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

I did own a vibrator but I found the whole thing so repellent after the first use. A dismembered part of a male anatomy to give me pleasure? I threw it into the recycling bin and went back to my imagination and fingers.

Don't most vibrators (and dildos) nowadays look completely different from penises?
(Never owned one, but have heard from several women they do not consider it to be a penis replacement)

@bran: Your taxi driver and prostitute comparison doesn't really work. The hypothetical automated taxi would get you to where you want to be in much the same way that the taxi driver would, but when you have sex with other people without demeaning them, you take into consideration what they want out of it. Which you wouldn't with a robot, as it would be utterly pointless. So it would be fundamentally different.

Most women make a distinction between sex and masturbation on the basis of whether there's another person involved, and would therefore consider the male sexbot an oversized and not discreet enough sextoy.
Many men do not make that distinction, and consider it masturbation only if they have to put their hands on their penises, which is why there's a market for female sexbots and the buyers would consider their female sexbot as essentially the same as a real woman, i.e. nothing to hide from the public.

So he basically implies sex workers are sex objects or toys, and of less value than his poxy robot.

Yeah. There's hard male work invested in those sexbots! Not like those prostituted women that spring into being practically by themselves, with nothing of worth invested by anyone ... well, their mothers give birth to them and raise them, but that's just female labour and thus not worth anything. And personhood is overrated anyway. A male-made sexbot is so much more valuable than a mere person!

I wasn't making a comparison between taxi drivers and prostitutes at all. I was making a comparison between them and having sex with someone that I don't have an emotional connection with, making the point that a lack of emotional connection does not necessarily mean a lack of politeness and respect. I haven't had sex with anyone who didn't want to have sex with me, nor will I in the future.

I see nothing wrong with these sex robots, there is obviously a market for them. Don't forget that there are men who are just too peculiar/odd/ shy/withdrawn/antisocial/overweight/disgusting etc who obviously need these dolls otherwise they would never get laid. There was even a documentary about very lifelike sex dolls that could be customised to individual needs and shipped to their new owners all over the world. There was a guy in Texas who owned about 6, all different looking dolls, one blond and busty the other skinny redhead and so on. He had a girlfriend but needless to say she left after a while as the guy wasn't able and willing to give up the dolls and enter a normal relationship fully. There was another guy who was disfigured, another who was too socially shy, another one who generally didn't want a girlfriend with all the hassle of a committed relationship, only sex, so I could understand in a way why they had these dolls. I don't think it's a feminist issue at all. It's about live and let live. Let them have their dolls.

Vestal It was a vibrator that had testicles - shaved - and the feel of a penis, and it actually didn't cost that much. It did look real. The silver bullet types didn't appeal.

I realised I didn't need a penis inside me regularly in order to exist. Such an enlightening moment for me.

Another disturbing aspect of that video was the horrendous sexual and physical abuse displayed on the robot in the garage. It was laughed off as taking out 'frustrations' and wouldn't it be better to do it on a doll instead of your wife? WTAF?

Could be a trojan horse (from the guardian long read article)
Standard Innovation, the maker of a “smart vibrator” called the We-Vibe paid out a $3.75m settlement in a class action lawsuit after it was revealed that the company was collecting data on how often its 300,000 owners used the device, and at what intensity. Once a robot like Harmony is on the market, she will know a lot more about her owner than a vibrator ever could: what if this information fell into, as it were, the wrong hands? Sex robots could entertain you, satisfy you but also humiliate you. Perhaps there is no such thing as the perfect, true companion after all.

“Do you want to walk?”

“I don’t want anything but you,”

Bleugh 🤢

It's totally depressing that some men want simpering idiot robots to have a "relationship" with. If this is the future I want to move to a different planet.

It's likely that realistic robots will be seen as having the potential to affect the way that we treat other humans, so sex bots will all be connected to a network, any abusive behavior towards one will be logged and the perpetrator could be prosecuted.
Ditto anything which would constitute child abuse

Isn't it already acknowledged that child dolls increase CSA?

Why would this not be the same?

I'm not suggesting that child dolls should be available as sex bots, absolutely not!
Rather that robots will be used to monitor human behaviour and so anything regarded as criminal or deviant will be logged and the perpetrators identified and dealt with

We assume that robots and virtual reality will make it easier to act out abuse fantasies, actually it will become easier to police people's private lives

I don't think that the owners of these robots would accept being monitored and logged. There's nothing criminal about abusing a robot, so why should it be recorded and logged? I think any company doing that would have a hard time justifying collecting that data under the Data Protection Act.

How would they be "dealt with" exactly?

That wasn't aimed at you peace, just some general pondering :)

I see nothing wrong with these sex robots, there is obviously a market for them. Don't forget that there are men who are just too peculiar/odd/ shy/withdrawn/antisocial/overweight/disgusting etc who obviously need these dolls otherwise they would never get laid.

Newsflash: Those men do not get laid with robots, either. Well, not more than they do by just, you know, lying down and masturbating with their hand.

And sex is not a need. Men who are too undesirable for any woman at all to be attracted to them, well, they'll just have to deal with it.

Same as female spinsters deal with it all the time. Without raping, without threatening to rape, without any shitty behaviour.

@AssassinatedBeauty:
How would they be "dealt with" exactly?

Not at all, obviously. We live in a patriarchy. It might be legal under capitalism to steal the data of innocent people in order to sell them shit they don't need, but if there'll be a way of gathering data included in sexbots, it will only be used by men, to market more sexbots to men. It will certainly NOT be used to prevent, or punish, male violence against women.
We live in a patriarchy, and the oppression of women is a feature, not an unfortunate malfunction. Rapists walk free, and men who break their female-looking sexbots will also walk free, regardless of how much data is gathered.

I think any company doing that would have a hard time justifying collecting that data under the Data Protection Act
facebook collects user data, so does google, if the robot only functions if the user consents to data being collected

acts can be changed, the point is that this will increase the potential for monitoring the population, govts are always interested in monitoring the people

As Vestal has put very clearly, that just won't happen, will it? Robots that aren't monitored will be more popular than ones that are. The use of porn or prostitutes isn't currently monitored, and those involve using actual human women. Why would female looking robots be monitored more, and more action taken if they were mistreated? I think you're hopelessly naive and optimistic, peaceout.

I think you lack imagination and are determined to think that the future can only be worse
doom mongerers

No, I think the future can be much better. But sex robots is not the way to go.

robots will all be connected to the web, everything they do will be logged just as every google search is logged
ditto VR

No, I think the future can be much better. But sex robots is not the way to go.

Indeed. To have a better future, we must fight patriarchy. Not hope to give misogynist men enough objects to mistreat that they'll leave women alone.
They'll never do that until they invent the artificial uterus and artificial egg cells.

Many a culture has men who can't afford to buy a woman (aka walking womb) rape young boys instead. They still keep women around, and they'll do so until they don't need to exploit us for reproduction anymore.

I hope the artificial womb people and the sex robot people don't make friends!!

robots will all be connected to the web, everything they do will be logged just as every google search is logged

Yes, and then those men will be offered more sexbots and accessories for their sexbots. And that is all that will happen.

We live in a patriarchal society that does not punish rapists now. It sure as hell will do nothing about potential rapists in the future.

X post.

Did you not see this, vestal...
www.independent.co.uk/news/health/artificial-womb-save-premature-babies-lives-scientists-create-childrens-hospital-philadelphia-nature-a7701546.html