to not see a problem with men using robots for sex

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34118482

Yes, its a bit sad and perverted, but I can't see how a glorified sex doll hurts anyone. I would be horrified if a sex doll looked like a child. However if a really sad sexually frustrated man masturbates with a sex doll that looks like a grown adult, no one is getting hurt.

I don't think it that robots will be sophisicated enough to replace a real spouse in my life time.

I think the departure would be larger than you are speculating, but I can understand why you would think otherwise.

Well, that is what feminists sometimes call privilege. I've seen and experienced male (sexual) violence from the receiving end. I'm assuming you haven't. But this point was made wayyyy upthread, and so I'm going to have to agree with TenForward and admit there's no point to arguing further.

Interesting thread very clearly dominated by the idea that using robots for sex is representative if the way men see women.

I have to say what struck me more is the image people have about what it means to have sex.
The problem for me is that

• a man who has intercourse with a woman and raped her is said to have sex

-someone who us having intercourse with an animal is said to have sex with it

• someone who has intercourse with a robot also has sex.

In effect, having sex is reduced to it's most primal level, spreading your seeds regardless if how. It's been reduced to a fancy wank. It's impersonal, the way you get to it isn't that important after all. There is nothing about the other person (man or woman) or about the relation and the inter connexion happening. Put penis in vagina. Get orgasm. That's it.

But surely, having intercourse with another human being is more than just achieving orgasm. It's The connexion, the interaction between two human beings that make it better than a wank. But that has completely disappeared from our vocabulary now.

Reality is, if 'having sex' with another human being us about the sex AND the inter connexion with that person, then There is no way that we can even begin to compare having sex wanking with a robot with sex with a person.

If we now go back a bit, we used to talk about 'making love' rather than having sex. Making love has been rejected for various reasons. But one if them has been that women are actually entitled to have sex as and when they want, have a one night stand just like men do/did so it's about having sex not making love, which is strongly associated with emotions and romantic feelings. By doing that WE, as women, have bought into the idea that sex was only a primal activity, there only relieve some primal urges. We have said it's acceptable to have to have sex with no real care for the interaction with the other person.

And we've said that even though it's clear that interaction (even if it's in a one night stand) is important. Otherwise why on earth do we bother to find a sexual partner? We would all be better at home with our robot/vibratory/whatever sex toy/our hand if 'having sex' is just about relieving that animal instinct.

And that also means we need another word to deceive having inter course with a person (rather than just having a glorified wank)

Kevinandme - I have heard people distinguish between 'solo sex' and 'partnered sex' to clarify whether the activity involves more than one person. I think it's quite useful.

Overall I think the fear that sexbots will make men treat women even worse than they do already is looking in the wrong direction. Men have had thousands of years of predominantly superstition-influenced encouragement and permission to treat women badly. It's only over about the last 100 years or so, and only in parts of the world, that women have been able to assert more of our rights to be regarded as autonymous human beings.

One of the biggest factors in what appears to be the current tendency of people (partiularly in the UK/US) to regard and treat categories of other people as less than human is the last 30 years or so of neo-liberal economic policies and (in the UK) the tabloids' propaganda tactics that have encouraged so many people to see others as less than real, fair game for abuse and removal of their rights. I think that people's tendency to believe propaganda unquestioningly is far, far more damaging to society than some people's interest in objects to emprove their enjoyment of solo sex and/or other devices and media that allow them to pretend, temporarily, that they are living a different life or having an experience that would normally be unobtainable.

KevinAndMe

I think your points about how our language is conflating masturbation and sex are very cogent, and very relevant to how we interpret the use of sex toys.

For me this thread has provided a fascinating exploration about the different boundaries people perceive between sex and masturbation, imagination and reality, public and private and things and non-things.

How language effects those boundaries (and perceptions of those boundaries) is something that I think it would be good to explore.

I suspect that if the taboo on masturbation had ended at a time when society was more equal, the same objections would have been raised. The objection would have been that masturbation was impermissible because instead of enjoying being intimate with another human being, it that person would be forced to resort to fantasy or other external stimuli which would result in objectification. Even worse, they might fantasise about sheep.

The truth is that we all know now that a good wank doesn't do anyone any harm.

A lot of the discussion above claims to show why sex bots would be wrong in themselves, but it seems to me that it's more about what they're likely to represent, ie, passivity. Which presumably would make a dominatix-bot with a plug-in spanking accessory OK.

Finally this (re response from Whirlpool's dh :

"My gut reaction to this is yuck. The only good thing I can see is if it eliminated or helped to eliminate the sex trade".

Mine would have been: where on earth would you keep the bloody thing when you had guests staying over.

I don't have as much of an issue about him posting about her sex toys in general (though I suspect she'd rather her privacy). It was using the fact that his daughter had them as a justification for sexbots I thought was particularly awful. I wonder if that poster wants his daughter to live in a society where what many men want is a passive penetratae object to own.

Oh please Buffy, stop being so selectively gender precious. I have seen mums here complain about the excessive masturbatory practices of their sons, having to deal with dried and mucky socks, finding their sons flesh-light and many other things connected to the sex lives of their offspring. My eldest daughter is an adult and can buy what she wants and do what she wants with it, as much so as any adult. I just wish she had kept her 'things' more discrete so her younger sister did not discover them and draw it to my attention, leaving us feeling uncomfortable.

Reading some of the posts here about what I wrote I can imagine some might be more comfortable with a stereotypical ignorant dad who expects his son to masturbate and, as he grows older, slap him on the back over his sexual conquests. The same kind of dad who locks up in a personal fantasy world so he can imagine his chaste daughter will (if he can just fend the 'younger versions of himself' wolves off long enough) discover her clitoris on her wedding night. I aint that kind of dad. Frankly this talk of 'fem-bots for men' is just fluff to me and I find it hard to take seriously as I see no particular reason why an equal number of women would not also be as interested in 'men-bots'.

IMO its simpler than sex-bots. People who can simultaneously see a dildo-vibrator as liberating but are discomforted by a flesh-light have issues they need to address, not with society but in themselves.

I do think that people were quick to imply the dad had been peeking in his DD's underwear drawer when there were many non-creepy ways (such as described above) that he could have become aware she had bought a sexy toy.

Also 'respecting her privacy' ie not posting on MN? FFS everyone posts about the behaviour of their friends, partners and family members in ways that some of those individuals probably wouldn't like, but without giving any identifying information, so i think that's a bit much...

Well, you would say that