A spy / exposure / intrigue story

[VerbalAbuse]

The MC is a spy with a mission to cause political upheaval / mayhem in a "friendly" country. He (or she) travels there, either with the mission parameters given, or he figures them on the fly. He knows or discovers that a certain relative (could be wife, or son, or daughter) of a very influential politician is routinely engaging in behavior unbecoming for somebody in their position -- not strictly illegal, but not otherwise allowed. Could be many things, from prostitution, doing porn, etc.

He works to collect enough evidence to cause a scandal and then to make the story public.

 

[NotUnperson]

The MC is a spy with a mission to cause political upheaval / mayhem in a "friendly" country.

I’d recommend Brazilaromanislovakiastan…izorch.

 

[LupusDei]

So, justified stalking and high stakes peeping? From the predator's perspective?

I could dig that. But I'm weird. To win popular acclaim with that may turn out to be bit hard.

And... When it's the virgin boy nextdoor doing the stalking and peeing there's that naivety that he's doing nothing wrong and extreme arousal he experience upon the slightest sight of what shouldn't be seen, and thus very deeply engaged language with overly detailed descriptions is justified. An adult, supposedly trained, likely jaded agent may still salivate over the sights on pictures he's getting with deliberate effort (and likely technical means that make it all trivial), may even peruse those for masturbation material, yet... Let's concede that what we have here is creepy antihero who must fail.

I suggest they have deeply misunderstood the country's culture.

Say, while strict reading of the law says that nudism is illegal anywhere, they may be amazed to discover wast nude beaches exist and have existed for decades, and are moderately popular (even if the typical attendance is 3/4 retirees, 1/4 prepubescent children wathed by them, and 80% of the remaining 1/12 are obvious couples only having eyes for each other). And police, if ever happened over there, would rather arrest someone protesting the nudity on display for disturbing the peace than do anything about the nudity.

They may surprised how easily they succeed to maneuver said politician or family member(s) into a situation that may let them publish material implying they practice nudism. There's much of furor, at first.

Yes, the moral outrage team they played on exists, but as a small minority, even if extremely vocal. There's some lip service to that from broader circles, but the real outrage is actually about the very invasion of privacy. Because, as common in people experienced Soviet or any other style totalitarian regime, the public persona, conformist and calculated, and the private persona, true and passionate, of the same individual may not even correlate. They can seemingly comfortably hold contradictory views. And laws, laws regulate the public persona, not the private. The private doesn't consider laws, instead it is regulated by tradition. Tradition purportedly older than christianity, so even if 70%+ identity as some flavor of Christians, only 40% had visited church in the past year. Church is a public affair, it doesn't have power in the private domain, even after 800 years that's something forced from outside and hostile to traditional way of life. Tradition, that in this case, says that functional nudity is okay and expected, as long it's not flaunted, and it is the duty of the bystanders to not notice it.

Okay, they may think, they just have to dig deeper and bring out something clearly sexual, better yet, some deviant sexuality, lesbian or, gasp, even gay male. The public space is thick with antigay voices, seemingly. And they go out of their way, and get it done, and it doesn't work either. Lots of noise, no observable motion of the needle.

The politician pivots easily, and start campaigning to finally bring official status to that nudist beach, and, even though it's quite a somersault, champion sexual minorities, owning the free publicity, and it seems working for them.

And in a multiparty list politics, there's 33+ lists to choose from, but because if the percentage barrier, voting for 25+ of those actually gives votes to the winner... who may get 23% at most, and convert that in 30% parliament seats. And the third place party, with it's traditional 15% votes is an unlikely confederation of "Peasants Union" and "Green Party" and unnamed interest group financed by oil transit through the most corrupt oligarch of the country, and everyone knows it, and even it's own voters cynically refer to it as "dollar green oil peasants"...

 

[LoneMilf]

The MC is a spy with a mission to cause political upheaval / mayhem in a "friendly" country. He (or she) travels there, either with the mission parameters given, or he figures them on the fly. He knows or discovers that a certain relative (could be wife, or son, or daughter) of a very influential politician is routinely engaging in behavior unbecoming for somebody in their position -- not strictly illegal, but not otherwise allowed. Could be many things, from prostitution, doing porn, etc.

He works to collect enough evidence to cause a scandal and then to make the story public.

You could make the main character run a honey trap on the unsuspecting target. Lots of possibilities for the main character to suddenly find that they actually enjoy it or maybe even develop feelings for the target. Also provides a nice setup for flirting (with the reader knowing that it's actually one-sided).
I would suggest keeping the male character as male and make the target female - adds a little variation to the expected formula

 

[Priscilla_June]

I’ll drop this here: Intern Intrigue