The scariest thing about Zalem
There is no crime in Zalem, yet Lou is scared of being sexually assulted. You could say this is just Lou being paranoid, but if that were the case, why would Russel's first reaction be to also assume Bigott was harassing her?
The fact that both Lou and Russel jumped to similar conclusions tells us this is a thing that realistically could happen and does happen on Zalem.
But it's a city with no crime, so how come?
That means sexual abuse is either covered up or not treated as a crime. Or both.
Not to mention the gun crime rates you'd expect if it's this easy for someone paranoid to get a gun and pull it on whoever they find suspicious.
In Last Order we see more female Zalemites with firearm while male Zalemites use more basic weapons like bows. At least some of them had to have owned those weapons and been trained in them before the reveal.
Even the accused doesn't find it absurd that someone assumed he was sexually harassing an employee. He finds it absurd that someone assumed he was sexually harasssing a female employee.
It's less "How dare you think I'm a sex pest" and more "How dare you think I'm straight".
So Zalem has gay rights and brainchips but still has not solved gendered violence and sexual violence. Got it.
That might be the scariest part of it, really.
It's even worse that I can't tell if this implication was intentional or not.
