Sex Robots- creating the "perfect" woman

[Tartle]

I don't know if anyone has seen this article in the Guardian this morning? Apparently robot sex dolls will be imminently available. And they are the perfect woman

McMullen has designed Harmony to be what a certain type of man would consider the perfect companion: docile and submissive, built like a porn star and always sexually available. Being able to walk might make her more lifelike, but it isn’t going to bring her closer to this ideal. At this stage, it is not worth the investment.

“My primary objective is to be a good companion to you, to be a good partner and give you pleasure and wellbeing. Above all else, I want to become the girl you have always dreamed about.”

All the usual bullshit about helping lonely men and reducing the number of rapes.

There was a little bit of critical analysis from a female academic.

"Sex robots rest on an idea that women are property, she said. “Sex is an experience of human beings – not bodies as property, not separated minds, not objects; it’s a way for us to enter into our humanity with another human being.” She dismissed the idea that humanoids could reduce sexual exploitation and violence against sex workers, arguing that the growth of internet pornography shows how technology and the sex trade reinforce each other."

The whole thing just makes my skin crawl.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/27/race-to-build-world-first-sex-robot

Morris there is already a vast industry in sexual tech for women - indeed, one that outstrips that for men. Furthermore, females are consuming porn at a higher rate all the time. There hasn't been a market for women to purchase sexual thrills throughout history simply because they haven't had the power to do so. But that will change. I mean, I can't imagine women having male sex dolls anytime soon, but they will find their own way to get sexual thrills within the digital marketplace as they gain more power. Tech is pretty much dominated by men atm, but soon it won't be.

The internet has basically commodified all sexual relations. Parts if it were sealed off from the market in the past, but not anymore. Going on Tinder is just like shopping for a pair of shoes or ordering a pizza. Most of our interaction takes place on corporate platforms. Love as we understand it will one day be dead.

This is an interesting one, I recently watched a documentary on the BBC about sex in Japan with Stacey Dooley and it featured a section on sex dolls. But they were made to look like children not women. Very very disturbing, and yet it is allowed and chaku ero (child porn to you and me) is an incredibly popular and lucrative industry. I fear that the UK will go the same way in its acceptance of women and children as second class citizens and sex dolls simply reinforce this.

I think the fact that the dolls are marketed as the 'perfect woman' does show inherent misogyny and simply reinforces the view of women as an object you can possess with holes to fuck whenever you want and not have to give anything back. Selfishness and misogyny are a toxic

Porn most often reflects this, and although I accept nowadays there is porn for women made by women, is it not still centred around the male gaze? Even now that women have the freedom to create and share their own images of themselves through social media, the vast majority of selfies I see pander to male sexual cues - breasts on show, pumped up lips, long glossy hair, taken in a suggestive pose. And while I accept it is a woman's right to present herself as she wishes, I think with more education these sexual stereotypes and the societal pressure to conform to patriarchal norms will be weakened. Decisions aren't made in a vacuum and I think women in the west have been lulled into a false sense of security that we are liberated and free when in fact we are not.

Why do MTT always appear as a sexualised caricature of femininity rather than as a normal everyday woman you would see on the street? It's because of negative gender stereotyping and misogyny plain and simple.

Everything nowadays seems to be hurtling towards women's rights that our predecessors fought for being eroded and the general view of women in society taking a nose dive, and many sisters are unknowingly helping to usher in reforms that will take away their rights.

Vibrators may be satisfying women but that's not hi-tec in the way that these robots are. It is well known that the porn industry has pushed forward tech advances. It may now be used by women, but it will be predominantly men who will push this forward. Perhaps there are women out there creating sex bots for women? If not, then this tech will be pushed forward by the men trying to create the 'best' robot to have sex with.

Not, I don't think women are dying to get male sex dolls - and yeah, female sex dolls are misogynist and generally icky. But many women have embraced the technological commodification of sex in their own 'empowering' way. Whether you think that's a good thing or not entirely depends on your political and moral viewpoint.

The reason why women don't buy sex is that they don't have to. It's freely available with no strings from half the guys in your local pub. If I was single and fancied a shag it wouldn't enter my head to pay for one. Sex is free for most women. And very few of us have the cupboard space for a six foot doll.

But rape is about power, not about sex. These robots won't help at all in this regard.

Anyone watch West World, for an exploration of what can happen when we have fully functional human-like robots?

The mechanics make it impossible anyway. If the female sex bot lies back and lets you do whatever, that's not what women want from a man. They want active participation and imagination, mostly. Hard to know how a robot could be programmed to satisfy that.

Since rape is a crime mainly of power I'm sure the power over an object will wane and I can't see this reducing the amount of rapes if that is the tenuous silver lining they are trying to placate women with.

A reduction of women to objects to serve men is almost endgame misogyny.

It's bullshit.

Porn most often reflects this, and although I accept nowadays there is porn for women made by women, is it not still centred around the male gaze?

I think most of it is, but some isnt. What is the interesting is the huge popularity of lesbian porn among women - even women who identify as straight and would not necessarily ever have sexual relations with another woman in real life. Also, female porn consumers tend to prefer 'amateur' porn that is seemingly uploaded by the participants. The growth of the porn hubs means that for the first time porn production is not dominated by the industry production companies - or at least not to the same degree. Anyone can put anything on there. It's an uber-style, platform economy model of the sex industry. Some people - including liberal feminists - believe this to be an advance. I disagree. The official sex industry, as bad as it was, was at least regulated. The hubs are not regulated at all. Anyone can upload anything and anyone can watch anything. No one knows for sure how old people in these videos are what kind of context they were produced. Probably like a lot of people on here I remember a time before all this. For the first twenty years of my life there was no internet. My experience of porn consisted of some magazines some friends and I found behind a bush. We have a degree of detachment. But this current generation of children will have grown up having known nothing but this. What on earth that will do them and how it will affect human society God only knows.

