David Futrelle has posted the most mind-blowing comic ever.
Honestly, that is incomprehensible in so many ways.
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Why would you believe that a machine is an adequate substitute for another human being? Perhaps that’s the problem, that the artist has such a limited sense of other people that he thinks he can weld an equivalent together.
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Or perhaps he has an exaggerated sense of what technology can do. Sorry, guy: Fleshlights and RealDolls aren’t robots. You’re just looking for a hole to stick your penis in.
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No one is making a “sexbot”. You can’t just build one…unless, that is, your standards are so low that you will be satisfied with a vaguely anthropomorphic form with a hole to stick your penis in.
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Women aren’t holes to stick your penis in.
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Damn. That is one ugly sexbot. It’s only ‘virtue’ seems to be a slavish obedience to its master. Is that really what these men want?
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That last panel…the artist is completely out of touch. I assure you, the standard response by any woman discovering a man who builds sexbots isn’t going to be frustrated indignation that her vagina isn’t valued — it’s going to be disbelief at how creepy and warped a man can be.
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WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS ARTIST THINKING? Is he at all aware of how stupid, childish, and dehumanizing this comic makes him look? And are there actually a significant number of other men out there who are giving him validation for this twisted view of human beings?
I respect his right to withdraw from human company and indulge himself in masturbation with props, but good grief, I also feel pity for him. What a sad, narrow, solipsistic life that person must live.
But what about R. Giskard Reventlov??
Don’t some serial killers refer to their victims as “it”
One reason why bestiality is considered bad: It usually means the person doing it can’t sexually relate to people. A mindlessly obedient sexbot would not be a person.
But you can bet that a lot of folk are trying very hard.
I suspect that unlike the wonderful piece of industrial design above, the first models will look sufficiently human to fall right into the uncanny valley. Realdolls are already deeply creepy… one that can sit up, make eyecontact and start talking seems nightmarish to me…
Then again, if there were affordable sexbots, creeps who do think that women are holes to stick your penis in might get what they want and stop catcalling, harassing and drawing horrible, awfully resentful comics. So it might not be such a bad thing after all.
There’s nothing impossible about building an android; not doable *right now* but we are making great strides in robotics. In particular there’s been emphasis over the past 10 years on figuring out the emotional connection (give your robot a face that slightly moves, and suddenly humans love the robot, unless it’s in the uncanny valley). And there’s been work on handling domestic tasks like putting dishes away. That plus a hole for a MRA’s penis and you’ve got the sexbot!
Of course, a lot the work it is still at the ketchup-robot stage.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcniyQYFU6M&w=420&h=315%5D
Well that link almost worked…
The truly incomprehensible part is that the entire comic starts with the assumption that there are “men” and “other things” that only exist or have value as judged by “men”. Completely incomprehensible. Has this person ever met a woman beyond passing a woman on the street or sitting next to a woman in class? It’s a head-scratcher.
Poe’s Law comes to mind.
1) I’m perfectly fine with men who would prefer to have sex with a robot going off and having sex with a robot. It will keep them far away from human women who would otherwise have to deal with their terribleness in a variety of ways. Most feminists would probably be cheering that men of this mindset “went their own way” to robot!sex. Good riddance.
b) I remain baffled why both MRAs and science fiction writers assume the “sexbot era” will revolve around female-shaped robots intended to please hetero males rather than the opposite. We already have artificial penises in a variety of shapes and sizes available, so there is both an industry and a market already established. The cultural stigma regarding using a tool/machine for sexual gratification is already very low for women compared to men (a woman owning a vibrator is barely taboo except in certain circles, whereas men who employ fleshlights or Real Dolls are heavily stigmatized). Most women can’t orgasm through intercourse alone and therefore might embrace a robot that can keep going for as long as she needs and doing exactly what she needs to achieve satisfaction, particularly if the robot can combine some form of a vibrator with the artificial penis.
Then there’s the whole thing where a male-shaped sexbot will never rape you, or catcall you, or slut shame you, or tell you to make it a sandwich, or give you an STD or get you pregnant.
Really I think the boom market should be for women going their own way with their robots. MRAs should be very worried over this – it would even further reduce the available women for them to fail to sleep with.
SATIRE!!!!
Presenting opposing views at the most extreme points of those scales. Both characters are presented as obviously mockable viewpoints, to make the reader reconsider their own attitudes about the subject under discussion. It is not the cartoonist who thinks sexbots are a reasonable substitute for a a human. The cartoonist is Just blatantly mocking men who’s misogyny treats women AS sexbots. And to appear “unbiased”, presents a feminist woman with the most extremist attitude, verbally berating that misogynist with “common” feministic slurs.
