The age of the sex dolls

[cinematique]

Someone sent me a link to this 'sex doll brothel' in Glasgow; I thought it was an isolated phenomenon but apparently there's more cropping up, in Paris also of all places! They are very expensive and look a lot more realistic than those plastic dolls with a hole for a mouth!
I don't know whether to be relieved that someone will shag a doll instead of treating a woman as such, or despair at the state of societal disfunction...
www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/uks-first-sex-doll-brothel-14274617

Yes I imagine some (many?) would bemoan the loss of "jobs" and say it's not fair that women (and men) can't get their money that way if they want to and it's a job like any other why should it not be allowed etc.

Same arguments as we see at the moment, basically.

Plenty of feminists having ideas about reprogramming the future sex robots which are more independent to retaliate

Westworld (the series) is a horrifyingly apocalyptic vision of what happens when you set up a world filled with sex robots and what that does to the humans who use and abuse them, and to the robots themselves. Grim. Not a future I'd want to be in.

Humans are very cheap as well.

I can't see these robots becoming really popular unless there is some kind of population crash. Until then there will always be poor / desperate / exploitable women children and men. And for the "happy hooker" idea - this is what plenty of the customers like. They like knowing that it's unwanted. Some of them like tears, they like to hurt. You can;'t get that authentically from a robot. You know it isn't really crying.

If sex dolls satisfied paedophiles and makes them safe to real children then explain who the same theory doesnt work with porn?

Porn makes men MORE dangerous to women and children. They get "porn sick" and numbed and desensitised so more violence and kink is needed for them to feel that a sexual experience is "real".

Sex dolls are 3D porn. They will make paedophiles sicker, less hesitant, less restrained and more dangerous to children.

The Westworld idea presupposes that most humans have deep dark desires that they would want to carry out if they thought they could get away with it - if they are "allowed".

It follows an idea that civilisation is only a veneer.

I prefer an idea that we are actually getting more civilised, I want to get to a point where it isn't taken as read that if a man is given the go-ahead to rape a beautiful woman then he'll probably go for it. These tropes reinforce rape culture and exaggerate it, IMO.

I'd love for humans to become more civilised, but to achieve that, human will have to do the work involved in becoming more civilised, and I don't see that happening.

Nuffaluff
In this hypothetical future where robots replace prostitutes, you can guarantee men will suddenly be really concerned about women's economic choices. "But what will women do for money if this choice for them is taken away?"

You should hear men protesting about the Norwich Model, where they are criminalised for purchasing sex "what about the prostitutes? They wouldn't get so much work!" Suddenly they really care about this, while they are happily taking 50% more wage take home than women in the same job and hiring men over women whenever they get the chance...

The porn and prostitution threads always attract the tedious sealioning blokes.

Anyway, if I thought that these dolls would stop men from abusing actual women then I'd be all for them, but in reality I think it's more likely that violent men are practicing on the dolls what they will later do to actual women.

Tedious sealioning blokes? Who is that then?

Oh, me too about hoping that we are getting more civilised, upabit. When I was watching Westworld, I kept breaking off to wail "but I wouldn't want to do any of that!". I wanted to sit and chat to Maeve and Dolores, not abuse or kill them. I don't buy that all humans have these dark desires to hurt and control, and I'm pretty sure that we seem to manage to train the desire them out of most women (more women than men, at any rate, without going down the whole nature/nurture testosterone rabbit hole).

I like the idea of the "Norwich Model", Pat. Raised a smile even with the topic being as grim and depressing as it is...Alan Partridge would approve I think.

Nuffaluff

Anyone can disregard anyone as a sexual partner for any reason. I exclude people on incredibly shallow and personal lines. My vagina isn't subject to the Equality Act.

Not just a tshirt, I want a whole line of merchandise! Travel mugs would be perfect, you could angle them towards men pestering you on the bus.

What do you mean? Do you think I’m a bloke?

When you read a user name starting with "Old Man" does it not occur to you that the person behind it may in fact be a man? Not every comment is about you.

I'm not sure how we're supposed to find the studies about how diverting violent men towards venting their sexual anger and aggression onto prostitutes rather than "respectable" women anything other than horrific.

