Guardian Article about lifelike sex dolls

[MyOwnSummer]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/oct/19/what-i-learned-about-male-desire-in-a-sex-doll-factory

This is a tough read, although I'm struggling to articulate exactly why over the feelings of nausea. It is very, very creepy indeed and requires quite a strong stomach.

The writer does decry the sexist attitudes on "doll forums" but sadly includes a lot of absolute bollocks about the reasons why men might want these horrible creations. There's too much focus on female sexual satisfaction these days, apparently, the poor menz aren't confident to ask for what they want in bed any more (!?).

The dolls are now being programmed, like Alexa, to respond to their creators - from the article...

"Her long-lashed eyes blinked audibly. “Good morning, how can I help you, my sweet Matt?” she asked, glossed lips parting and closing with a mechanical whir. She tilted her head to the side, as if thoughtfully anticipating his response. McMullen asked her the time and she told him with a slight smile.

When he thanked her, she replied, “Sure, I was created to please you.”

Anyone else find this highly disturbing? Men who can't cope with women being people, retreating into a fantasy whereby the doll fulfils all their "needs"?

To be fair to the author, she does talk about incel culture and call this out explicitly - "there is no reckoning with this industry without acknowledging that, for some owners, dolls are a surrogate for dominance."

This is so self-serving, so deluded:

"This design choice is a moral one, McMullen explained. He wants to teach people to be better humans. “We want to be able to simulate the kindness and the legwork that goes into building a connection.” In this statement, there is a hint of personal pain: “I’ve lived my life and I’ve had my share of relationship entanglements,” he said. “It’s rough out there. People are one thing when you first meet them and they’re something else once you get to know them for a while.” He added after a pause, “With the robot, you can be yourself and just see how that goes.” "

It's the opposite of what he is saying it is. he is suggesting that men can practise on robots to become better at relationships; but in the same breath, makes it clear that what makes the robots good for this is that they won't actually have realistic human reactions. If you want to get good at relationships, you have to have them, with people, and think about the people and what they want and their feelings. Practising on robots is like thinking you are getting better at driving by sitting on your arse watching Grand Prix

Copied and pasted to my MP Victoria Prentice

They are such a niche product at selling even a few hundred every year, I don’t think they have caught on remotely wide enough to draw any meaningful conclusions on masculine sexuality as a whole. Furthermore I think it’s possible to infer given how so few men actually own one of these things that the vast majority of men may struggle to objectify women to the degree that an inanimate lump of silicone and plastics would suffice to have one as a replacement.

I’d rather have a voice activated coffee machine or a robot that does housework.

I can’t see how this is anything other than a complete objectification of women as mere repositories for men’s penises. It is abhorrent. And I can’t believe this is something in relation to which a journalist would see fit to attempt to present the sort of “balanced view” contained in this article. Very disappointing.

I can’t believe that having a sex mannequin (refuse to use the word doll) that is programmed to behave exactly as you require will not have an impact on how the owner behaves with women. Look at how quickly the easy free 24 hour access to pornography has changed behaviours. It escalates. And I bet the mannequin price drops and they become more prevalent.

There are an awful lot of men out there who do not want to have mutually satisfying sex with their female partners. The porn addicts, the selfish lovers, the rapists who try to do it when the woman is asleep, the roll on roll off merchants, the it won’t take long dudes, the many many men who assault and rape women in all the myriad ways. None of them give a shit about the woman as a person, she is a means to an end. I think a sex robot would further desensitise men to the fact that women are human beings.

When men get these do they ever leave them for a real woman? Or is it the dead end relationship, the one they stay with forever?
If it's the final relationship they have I can almost believe that it could be a good thing, as it effectively stops a man from going from bad relationship to bad relationship, damaging his partners as he goes. Not to mention that he won't be siring children and teaching them his broken view of relationships.

Put this article together with the Guardian's trans articles and your brain will explode. In the context of sex dolls everyone knows what 'woman' is.

As far as I can tell, online discussions about sexuality are now immensely affected by ideas derived from porn and so very much based on male desires. The sudden supposed appearance of women who wish to be choked or slapped during the sex, the focus on anal intercourse and the relative number of times fellatio and cunnilingus are mentioned.

If I had to draw a conclusion I would argue that sex today is more focused on male needs than it was, say, ten years ago.

Not sure I agree with that Nepeta - women now are more at liberty to do what they want sexually than ever.

In my opinion these dolls would be perfect for the so called incels. Fewer women will get hurt and they will drift into the background.

@coronaway

Not sure I agree with that Nepeta - women now are more at liberty to do what they want sexually than ever.