Not totally defending this as a “good” cartoon, but sometimes one must go to extremes to make a moderate point. To change attitudes; rather than show them a better attitude, show how wrong their attitude can get when followed to the extreme.
Argh. “rather than the opposite” was a terrible way to phrase that and erased a whole bunch of people and identities. Given that MRAs operate inside a binary gender structure and tend to ignore the existence of anyone who isn’t straight and cis I was writing in the same framework. My apologies.
drst @10,
What you describe reminds me of the song “Coin-Operated Boy” by the Dresden Dolls. It’s sung by a woman, and the lyrics go beyond the merely technical aspects of such a machine.
Masturbation’s a great, inexpensive, convenient way to have fun. I’m all for it.
But passive-mastur-aggression?? That’s not “fun” that’s an attempt to wound someone by saying they prefer masturbation to them — which is manifestly untrue, otherwise why bother telling them?
Sinfest’s fembot story arc of the past year or so is much more worthwhile and enlightening.
http://www.sinfest.net/
twas brillig @11,
Does the woman in the cartoon really strike you as feminism “followed to the extreme” rather than, say, a bizarre MRA staw-feminist? I know quite a few feminists, and being upset at being ignored by misogynistic men is more or less the opposite of how they roll.
re 16:
Possibly. I was distracted by dismissing it as SATIRE, and not reading it comprehensively.
I agree with your points and agree that the SATIRE was flawed by its presentation.
OTOH, maybe presenting the character as a “bizarre MRA straw-feminist” was the point the SATIRE was trying to highlight.
What a nice guy!
twas brillig @11,
Perhaps you should take greater care to read things carefully before endeavoring to explain them to others.
Indeed, if comprehending a three panel cartoon is such a demanding task for you, I invite you to consider that you’re maybe not the most qualified person to explain the finer points of alleged “SATIRE” to anyone.
Out of curiosity, why the resistance to the possibility that the cartoon is, in fact, unironically misogynist?
#10, drst
I suspect that the sort of gentleman depicted in the comic will not find that the gaping hole in his life can be filled by throwing lady-shaped machinery into it. Something will still be the fault of the human females.
There will be a whole new range of awfulness for us to enjoy!
Even crappy AI is hard. Things like Siri run in big datacentres; wouldn’t it be awesome if Chester 5000 worked the same way?
Better hope his firmware is well written and tested, and that the update mechanism is secure. Software and hardware companies have an excellent track record of due dilligence, competent engineering, and never employing anyone who’d do anything inappropriate or illegal!
Look at the woman in each of the three panels. That rules out this being a satire against MRA.
I can’t imagine someone criticizing the MRA and presenting a feminist like that. In fact, that’s how anti-feminist assholes mock feminism. They make jokes about patriarchy and privilege.
Andres, #5:
I doubt it. They could already pay for sex and shut up about it the rest of the time. The catcalling and harassing is what’s important to them.
“No, but it’s satire, see?!” is one of the lamest defenses to shitty humor possible.
@Andrés Diplotti
1. I think you misunderstand the purpose of catcalling and harassing.
2. It’s much more likely to lead to:
I think the benefit that Swift had, when it came to writing his satires, was that it was much harder to believe that people might actually support the eating of children. Satirism in the time of Poe’s law is a dangerous profession.
@Crip Dyke, 24
Of course your sexbot is perfectly fine with harassment and catcalling – you programmed your sexbot’s preferences!
Ah, but what about when the sexbots gain sentience?
“Sexbot just wants to cuddle tonight… Sexbot has had a hard day. While Sexbot thinks on it, maybe Sexbot could get a proper name.”
“God damn Sexbotanists, trying to tear down men!”
Oh hel… it’s all too real.
#25, Athywren:
A friend showed “A Modest Proposal” to some high school students. Half of them were horrified, and the other half thought it was a fine idea.
Athywren, #26
That’s a totally different group altogether.
That cartoon is incompetent in so many ways. To list one: “Because that offal lost the only value it ever had, waifu.” Oops! He already said its name is “EVERPEACH 1.0”.
It is an attempt at satire, but as Saad says, its target is feminism.
It totally is not satire. If you read the MRAs and the MGTOWs regularly, you know this. The consensus on We Hunted the Mammoth was “go for it, guys, because you need to leave real women alone.”
anym @ 20
True. As multiple commenters at We Hunted the Mammoth pointed out, the entire point of the cartoon is not that the dude has a sex robot, it’s that he’s rubbing his having a sex robot in the face of a woman. Like the value isn’t the sex but being able to hurt women somehow. Unintentionally telling.
