To think a "breathing" sex robot should be illegal

[CrotchBurn]

Apparently there is an AI sex robot that now has the feature of breathing (there's a video in the article in the link).

I don't really care how these ultra realistic sex dolls might help people for various reasons. I think in a world where men overwhelming treat women as unfeeling objects (yeah okay NAMALT), further blurring the lines between womens bodies and inanimate objects you can do what you want to is dangerous.

I think they should be illegal.

www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/sex-robot-breathes-incredible-ai-23275331

It would be like having one of those Furby toys that never shuts up. You put it in the closet and it’s like a monster is breathing in there. In and out, in and out. Until the battery dies of course.

Ugh. Devils toys those are. We actually had a dolphin version that didn't turn off properly and it would randomly start sceeching on through the night, terrified my daughter and pissed us off so much. It lived for a few days, and now resides in the shed, awaiting relocation to a tip someday soon.

On the topic of sex dolls though, I find them creepy as fuck, even moreso the kid ones. I don't really see them as the same as dildos, especially when the aim is for more and more realistic looking dolls/robots, the equivalant would be one of those fleshlight type things..the realistic dolls, especially these breathing versions, just scream pervert or someone into some..illegal shit to me really. I cannot see the need, at all, unless the guy is into something dodgy, such as strangling or stabbing

@wellthatsunusual

I remember the days when people argued that if men could access porn more easily it would stop them raping women because they would have their fantasies fulfilled by the porn. I think we can all agree that that definitely worked a treat.

I remember that too.

@PlanDeRaccordement

What about the widows and widowers who want sex dolls that look like their deceased spouse? Would that be ok?

I never even thought of this..this makes it sound even more creepy to me actually, though I am sure some won't want it for the..weirdness. The thought of DH doing this if I died makes my skin crawl to be quite honest

because they would have their fantasies fulfilled by the porn
how could we have thought that the desires would be satiated by porn?
why did we not see that the desires would be fueled would escalate, the cravings and urges become harder to control

People always seem to think sex is worse than violence for some reason. Oh of course someone doing something sexual I don’t like in private is going to escalate to being a sexual predator.. but if people are being indulging in violent activities, there’s no proof of that escalating into anything..

sex dolls that look like their deceased spouse?
I am reminded of this black mirror episode:
'Be Right Back'
www.imdb.com/title/tt2290780/?ref_=ttep_ep1

@HeadIsFucked
Well, yes I also think Furbys and sex dolls can be creepy. But I view it like a fetish. I think other sex things are creepy too like being put in a leather gimp suit and led around on a leash. But it’s all play pretend. It’s not real. The commonalities between sex dolls and vibrators are that they are both for masturbation, and they are both technologically advanced along the lines of what stimulates men and women sexually.

I do agree technology can go too far and we are pushing the boundaries. A full android would be too far.

@PlanDeRaccordement

What about the widows and widowers who want sex dolls that look like their deceased spouse? Would that be ok?

How perverted would that be?

@Yohoheaveho

because they would have their fantasies fulfilled by the porn how could we have thought that the desires would be satiated by porn? why did we not see that the desires would be fueled would escalate, the cravings and urges become harder to control

I don't think we did. Women (and in fairness, some men) argued that it would escalate things because women would be seen as mere props, fantasy figures, less than human.

And of course, those women were labelled as dried up old hags, jealous of younger more attractive women, prudes and all the other insults that the 1980s/1990s could throw at them before 'Karen' became the insult du hour.

@TheBuffster

I actually think Mumsnet should ban the term Karen. It's nasty as.

It's an easy way to identify the idiots though.

I have a confession, I once owned a sex doll but it was so I could drive in the car sharing/2+ only fast lane on the motorway. You can’t drive in those lanes unless you are car-sharing. At least I didn’t name her Karen though :)

[quote CaraDuneRedux]@Bluegrass in theory BDSM is already covered by legal precedent in the form of the Spanner case where a group of men engaging in consensual BDSM (specifically, nailing each others' scrotums to the floor, IIRC) were charged with ABH, and found guilty. As far as I know (not a lawyer) the legal precedent still holds good - in English law you cannot consent to ABH even under the pretext of consensual BDSM.

However, as the cases detailed on the "We can't consent to this" website show, this legal precedent seems to be conveniently forgotten where the person on the receiving end is female, especially if (conveniently for the perpetrator) she's dead so can't contest his account of events. Men regularly get away with murder.

So yes, I absolutely would like consensual BDSM which leads to ABH or carries a risk of death criminalized. It wouldn't stop couples who genuinely wanted to do it from engaging, but it might make them a bit more careful, and it would close a loophole in murder trials meaning there was no wriggle room for a man to say "I only meant to cause her a bit of the pain she asked for, not her death." If he knowingly engaged in a practice which a reasonable person (the famous "reasonable person" in English law) would conclude carried a non-negligible risk of death, he could be done for murder.[/quote]
What you are arguing for the law to be, is exactly as the law currently is...as you described yourself.

It's not legally possible to consent to assault/ABH therefore all practices which could cause physical/severe mental harm ARE currently illegal.

