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

I don't care. I have no children, and can only hope that when women's reproductive rights are violated in my country, I will be past menopause, and when they invent the artificial womb, I'll be already dead.

If there's no feminist revolution very fast, the world will probably end in a couple of hundreds of years, anyway. I would not be particularly sad if men would have to suffer that without a woman there to comfort them.

Most women make a distinction between sex and masturbation on the basis of whether there's another person involved

Why do most women make that distinction and not most men?

Most women make a distinction between sex and masturbation on the basis of whether there's another person involved

Why do most women make that distinction and not most men? Because of patriarchy? But as patriarchy declines, then women will have the power to make that distinction surely? They will then have the power to be sexually callous and dehumanising too! Why would they not?

Oh good grief.

I know the thread has moved on, but just wanted to say that M0stlyBowlingHedgehog's post at Thu 27-Apr-17 08:17:14 has absolutely nailed this.

I don't share your optimism in the declining nature of patriarchy I'm afraid independent and as long as patriarchy exists women will be raised from birth being taught to value men as human beings and to consider others in a way that just isn't expected of men. As long as this continues then I can't imagine that a significant proportion of women will want to be sexually callous in the way that men frequently are today.

Why do most women make that distinction and not most men?

Why do men rape? Why do men kill women?

I don't know why men objectify women. Ask them.

I'm more interested in how they enable each other to do it, and how we can stop that.

I can tell you how men benefit from patriarchy, but why they have so little empathy for women in the first place, I have no idea.

As long as this continues then I can't imagine that a significant proportion of women will want to be sexually callous in the way that men frequently are today.

Patriarchy is declining, albeit very, very slowly. More and more women are participating in the labour force and succeeding educationally while male academic success and pay is in decline. The economies of the past which were feudal/agrarian or industrial priveliged men. But in a digital economy men are not needed. There will be little manual labour to do and no doubt one day, due to technologically aided fertilisation, they possibly won't even be needed to conceive. Patriarchy as we understand it will end, because everything does. If you conclude then it won't then you are falling into the trap of accepting that gender is immutable not cultural.

If patriarchy ever does collapse then there is no reason to think we will all be living in a lovey dovey utopia. Give women power and they will be no less likely to be corporate arseholes or sexual creeps than men if none of the patriarchal cultural restraints on them exist. That's fine, because they would also be able to great stuff with power than they're just as capable of doing as men. But I find this idea that women are inherently nobler and kinder and vibrators are different because we're women and etc etc.. Nahh!

I can tell you how men benefit from patriarchy, but why they have so little empathy for women in the first place, I have no idea.

My answer would be that people in power tend to have less empathy with the people over which that power is exercised. It's not complicated. The rich don't have much empathy for the poor either.

I have no idea
.Here's a woman who might though. Hope it's OK to post.
www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/germaine-greer

She once said "Women have no idea how much men hate them."

The upside to an alleged child rapist as leader of the free world
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-rape-sexual-assault-claims-court-republican-party-us-presidential-florida-a7360636.html

Any number of increasing injustices are visited on us. They include this computerised wank dolly for inadequate males. We do know, how much some (a powerful minority of males) hate us now. Information is usually power.

The recently passed Digital Economy Bill means that doll users will be on a Black Mirror type data server from the start anyway. Not that that helps the one woman killed every 72 hours by a British domestic abuser, though.

Won't most people think sex robots like this are a tad pathetic?

Reading some of these raging, rabid comments, I am not surprised some men want nothing to do with real women. Too much drama and hysterics.
You are all offended that certain men prefer a lifeless plastic doll to you. So what? Why do you see it as a threat? But you owning a poxy dildo is okay, huh?
What do you achieve with your opiniated posts on threads like this? You think it's going to change these men's mindset? That they will suddenly change and throw their sex robots and blow up dolls out and start dating you instead? You can all have a massive tantrum and throw all your toys out of the pram, it won't change a single thing. There will always be manufacturers of sex dolls and there will always be men who will buy them. Get used to it.

Yeah, many men hate women. We know this. Why though? There are two possible answers.

1. Men hate women because it is in their nature to do so, in which case that will never change and there is no point in feminism.

2. That their hatred is a manifestation of cultural, social and political
   factors. In that case the situation could conceivably change or reverse, and a world in which women have power could be possible. What it would be like and how it would differ from our world is anyone's guess. It will not be a utopia though because women are not different from men. They're no less human and therefore no less morally fallible. There will still be violence and power in such a world but it just won't be directed at women as a class - but at some other class of people.