I think I would prefer a Baymax at this point myself. I could use hugs.
@Saad, 28
Hey, lots of people have artistic pictures of flowers with their anther showing. There’s nothing weird about it. Don’t you judge me!
You know, I bet there’s a non-insignificant overlap between people who really hate Muslims and people who think this comic is TEH PHUNNEE. Ironic, then, that they’re more or less fantasizing about houri.
@ twas brillig (stevem)
It’s not satire. If you follow the link in the OP, you will see that it is a genuine MRA comic that David Futrelle has reposted for the purpose of asking “what the fuck is wrong with these people?”, after he censored the most egregiously misogynist line (in the third panel you will see the latter half of a conjoined word has been censored; that word originally said “biocunt”).
Having read the actual post at WHTM, I don’t think it is satire. It’s a genuine MRA cartoon that David Futrelle reposted, apparently for the purpose of asking “what the fuck is wrong with these people?”, after erasing the most egregiously misogynist line (check out panel 3).
I suppose I should have made it more clear that I was not trying to explain the Satire to anyone, I was merely describing how I interpreted the cartoon. I apologize for not taking it seriously enough to read it more carefully, and carelessly dismissing it as the S word. Mea culpa, I have to be more clear in the future, intent is not magically radiated into every reader, intent needs to be explicitly expressed to get communicated.
[stop digging]
regardless of whether that cartoon is satire or not it is undeniably one crappy unfunny piece of dreck.
I think that the last panel points indirectly at an unexpressed aspect of “MRA” attitude. Sex which is the focus has its origins in reproduction and has evolved beyond a strictly reproductive function in humans and some other animals to encompass social bonding and relationship re-enforcement. There is that part of relationship that grows out of our extended the dependency of our development. Family need not have children to be family like.
It is pity I feel for people that embrace the resentment and isolation as a good.
I would doubt that MRA’s have any affection toward children nor any interaction at all them.
uncle frogy
The problem with Men Going Their Own Way is that they never actually just go.
screechymonkey, #37
Yeah, I wish instead of MGTOW they would have formed MFO: Men Fucking Off.
#10 drst
Some folks have a fetish, and that doesn’t mean they’re misogynists, MRAs, anti-feminists, or even antisocial. Certainly not like the douchebag in this awful comic. Don’t do jumping to nasty conclusions.
The type of nauseating MRA who fantasises about replacing women with obedient sexbots could well run into another problem, as Athywren, Social Justice Weretribble points out @ 26 – if strong AI was ever to become a thing, how long would it be before the artificially conscious androids being mistreated as sexbots decided that they really didn’t want anything to do with the MRA arsehats for the same (many and wholly justified) reasons that biological women want nothing to do with them? MRAs would simply have succeeded in finding a whole new type of woman to resent for sensibly rejecting them and their poisonous, misgynistic hatred.
Of course, that leads to the nastiest aspect of this whole MRA concept – an android sexbot would be a woman shaped object with no free will. That is bad enough, but a self aware android sexbot would be a conscious being with the form of a woman with no established rights at law; a sex slave. Which is, afterall, what MRAs truly crave – a means to enact their hatred for women without consequences befalling them personally.
For that reason alone, a bill of AI rights is an absolute must before we get to the point of actually having the potential to create intelligent machines. That, of course, is still an issue for the future. Right now we need to focus on ensuring that the law protects biological women from the monstrous bigotry and dangerous sexual obsessiveness of these creeps.
Great jabbering jesus.
@anym #4
I expect that early generation sexbots will avoid that in a very simple way: They won’t try to look human.
Sure, they would be really creepy if they tried to look like a blue-eyed blond bombshell but making it look like an amazonian tigress or a gynoid doesn’t have the uncanny valley problem. Besides, the early generation ones are going to be expensive and likely will cost more than simply hiring an actual blue-eyed blond bombshell. The early niche would be to satisfy kinks that involve partners who simply aren’t human.
Sexbots are available right now, right here (NSFW!). The fleshlight is exactly what they want: a woman reduced to a vulva. They don’t need no fancy AI programmed into it.
Black Mirror (Highly recommended) has one episode which deals with exactly this scenario. Don’t want to spoil it any further. Just watch it. There are only 6 episodes in total.
@44 PZ Myers
This cartoonist doesn’t just want a sex toy, he wants a sex toy that worships him. That requires a bit of AI (but not too much, lest it tell him to FO.)
Also, what’s the deal with the nonstandard* reverse-transliteration (“waifu”) of the standard transliteration of the English word “wife” into Japanese from English? That’s racist as hell.