In my opinion these dolls would be perfect for the so called incels. Fewer women will get hurt and they will drift into the background.

But how do women know what they want sexually? At least some of that must be based on the information society gives us and as far as I can tell the information has not been all positive. Sure, if we take a longer view women's rights to be sexually satisfied in bed have increased but the information about what female sexuality might be if it was not defined largely in relationship to male sexuality has not increased in the same way and some of the stuff coming from porn seems very one-sided to me.

I agree on the incels, of course, but I have visited their sites and they would never be content with sex dolls. They are not even content with ordinary women as girlfriends. They demand access to the most beautiful women.

If sex dolls have to fuck incels on masse, that'll be when the robot revolution starts.

On a serious note, I follow a Twitter account advocating banning these things and once found extremely young looking ones on Amazon. Anyone buying a doll in school uniform needs his car boot and / or hard drive looking at at the very least.

@OhHolyJesus

Really sex and doll shouldn't be in the same sentence.

Dolls are for kids.
Sex is for adults.

But then I suppose you could say the same for sex toys. Ultimately dolls and toys are inanimate objects. Of course it's creepy to try to replicate something that is alive in an object, especially when it comes to humans, sex and it's absolutely fucking vile that that have child sex dolls (I've seen the adverts, they conveniently fit inside a suitcase, nope nothing to see here...)

I've seen the arguments that this will mean women don't have to become prostitutes and that it protects children from abuse but it's absolute guff, as we all know. This is a result of porn and fetish and it's hardly died out with over exposure has it?

If the tech industry wants to support, develop and promote this, then you have to look at the motives which I expect will be money, God complex and porn-addled minds.

I find the line between sex dolls and sex toys a little fuzzy to navigate. Both involve wha's essentially masturbation and I daresay almost always fantasy. And sex toys are maybe even more popular with women than they are with men.

The dolls seem creepy on the face of it like you say because they are uncanny. And the particular instances like them being weirdly submissive or childlike is going to involve a type of fantasy that is not emotionally healthy for the person doing it or good for society at large.

Maybe it's because of that uncanny element they seem to appeal to people who are interested in weird passive things? Because I think it would be difficult to imagine them as real - so people who want realistic just won't use them? In a sense they are less realistic than just a fantasy.

But if it weren't for that, what would be the difference between use of a dildo or fleshlight and use of a simulated person attached to such a thing? Or are all of those things bad because they simulate a use of real person for someone's sexual satisfaction only?? If that is a problem, is fantasy to masturbate also a problem in the same way?

I can see once somenone starts with the principle that if it is in your head, it really has nothing to do with anyone else, even the person you are thinking about, they can get to some pretty creepy stuff.

@Dervel

They are such a niche product at selling even a few hundred every year, I don’t think they have caught on remotely wide enough to draw any meaningful conclusions on masculine sexuality as a whole. Furthermore I think it’s possible to infer given how so few men actually own one of these things that the vast majority of men may struggle to objectify women to the degree that an inanimate lump of silicone and plastics would suffice to have one as a replacement.

Yes, I agree with this. Most men think they are as creepy as women do. This is why the ultimate goal seems to be to produce something that could be mistaken for a real person - what was that show with the robots who seemed almost like real people, and the husband ended up shagging one of them?

Unfortunately sex robots are never enough, their programmed submissiveness will get boring after a while. They'll want a being with free will to submit to them eventually.

So they'll seek out real women to dominate and be desensitized to whatever horrible things they've been doing to the robot because it didn't react.

How is any of this better or safe for women?

It feels abhorrent because under what other circumstances is it okay to create a substitute slave since you can't own a real one?

It is illegal to have a replica child (I won't refer to it as a child sex doll) in the UK. It's illegal to reproduce the image of child abuse in any way, be that by replicas, cartoons, sketches - any form of reproduction carries the same penalty as producing and distributing images of actual abuse.

Some of you are making it appear like we have no agency. Such men can't just decide to get with a 'real' woman whenever they feel like it - why would we have anything to do with men like these? Isn't that the whole issue they have - they're unable to get a woman? As far as I can see sex dolls would be a perfect solution.

I agree with a previous poster in that it's a very grey area. Where do you draw the line on what is acceptable (dildo, fleshlight) and what isn't (doll)?

If these 'dolls' kept creepy men the fuck away from women i would be all for them, unfortunately i don't think they will.

The thing is, sellers can get around legalities by advertising the replica children by using wording like "compact", "miniature" and "flat-chested". The word child isn't used as a descriptor in the advertising, even though it's blatantly obvious what they're supposed to resemble.