My answer would be that people in power tend to have less empathy with the people over which that power is exercised. It's not complicated. The rich don't have much empathy for the poor either.

Ah, but why did they start patriarchy?

There must be a lack of empathy for the injust system to be established in the first place.

Now, one could say that it profits men to have no empathy for women, as they can spread their genes better by exploiting women's reproductive capacity, which in turn they can only do if they hate women.

This, however, only explains why men who hate women thrive, it does not explain how their hate originated.

Some no doubt intentionally make themselves hate women so they do not feel bad about exploiting us, but someone must have started it.

The human race is becoming incrementally less violent across history. Maybe we'll naturally evolve past it?

I can't know this empirically, but my suspicion is exposure to corporal punishment as children. Boys are more likely to be spanked than girls, and women do more of the parenting, and are thus more likely to do it.

My suggestion would be more men involved and in parenting and nobody hits their kids. A child's intelligence seems to correlate well with quality maternal involvement, and perhaps counter-intuitively quality relationships with fathers is a big predictor in developing empathy and good socialisation skills.

I went away for a bit and this all exploded! Only just caught up. Some really interesting points here.

I think the main thing that bothered me was not just the dolls (which are as creepy as hell) but what they were being programmed to say. It's the insight into what certain men think is the perfect woman.

If there was a market for male robot dolls (and they do say in the article that they are available but don't really sell) I d like to think that the interaction women would want wouldn't be so horribly subservient?

LiarLawyer
The tone of your post is threatening and rude, I have reported it.

On power relationships: Darwinism is the accepted evolutionary theory, by no coincidence, as the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century was in its ascendancy.

In fact, another scientist and thinker Alexander Humboldt, who advocated a much more integrated and co operative view of natural selection and development could be argued to have more validity.

However Darwinism has become the culturally predominant theory, and I think its emphasis on 'the survival of the fittest' has validated male power over women, and some even more sinister events in the last century.

The human race is becoming incrementally less violent across history.

Uh ... no. I don't think so. Even if you just look at Western Europe ... it is a bit tasteless to mention it, but, you know the main example of horrible, horrible violence in the not so far away past, right?

Nowadays, Germany has flatrate brothels.

Ireland still kills women by denying abortions. Other European countries are okay with it, or at least okay enough to let Ireland stay in the EU.

No, I don't think the human race as a whole has become any less violent.

There's less war in Western Europe than there used to be, yes. That is likely more due to the economy than anything else.

Maybe we'll naturally evolve past it?

If we prevent violent men from spreading their genes - which can be done by legalizing abortion and making it accessible to all victims of rape, including victims of marital rape, then perhaps, that will happen.

But it won't just happen while we stand there and twiddle our thumbs and congratulate ourselves to achieving so much, when it is most likely economic factors that make violence less profitable than it used to be.

what certain men think is the perfect woman

Probably a minority of inadequates.

I have a feeling that most normal nice boys and men would be as offended and hurt by these things as we are.

If there was a market for male robot dolls (and they do say in the article that they are available but don't really sell) I d like to think that the interaction women would want wouldn't be so horribly subservient?

I wouldn't want a talking toy at all. I'm an adult.

If I bought a male robot it would be programmed to, on cue, say some things that signal to would-be molesters that there's a) a man in the house/car and that he b) is on my side.

Because that's the only reason why I would buy a real-looking male robot that costs a load of money and has to be stored somehow.

Ah, but why did they start patriarchy?

Why start ant power system? Why start systems that oppress black people or Jews?

The point is that they exist and all power systems are mutable. Power is not static but dynamic.

I have a feeling that most normal nice boys and men would be as offended and hurt by these things as we are.

Patriarchy still exists.
Which means that the majority of men either likes it that way, or don't care much.

It is nice for you that you feel so optimistic about it, but I don't see that that's grounded in reality.

If we prevent violent men from spreading their genes

Violence is not genetic. You're on dodgy ground there, I have to say.

woman12345 of course it doesn't surprise me that you reported it. Is this how you handle people in real life too if they have a differing opinion to yours? It reminds me of my nursery days when little kids grassed on each other for minor offences to the staff.
I don't even understand what you are talking about with that Darwinism and natural selection stuff. Are you for real?

Woman, to be fair to Darwin he never coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest'. That was Spencer. Darwin was writing about species adapting to their environments over eons. This idea has been grotesquely distorted by everyone from Nazi's to apostles of free market capitalism. That's not to say Darwin isn't open to criticism, just that it's unfair to blame him for subsequent distortions of his theory by ideological hijackers.