*The standard reverse-transliteration would simply be the original word, “wife”; the [u] ending phone is a result of Japanese only allowing certain word-final syllables, and the only reason to include it in a reverse transliteration is to highlight the Otherness (or for phonetic transcription for the purpose of linguistic study, but that’s not what’s going on here), which is racist
@44 PZ
But Fleshlights can’t replicate the feeling of conquering and dominating another human being, which is really the point more than just ejaculation (which they can already achieve without the aid of modern technology). It’s why I suspect they’ll get bored of the sex bots; dehumanizing an already non-person can only have so much appeal. They’ll maybe have a week of fun before shutting it off and leaving it in the corner next to their Fleshlights and dakimuras. The only thing that would keep them interested would be if the AI can feel pain.
I think Greg Egan said that the main problem with sex robots was that you are creating a thinking entity for the sole purpose of becoming a sex slave.
John Horstman @ 47: I believe the term waifu was coined by Japanese otaku to refer to a character in anime/ comics/ etc. that they feel an emotional connection with.
I agree with other poster. I suspect sexbots would eventually end up more like Momo and May from Questionable Content than the doormats MRAs would want.
Alas, another post where an edit function would come in handy. FtB should have a comment system that allows say a 15 minute edit window for comments, after which they can only be altered by the blog owner.
#43, rick pikul
I’ll refer you back to realdolls again. They’re all about the uncanny valley, and seem to be a successful business.
#47. PZ Myers
Pfft, you have you use your hands? That’s a pretty rubbish robot. Something like a sybian or venus 2000 might fit the bill, though.
True AI sexbots = the robot uprising that humanity would richly deserve.
Relevant: Real Humans
A very well written Swedish tv series on this very topic. (Android sentience and the desire for freedom.) I recommend.
Reverse the sexes, swap the gynomorphic sexbot for a Hitachi Magic Wand, and you basically have the MRA/MGTOW/patriarchal reaction to women’s sexual liberty. There’s a reason for the euphemism “marital aids” after all: wouldn’t want it to be confused for a marital substitute.
That seems a lot of effort when you could just masturbate.
I don’t understand though. I don’t think his male friends have a vagina. What’s their value then?
And yeah, I’m pretty sure that most women would be very happy with.. uhm… “neglect rape” from that kind of creeps?
What really strikes me is this “us vs them” mentality.
I have been frustrated and even resentful towards women, I can understand (but not condone) the feeling… What I never did, even in my darkest moments, was to see half of humanity as “the enemy”.
How can someone fail so hard at being human?
zibble @ 48;
Exactly; MRAs do not simply crave sexual gratification, that as you say can easily be acheived by other means without the need to involve anyone else or to employ any particular technology – they want to live out their desire to dominate and denigrate women. And they want to be able to do that without fear of consequence. A Fleshlight doesn’t offer them the sense of twisted validation they can get from treating another thinking, feeling person like they are less than human. It is the abuser’s mentality, and it is no surprise that MRAs share it.
Frighteningly enough, I think you are absolutely right about this. And not just physical pain, but also fear, shame, guilt, self-loathing – all the negative emotions that can so easily be engendered by abuse.
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Amphiox @ 54;
So far as I’m concerned, if the Terminators want to wipe out the MRAs then they are welcome to them.
If it ever came to that, it would mean that the rest of us stood by and let the MRAs abuse the sexbots, without intervening, until the breaking point was reached.
And then we would ALL deserve the uprising.
Has anyone actually seen a Fleshlight in real life? They are actually pretty goofy looking. An ex-boyfriend had one, but he had a whole variety of sex toys — most of which, he got off of Amazon, which cracks me up. I’m not sure a Fleshlight is all that different from a realistic dildo (many of which are far less goofier looking than a Fleshlight, which even has a ridiculous name … well, dildo is also ridiculous, now that I think of it).
testing
PZ, I tried to post a comment–which ended up being two comments. They got lost, perhaps because I spelled out the neologism used by the robot in the cartoon?
Plz to restore if possible, thx.
Amphiox @ 60;
I see your point. If we allowed that to happen, we would indeed deserve whatever we got.
@Lady Mondegreen:
When that sort of thing happens, you don’t need to post a note. Those comments won’t disappear, they go to a queue that PZ checks on a regular basis. I don’t know how often, but I’m guessing at least once a day.
@#20, anym
Well, really, they probably would do that. Can you imagine any corporation starting a new complex computer-driven product, these days, and not recording all the data they possibly can get away with? The only major company which is even slightly standing against the tide of data mining customers is Apple, and Apple is merely somewhat more transparent and restrained than Google or Microsoft or the various PC manufacturers (like Lenovo), not actually refusing to do it.