The problem is, those implementing the law conveniently seem to forget this. It should never be possible for a man to evade assault, GBH or manslaughter charges, using the "she asked for it" defence, because NO such defence currently exists!

@PlanDeRaccordement

What about the widows and widowers who want sex dolls that look like their deceased spouse? Would that be ok?

Fucking hell, do you really have to ask?

Oh god.... id have thought this makes things far worse. I mean women have limits/boundries. Dolls don't. I would not wanna be the girlfriend of someone who'd been practicing on a doll you can't kill cant hurt and can shove what ever you want where.

We all know we wouldn't cut it after that.

Just vile

I asked about the widowers thing because apparently that’s on offer. You can have a sex doll made with the features of someone from a photograph. And widowers are ordering them...

To me that is more creepy than a doll having an on/off switch such that it fake breathes when turned on. Which isn’t really new...children’s baby dolls have been fake breathing and crying for decades.

To add, the only time that defence could be used is in reducing a murder charge to manslaughter, because it questions the intention to kill. But, to be honest, there is not a cat in hells chance that you are going to prove the premeditation required for a murder charge to stick anyway.

I think from now on, any "What to look for in a man:" checklist in magazines and online etc should start with:

1. Ask him whether, if you die before him, he'd be tempted to buy life-like sex doll based on your image. If he says yes, he's probably best avoided.

I mean, you'd probably need a whole other article on how to work it into conversation but still...

if people are being indulging in violent activities, there’s no proof of that escalating into anything..

I don’t know if there is? I think we would have heard if there were a link between boxers and assault by punching, or fencers and assault with a sword, and so on.

Comparing child abuse sex dolls with adult sex dolls, as a pp did, is a false equivalency. It's rightly illegal to engage in child rape, utilise images of child abuse etc. So naturally a child abuse sex doll will be illegal.

It is not illegal to engage in sex or watch porn with women in. So a female sex doll is wholly different.

All sex dolls are revolting, it is the underlying concept that makes it so, not just the bonus revulsion points of looking like a child, breathing, grip, whatever.

There is also a wide ocean of difference between childrens` dolls which breathe, and which children play with and pretend to care for, and a doll made to look like a woman or girl which is designed to be strangled for sexual pleasure. Surely that does not need to be specified?!

And yes, I know that some sick fucks have long used the childrens` baby dolls for their own disgusting ends.

@MissingLinker

I think from now on, any "What to look for in a man:" checklist in magazines and online etc should start with: 1) Ask him whether, if you die before him, he'd be tempted to buy life-like sex doll based on your image. If he says yes, he's probably best avoided.

I mean, you'd probably need a whole other article on how to work it into conversation but still...

I’m sure there would be a % of women though who’d think it was romantic in a way. As in he loves me so much that he’ll mourn me the rest of his life and would rather have a doll that looks like me than any other woman. I’m his one true love. And all that fluff. The doll would be like the grisly momento mori the Victorians had, you know when they’d wear necklaces with a phial of the deceased’s blood, or a brooch of glass with the hair embedded in it.

a doll made to look like a woman or girl which is designed to be strangled for sexual pleasure.

But it’s not designed to be strangled. It’s designed to have a switch to turn a breathing simulation on and off. Strangulation is just what people are speculating a man may simulate by turning the breathing function on and off.

That`s a very optimistic way of looking at it PlanDeRaccordement.

@PlanDeRaccordement

a doll made to look like a woman or girl which is designed to be strangled for sexual pleasure.

But it’s not designed to be strangled. It’s designed to have a switch to turn a breathing simulation on and off. Strangulation is just what people are speculating a man may simulate by turning the breathing function on and off.

For arguments sake (disclaimer: I think all sex dolls are creepy and weird), if the presumption by some that the "breathing" dolls are designed to enable to emulation of "strangulation", surely logic states that the non-breathing ones enable the emulation of necrophilia?

As Plan says, it's quite possible that many men would buy these for "girlfriend emulation" purposes. Of course, some men may have more nefarious reasons, but it's tricky to criminalise an individual's thoughts, and also a pretty dangerous road to go down.

Men who are aroused by strangling sex dolls are probably already doing so. Along with all manner of violence to them if they are so inclined. I fail to see how adding a "breathing" function to an already legal sex doll, is going to tip over the edge a totally non-violent man, into a raging strangling abuser. The man already WAS that and women were ALREADY unsafe. It's naive to think otherwise. If it gives these sickos another stopgap between "strangling sex doll" and "strangling real woman", then could that not be a good thing?

Well here is what the article says
‘The breathing feature is new and very popular. It plugs into the wall to charge. When turned on, the chest moves up and down exactly like breathing, and air comes in and out of the nostril in tandem to mimic breath.’

I don’t think I’m overly optimistic? I think that the speculation that men only want the breathing feature so they can practise strangling women is a bit paranoid and catastrophising.

They also have a heated model that warms up to body temperature through being plugged into the wall. Once charged, it stays warm for 8hrs.

I’m sure someone will come along and suggest men who do not buy the heated model and masturbate using cold sex dolls are just practising so they can move on to having sex with corpses.

I wouldn’t be surprised. The way people go to the absolute sickest scenario and accuse all men who buy sex dolls of wanting them for such a purpose is mind boggling.