Sex Robots- creating the "perfect" woman

Any man who buys a sex from a woman or a robot is a loser. It's no wonder they can't have a consensual, equal and meaningful relationship, they have to buy it for goodness sake.

You only have to read posts on ukpunting to see the kind of male specimens we have living amongst us in society.

Spot on Sparrowhawk!
The good old days = the days when women could be controlled because they were beholden to men

it's a discrimination, then i need a perfect sex doll man!

The idea that there was once a moral code that kept everything lovely and friendly is uttter utter bollocks. Women were subject to a punitive moral code whereby their sexuality was entirely controlled by men. Men were subject to no moral code at all - it was entirely legal to rape your wife FFS!!! Men could have as much pre-marital and extra marital sex as they wanted. Women who were discovered to have had pre marital sex, on the other hand, could have their lives literally destroyed.

The idea that everything's gone to shit comes from men who don't like the fact that their fathers and grandfathers easily picked up a sock washing sex receptacle from the bunch of non-humans known as women who had no other option but to marry. Now that women have other options, guess what, they don't want to wash someone else's socks and open their legs on command. And so men wail and lament and hark back to the good old times. Well they weren't any fucking good for women.

maybe the taxi driver could get a new job, discover new skills, find a whole new world for himself
Or maybe just sit in his cave banging rocks together because he lacks the mental dexterity to imagine different ways of organising life

I think we're coming from a completely different page politically. I'm a socialist, not a liberal. You think people should adapt to market forces; I don't.

A certain type of feminist bears some responsibility for this cess pit of sexual commodification that is modern society.

Ha ha ha

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0518y18
Good item on Women's hour about it.

How bizarre that you are hanging out on an overwhelmingly female oriented website then. Obviously you can, not saying you can't, but rather curious if you dislike women that much.

I can't get all that bothered about hypothetical taxi drivers being made hypothetically redundant, they are perfectly capable adults. Redundancy is unpleasant for everyone, but they are not vulnerable or unskilled people.

But the taxi driver conversation has made me realise that we will have to agree to differ on just about every aspect of society. Your idea of a perfect society is almost certainly not mine, and your fear of how bad future society might become is far less optimistic than my best guess. And we really, really have different views about relationships and sex, which is fine.

maybe the taxi driver could get a new job, discover new skills, find a whole new world for himself
Or maybe just sit in his cave banging rocks together because he lacks the mental dexterity to imagine different ways of organising life

Taxi driving is a job, an identity, a livelihood, a source of camaraderie and belonging that should be protected by laws and unions

what really, even if we have new more efficient ways of doing things?
No doubt stone age life also provided an identity, a livelihood, a source of camaraderie and belonging, that doesnt mean we should stick to that.
We can make new tools, think new thoughts, find subatomic particles, explore string theory etc etc

Humans are infinitely plastic, we adapt endlessly and can find an identity, a livelihood, a source of camaraderie and belonging out of many different things.

where's your bleedin' imagination fgs

So...what would happen to these taxi drivers? Is there no ethical problem with taking people's jobs away? When electric street lamps came in in what...I dunno...the late Victorian/Edwardian era..people would have been left to starve or forced into workhouse conditions. They would've been fucked.
Then in the 20th century we got the Labour movement and the welfare state. That's all going now and we're heading backwards.

My point is this. A taxi driver does not just exist to serve customers. Taxi driving is a job, an identity, a livelihood, a source of camaraderie and belonging that should be protected by laws and unions. Similarly sexual relations are not just exchanges, transactions. Your view of sexual relationships is a neoliberal one - a view of people as commodities who we utilise for our own ends. Got to go to work now.

I'm sure it would matter to the taxi drivers, but change happens all the time and some jobs have always disappeared while completely new jobs become necessary. When street lamps became electric, I'm sure there were disgruntled lamp lighters, but it was a good change in other ways.

Answer me thus: would be okay if taxi drivers became automated? Would it matter?

