Unpopular opinion(?): Barclay’s fantasies weren’t the creepy thing about this episode. Nothing wrong with having weird fantasies, as long as you keep them to yourself, and Barclay never meant for anyone else to see his holodeck programs.
The unsettling thing about this episode, to me, is the fact that the holodeck apparently doesn’t have any usage restrictions on the likenesses of real people. They really ought to have an opt-in system for allowing others to simulate you on the holodeck.
That was Boimler. Mariner just appropriated his program for her own purposes. She even initially objects to the fact that he based the characters off the logs of the crew.
They sort of addressed this in Deep Space 9 when Quark tries to use Kira for a high paying customer. So there's a little story line on preventing using unwilling characters in this way.
Totally agree that there should have been a mention of giving consent earlier on. The Jordi/Dr Leah Brahms storyline does touch on how there was an abuse. Perhaps Starfleet later on added the restrictions that are seen in Deep Space 9.
I dont recall that being a regulation on DS9. I think Quark was just aware that Kira would literally beat him to death with the latnium he made from the deal if he did it.
I'm sure that even in 1990, they knew that making it explicit that Barclay was having sex with representations of the crew would have been a step to far, but in the cold open of "Hollow Pursuits", after he beats up Geordi and Riker, Barclay is interrupted just as he's about to kiss Troi, and it's pretty clear where the simulation is going to go from there.