

At first horrified by this revelation, Gynecorp execs eventually came to embrace it, resulting in a new line, marketed as BoNeobos. They possessed nearly hairless bodies, facial features that while still distinctly apelike and inhuman were far more attractive, and were even shapelier than before, something which applied also to the males, who now had adonis-like physiques and horselike pacakges, able to rock a speedo as well as their sisters rocked bikinis.

The release on the market of these, the first true bonobabes, was accompanied by a massive public relations campaign, meant to convince the world that having sex with one was neither perverse nor adulterous. People were told to think of the bonobabes as not animals, but as living sex toys, not as homewreckers, but as marital aids; after all if your spouse is getting his or her jollies from a bonobabe, s/he isn't cheating on you, right?.

This campaign proved successful beyond Gynecorp's wildest dreams. Too successful in fact, as demand for bonobabes far outweighed supply, resulting in other companies releasing their own models of bonobabe. Combined with advances that made producing them cheaper, prices decreased enough for bonobabes to become available to middle-class folk. The rest, as they say, was history.