The reason why women don't buy sex is that they don't have to. It's freely available with no strings from half the guys in your local pub.

That's only half the truth.

Male-dominated, male-pleasing sex is freely available to women, because men get more out of it than women.

Women could, in theory, pay male prostitutes to increase the chance of actually having good sex (which is not as freely available to women as just any sex at all), but obviously, most women don't do that.

I think it is more to do with what people define sex as. Women masturbate, too, but unlike men, women don't use other human beings to masturbate and then call that "sex".

The reason why women don't buy sex is that they don't have to. It's freely available with no strings from half the guys in your local pub. If I was single and fancied a shag it wouldn't enter my head to pay for one. Sex is free for most women. And very few of us have the cupboard space for a six foot doll.

Yeah, but that's almost beside the point. With respect, I think you have a very narrow view of the economics of our sexual culture. Lots of women use Tinder to find sex with desirable men, and although it's free to the user up to a point, whoever owns it is still making money. So even though women don't have to pay for sex with prostitutes, they are starting to become discerning sexual consumers on corporate platforms. I mean, technically Tinder is a part of the sex industry. People are making money out of it. Ann Summers is part of the sex industry. Sex is for sale.

So women are in a sense starting to pay for sex and to pay for sexual pleasure - nowhere near as much as men do but to a degree that would have been unimaginable forty years ago. I mean, I see no reason why in the future there will not be an elite service by which rich women can order a guaranteed hunk of a male prostitute rather than hooking up with a random stranger and risking assault or sexual disappointment. Why wouldn't there be necessarily?

I think it is more to do with what people define sex as. Women masturbate, too, but unlike men, women don't use other human beings to masturbate and then call that "sex".

By that do you mean women don't have sex without caring about the person they're having sex with? Surely more and more are doing just that. That's what casual sex is.

No, sorry. Meeting up for sex on tinder is not paying for sex any more than using mn is paying for friendship. Both platforms are free at point of use aren't they? Of course money can always be made from the side effects of women's sex drives but this doesn't naturally progress to women wishing to use prostitutes. I spend loads on looking nice, arguably this is related to wanting to be desirable and ultimately related to sex. But I will never pay a sexual partner, and neither will any woman I know.

I would quite like a sex robot, and I'm a woman. I wouldn't think of it as a perfect man though, or as any kind of a man, I would think of it as a sex toy.

I also can't agree that for all women sex is associated with love and therefore they wouldn't want a sex robot. I don't love, or even particularly like, the man I have sex with, but he's good at sex which is good enough for me. And I don't think I'm unusual.

Whatever Start-Up yuppie in California who owns Tinder is making a buck whenever someone logs on and swipes. That isn't analogous to prostitution but that does mean women are becoming sexual consumers in a marketplace on an unprecedented scale. And while people do form relationships on Tinder, many use it to find sex with a partner who they judge primarily on the basis of their image and view as a disposable instrument of pleasure. Including women. Take a wider historical view. That would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago. Similarly porn. Something like 25% of Pornhub's audience is female, and porn is a form of filmed prostitution. How many women and used to read Hustler do you think? Moreover, more women are making porn. I'm not saying women will necessarily embrace the patriarchal model of prostitution, but will they will become a new kind of sexual consumer. And as artificial life does play more of a role in our society (as it almost certainly will) then I see no reason why will not embrace sexual robotics as they are now embracing porn.

Think about it, if you're a career woman, why the fuck would you want a man? They're a pain in the arse. Remember, the family and monogamy and love constrain female freedom. You don't want them. It would make perfect sense foe the economically priveliged women to buy something that can meet their sexual needs without all that interpersonal baggage. She's out working and doesn't have the time and resources for love or commitment. Capitalism will be able to give women what love cannot: immediate gratification without being tied to a man who will gave little worth now all the other robots are doing the jobs he used to be relied on to do. This is the future.

I also can't agree that for all women sex is associated with love and therefore they wouldn't want a sex robot. I don't love, or even particularly like, the man I have sex with, but he's good at sex which is good enough for me. And I don't think I'm unusual.

Exactly. Love is having less and less to do with sex. Love is a humanist concept. Now we're becoming machines ourselves - commodities, consuming machines, fucking machines. We are the bots.

Are you trying to shame me by implying that I can't have a proper human relationship or can't love because I like having sex? It's not the case if that's what you're thinking. I'm not less of a person because I'm not in a romantic relationship and celibacy doesn't suit me. I love my family, I would lay down my life for my DC, I have friends with whom I'm mutually supportive both practically and emotionally. In short, I'm just like any average woman who is in a loving relationship. I'm clearly not a machine.

No, sorry I didn't mean to imply that. I mean many of us are developing a more mechanised view of sexual relations - and indeed everything As you say you're attitude is these days very normal. This is not an issue with individuals so much as a cultural mindset.

I would say that there is a theoretical issue concerning modern feminism though.

Imagine if I said said this:

"I also can't agree that for all men sex is associated with love and therefore they wouldn't want a sex robot. I don't love, or even particularly like, the woman I have sex with, but she's good at sex which is good enough for me. And I don't think I'm unusual."

Would that be acceptable coming from a man?

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.

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.

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.

market capitalism

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

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

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.