Men have uploaded videos of themselves using these replica women/girls onto porn sites, so pretty much celebrating it, then it's normalised by others in their "community"* (or echo-chamber). There seems to have been a real shift in recent years in normalising CSA (and also animal abuse) in recent years, re-branding themselves as "MAPs" and "zoosexuals".

• these communities seem to fester amongst the "furry" and incel/mra networks.

@Deadringer

If these 'dolls' kept creepy men the fuck away from women i would be all for them, unfortunately i don't think they will.

Yes. If they stayed in their basements getting once a week delivery of microwaveable pizza, then I'd be totally on board.

But I suspect their behaviour inevitably spills over into RL aggression against women - stalking, harassment, sexual violence (because strangling a mannequin won't be enough because in their heart of hearts they know the mannequin doesn't suffer, and it's the suffering they get off on), right up to Elliot Rogers style femicide.

@DrGachet

The thing is, sellers can get around legalities by advertising the replica children by using wording like "compact", "miniature" and "flat-chested". The word child isn't used as a descriptor in the advertising, even though it's blatantly obvious what they're supposed to resemble.

Men have uploaded videos of themselves using these replica women/girls onto porn sites, so pretty much celebrating it, then it's normalised by others in their "community"* (or echo-chamber). There seems to have been a real shift in recent years in normalising CSA (and also animal abuse) in recent years, re-branding themselves as "MAPs" and "zoosexuals".

• these communities seem to fester amongst the "furry" and incel/mra networks.

Years ago when I was a teenager I remember finding a bunch of those older "women's fantasy" kinds of books, and they were all about the idea that whatever you wanted to think about sexually was ok because it isn't "real". And that this was hugely freeing, women's sexual selves had been repressed, it doesn't hurt anyone to fantasise about them , etc.

And during the same time (the 80's mainly) this seemed to be the overall attitude among liberals. Whatever you wanted to pretend or think about was fine, if you fantasised about someone sexually, be it a friend or famous person or whatever it would have no effect on how you saw them or interacted with them, and everyone did it anyway and it was normal. No need to be worried or think too much about such things.

Now, people here quite rightly IMO are saying that no, actually, how we think about things, even in the privacy of our own minds, affects how we think about and interact with people in the world. This is in the context of abuse of kids or women, but I wonder if we need to have a more honest conversation about how our thoughts affect our thinking even beyond that. Because t seems obvious that if you accept the narrative I heard as the liberal, sensible, non-prudish one in the 1980s, you could reasonably come to the conclusion that none of this weird fantasy stuff would be a problem or destructive.

Thanks to all who have commented and helped to articulate both how wrong these dolls are, and why the article itself wasn't up to par - when I originally read it, I struggled to frame and articulate the disgust I was feeling.

The comparison to porn is absolutely valid. Widely available, extreme porn has bled through to real life behavior and the pressure on women to go along with practices that used to be considered niche or extreme.

The worst bit for me is the way these dolls could be used in a pattern of escalating misogynist behavior. As PP have pointed out, at what point does the play-acting with the doll feel like it isn't enough and they escalate to harming real women?

I had a look online, and was horrified to point out that the CPS can only prosecute the importers or sellers of the child versions of these dolls under old laws that prohibit obscene items. But a quick skim through the google results shows many of the purchasers have some nasty shit on their hard drives and the act of purchasing the doll has led to their computers being examined and charges brought. It is sickening. I'd like to see the adult versions of them banned too, I really don't think they are healthy in any way. Even the example of the grieving widower mentioned in the article... frankly I am not sure how this could ever help someone process their grief in a healthy way.

I couldn't find a source on this, but surely there must be some research that shows the impact of these dolls on the behavior of the users? Can anyone help?

I would be surprised if there is any research. They really aren't that widely used and the people who do use them aren't likely to want to offer themselves up. You would also have to see how their behaviour changed after having the dolls, so you would need a good sense of what it was like before - as users are likely to be a self-selected group that already has sexual issues.

@coronaway

Some of you are making it appear like we have no agency. Such men can't just decide to get with a 'real' woman whenever they feel like it - why would we have anything to do with men like these? Isn't that the whole issue they have - they're unable to get a woman? As far as I can see sex dolls would be a perfect solution.

I agree with a previous poster in that it's a very grey area. Where do you draw the line on what is acceptable (dildo, fleshlight) and what isn't (doll)?

Creepy, abusive and misogynistic men have been successfully "getting" real women throughout history. They can be charming and manipulative and looking the relationship board shows examples of how women are tricked into relationships, marriages and babies before these men reveal their true selves. Have you heard of the boiling frog analogy?

The sex doll users not going to come up to you in the pub and say "Hello beautiful, I've been practising on my sex doll. Wanna see what I've learned?"