The next generation of interactive sex robot will be available starting next year. New tech includes warm skin and warm sex organs. And it’s scaring the crap out of us.
There’s already a website about the campaign against sex robots, (campaignagainstsexrobots.org). There’s an international meeting taking place in London promoting and exploring the problems and benefits of sex and love with robots.
We’re so worried that over and over articles go up saying “Holy crap sexbots!”
What is it that we are we afraid of?
We fear men will prefer loving a robot, who is never in a bad mood. A sex robot is always up for anything. How will this affect men’s relationships with real women? What if a sex robot makes men forget about consent– a sex robot has no boundaries and doesn’t say no.
And the proposed user is universally male- just as the existing sex doll market is aimed at straight men. There are male dolls for gay customers, but the sex doll market is small for straight women.
We’re afraid that sex with a perfect, endlessly servile, sexy robot will replace sex between humans, reducing our birth rate.
What happens when our expensive sex robots go out of date? Imagine how embarrassing it’ll be when your friend’s robot can speak in four languages and your robot can only moan and point at stuff!
We fear the end of human intimacy, that men will fall in love with sex robots. We’re afraid that men will become addicted, filling their days and nights with computer games and dirty robots. We’ll be a world of single people, men at home with their sex robots, and women making increasingly intricate Pinterest pages.
Women could be jealous of sex robots, who don’t gain weight or sweat or have body hair, unless you have requested some on the form.
The fact is, technology has always been scary in the bedroom.
Vibrators were originally developed as an easy way for doctors to give women orgasms as treatment for “hysteria”. Hysteria was medical talk for women being stressed out by life without the release of orgasms, because their spouses didn’t believe women could have them. The vibrator has existed since the 19th century, and men still regard them with suspicion, worried that women prefer them to sex with a partner.
I think sex robots will be much the same- no matter how good they get, they won’t be the same as sex with a person. When we say people are “in love” with their sex robots, that’s a fallacy.
They may enjoy their experience, but it’s not love. I like my vibrator, but it’s a tool. I don’t connect with it. Even if it was attached to a Hugh Jackman RealDoll, I wouldn’t love it. I don’t care if silicon Hugh Jackman has an orgasm or experiences pleasure. I can’t connect or bond with him, and that’s a big part of having sex with another person. There is no eye contact with the Hugh Jackman RealDoll, who also doesn’t exist, because I just made him up. The smell of another person, the feel of their touch, the look in their eyes, the condition of being desired by another person– these won’t be replaced.
When we examine these fears, we can say: there will be men who are so challenged and frustrated with human relationships that they will only interact with sex robots. But they will always be a minority.
Sex robots could be a practical comfort on long trips, during space exploration, during breakups or between relationships. To say that all men want from relationships is subordinate sex is to grossly oversimplify what relationships are. To believe that sex equals love is childish. Having a realistic sex robot doesn’t stave off loneliness. Like legalized weed won’t make for a world of marijuana abuse, sex robots will only add to the human sexual experience, not replace it.