Yeah, it's the blithe handwaving away of any potential harm done to prostitutes as if they're somehow different from the general category "women" and not part of that category that hits my "oh no you fucking don't, mate" button.

In my experience of feminism chat, most posters who are actually men give their name as dirtydorothy or or something similar.
I

Pretty sure this one is actually a bloke.

this idea that it's OK to expect there to be a sex class of women to mop up what "respectable" women can't expected to tolerate

This. It's not OK.

Have you seen, 'The Sex Robots are Coming' on channel four.... The men humanising the robots is insane. One guy taking it on holiday.

Also saw a programme about paedophilia in japan on bbc3. One guy had a child doll. When asked if he would want a real child he said yes but it's hard as he's not close to children. Was horrible to watch. He also pretended the dool was human dressing it.

I think that's why it's different to just masterbsting with an aid.

Also the person saying prositutes deflect rape. They're raped too ffs.

I said prostitution does not prevent rape.

And the studies I linked suggest it does. By around 30-40% in the Dutch study.

Why would any of those characteristics make a man incapable of forming a relationship with a sentient human being? It would obviously affect their opportunity, but that's not the same as being incapable.

Self-worth and body-image issues, basically. If you don't think you're desirable or worth dating, that prevents you really believing someone loves you. I've known a number of women who thought that way and it prevented them either seeking relationships or feeling secure when in them.

What you are also saying is that it's acceptable to sexually assault prostitutes to prevent sexual assault within good decent girls.

I never said anything remotely like that. I just said that studies showed what someone said was likely incorrect.

If there were just these robots that men could abuse instead of real women?

Not enough studies are done. It's almost certain it would reduce overall sexual abuse and rape in total. It's equally certain that it wouldn't eliminate it. I'd also add in the major concern about how widespread availability would affect young men's expectations and capabilities in real sex. Some of these prototype robots can be programmed with anything from eager begging to non-consenting reluctance. (The voices, I mean. They're not currently animatronic).

Perhaps he might want to stop doing things whilst out there - who would have an appetite or the energy for sex whilst helping people survive.

Bloke here. I assure you we can have a quick shufty without becoming incapable. And frankly, not to be too explicit, without doing that regularly it gets pretty uncomfortable.

It doesn't prevent rape, it simply transfers it to the prostitutes - who are also women. You don't seem to be aware of this.

When you read a user name starting with "Old Man" does it not occur to you that the person behind it may in fact be a man? Not every comment is about you.

I'm male. My username is male. My avatar on Twitter is male. My first post on MN said "I'm a guy is that okay to post here?" And I've mentioned it a few times since.

And I've never said anything like you've set me up as saying. Someone said "it's not like prostitution actually reduces rape." I posted some studies that shows there's a high likelihood that it does. That is ALL that I did. What's with the personal attacks and putting words in my mouth?

Please actually try to get your head round Assassinated's post - all prostitution does is to create a class of women that are deemed to be legally rapeable - it doesn't mean less rape is happening, it just means that women have been arbitrarily divided into "nice women" and "prostitutes" and the incidence of rape among the "nice women" has gone down. However, since this is an entirely artificial and arbitrary distinction, rape itself, real rape (as opposed to legally recognised rape) has not gone away - it's just being done to prostitutes instead of non-prostitutes.

It doesn't prevent rape, it simply transfers it to the prostitutes - who are also women. You don't seem to be aware of this.

Prostitution is neither legally nor by dictionary, rape. It's reasonable that when someone refers to rape and prostitution differently, I reply on that basis. If your objection to what I wrote - which was simply to cite some relevant studies - is that you consider consensual selling of sex impossible / non-existent then just say you disagree because you think prostitution is rape. Don't start making up statements about how I think "prostitution is great because it deflects abusers away from decent girls" and similar.

It's not unreasonable that I'm upset when people start making out to have such attitudes.

Go away and read some books on prostitution - real books, not Belle du Jour

Whatever one thinks of the transaction itself (and personally I think that where there's any hint of financial necessity, genuine consent cannot be given, and coerced consent is not consent), prostitutes are at appallingly high risk of rape, in the form of sex acts they didn't agree to (anal, sex without condoms) and physical assault during their work. Not to mention being something like 20 times more likely to be murdered than women in the general population.