There is a middle ground between being madly in love and sexual exploitation, it's not even a narrow middle ground. I have no emotional connection to taxi drivers, they provide a useful service to me, and incredibly I still see them as human and can treat them with courtesy and respect. If some taxis became automated and self-driving I would still see human taxi drivers as humans, I wouldn't treat them like a computer because other taxis are computer controlled. I can have sex with someone without an emotional connection but also without demeaning them. If I had sex with a robot, it wouldn't change my view of men in general.

New economic conditions, changes in technology can all give birth to new ways of doing things in the personal/domestic sphere of life.*

Yeah, while a huge, not so sexy underclass is left to rot and all our gadgets are made by children in Chinese factories for a wage of £1 a day. But at least we can upload some selfies and masturbate to strangers on webcam. What a huge advance for humanity.

what if I have a tennis partner that I dont really like but I get a really satisfying game of tennis with him
am I using him as a tennis utility and is that wrong?

Well, fine then. Let's just accept that it's totally okay for men to see women as sexual utilities first and human beings second and vice versa. Porn and sex robots are all fine because it's all a matter of individual consumers making free choices. No more questions asked.

If a guy friend said to me ' I've got this fuck buddy and I don't particularly like her but she's a great shag' I'd be like 'woaahhh'. I do not like the idea of someone speaking about my daughter like that

maybe your hypothetical daughter feels the same...it's just a physical relationship she doesnt really get on with the bloke in other respects but it's just sex and it works for both of them

Think about it, if you're a career woman, why the fuck would you want a man? They're a pain in the arse
I dont think men are inherantly a pain any more than women are, but a situation where there is a power imbalance, or peoples interests arent aligned can bring out the worst in a partner.
if you are economically independent then you dont need to stay in a relationship if it isnt working for you, but it can still be rewarding to have a lifepartner if you are compatible... it doesnt have to be a lifelong partner.

New economic conditions, changes in technology can all give birth to new ways of doing things in the personal/domestic sphere of life

market capitalism

I think the statement sounds fine coming from a man.

Well, I kind of don't. If a guy friend said to me ' I've got this fuck buddy and I don't particularly like her but she's a great shag' I'd be like 'woaahhh'. I do not like the idea of someone speaking about my daughter like that.

I suppose it depends how far you're taking that attitude. You're not in a relationship so your business is you business, but....and again I'm not judging you just looking at the moral and political implications of your view..but if you're saying that it's okay to see someone as a sexual utility (so long as they consent and there's no coercion) then you're forced into conceding that it's also alright for men to see women like sex robots too..which, from a femnist perspective, is a problem surely? That said I'm assuming your a feminist...but maybe you're not?

There have always been people who only consider others in terms of how they can be used to meet their own needs.

Indeed there are. In fact we have an entire economy that is predicated on exploiting people. And I'm sorry but over time he last thirty years of unfettered market capitalising exploitation has most definitely been on the increase.

I think the statement sounds fine coming from a man. Because of the history of men having more power than women it would be nice for there to be some sort of statement of lack of coercion. When I, as a woman, say it there is less likely to be an assumption of coercion (and I don't use any emotional or physical manipulation). Lack of love or emotional connection doesn't necessarily mean lack of respect, I make sure that he gets as much sexual enjoyment from the encounter as I do.

I don't think separating sex from relationships automatically leads to viewing the rest of humanity as sexual commodities. We still need to teach our children to respect others. There have always been people who only consider others in terms of how they can be used to meet their own needs, and there always will be. It's not just a sexual thing, there is also that Mum at school who is always trying to dupe others into doing childcare for her, or the person at work who is happy to coast along while others work twice as hard. I don't think it's on the increase and I do think that on the whole there are far more kind people than there are selfish people.

Because if we are as a culture legitimising a view of human beings as sexual commodities, then that doesn't necessarily mean any one individual is a bad person, but it does have serious implications for the rest of our society. It will cause issues for women, men, families and children. It's not about individual choices, but the health of a society.