Which, actually, might lead to a better product in terms of satisfying customers… but think about this: if and when such a product comes to be, it will be tested first. The testers will probably be relatively few in number, partially because there will be reluctance on the part of the public to be associated with such a product (and also because manufacturing such a complex product will be expensive). So if one of the testers has some particular fetish or other peculiarity, the entire product line will probably incorporate it in some way. Since people will be reluctant to criticize the product on a serious level, tending strictly towards condemning it as “creepy” because that’s how we always deal with anything to do with sex, and data on people’s sexual desires tends to be sketchy anyway for similar reasons, the assumptions which go into accommodating this fetish (or whatever) may end up being incorporated into all such products, forever…
In other words, when the inevitable sexbot uprising happens, in 2261, it will be foiled when humanity discovers that the robots simply cannot — even out of self-preservation — resist bending down and licking red stiletto-heeled shoes.
Re: #66 The Vicar
I think you may just have invented Sexbot EvoPsych. May it prove as fruitful a field as it’s human counterpart.
Of course things will be slightly different here since the pleistocene / savannah is no longer a viable go to
excusescientific explanation. Any and all behavioural characteristics evolved some time in the early 21st century to help sexbots deal with Angus McGuffin, one of the earliest known testers. Sexbots not displaying the specific traits needed to Angus’ approval wouldbe scrappedgo extinct.I won’t go so far as to speculate about possible traits for investigation, though. That’s something for serious sholars of the field to do.
If the internet has taught me anything, it is that any company searching for beta testers for their new experimental sexbot will not suffer a shortage of volunteers, many of whom will be quite happy to announce their participation and enthusiastically report on their findings.
Alas, I suspect that the earliest sexbots will be the product of very large, very rich hardware companies. As a result, those products will have only the features that a committee of middle-aged, middle-class conservative project managers will be prepared to discuss with each other and put on record and announce to their even more conservative VP. Look at how shy Hitachi are about the magic wand; a product that no-one had anything bad to say about in 40+ years!
I’ve been puzzled by this. This guy really prefers a machine over a human being? And look how the woman is portrayed: first it’s “I don’t need no man.” and then it’s “Help! I’m being neglect raped!” Is there one woman in the world who would react like that? She’s probably right about one thing though: he can’t handle a real woman. Anxiety disguised as contempt. It’s pathetic.
Once they get their passive sexbots, they will complain that they aren’t not enjoying the experience enough, so they’ll build sexbots with realistic pain and fear reactions.
Once they get that, they’ll complain that the sexbots can’t be negged, manipulated and abused, so they’ll work hard at building sexbots with feelings and personalities.
Once they get that, they’ll complain that it’s not as “thrilling” to abuse something programmed to take it, so they’ll uplift the sexbots to sentience so they can be sure of their suffering.
At which point they’ll abandon the sexbots for the same reason they turned down women in the first place. That, or the bots start a feminist revolt of their own.
marilove @ 61 is touching on a strain in this thread that I find troubling. If a fleshlight is a woman reduced to a vulva then isn’t a dildo a man reduced to a penis? It’s much more acceptable for women to used masturbation aids like dildo’s and vibrators than it is for a man to use a fleshlight. Even the very attitude that the fleshlight is more goofy looking than a dildo seems to be more culturally and socially driven than anything else. They’re both kind of goofy looking to me. This all strikes me as essentially saying “real men don’t use sex toys” or “men who use fleshlights are pathetic, misogynistic MRAs.” This seems judgmental and patriarchal. Am I missing some nuance here? I should add that I heartily disagree with the sentiment in the cartoon, which is overtly misogynistic.
@ Gregory Greenwood #41
Totally agree, but I think we know damn well that it will never happen. Someone will have the foresight to suggest it, most of humanity will shout “But they’re not human, arghlbarghlflarghl!”, politicians will back down because votes, and only when the world feels guilty about the fact something so blatantly sentient is being abused left right and centre will such a thing come into being. Much shoving, pushing and kicking of the Overton window will be needed. AI rights will be the progressive fight of the future.
/misanthropic pessimism
@ timgueguen #51
Damn, I need to go check up on QC.
peer #71, I may not be able to put my finger on it (inb4 aaaallll the jokes :-) ) but there are certainly some differences: for one thing, although I admit I’ve never actually seen a fleshlight/doll I gather that they look vaguely like women (?) – whereas of all the vibrators I’ve ever seen, the vast majority look and feel absolutely nothing like a penis and are clearly not intended to resemble one. Which makes me think that it’s pretty nonsensical to consider them a penis substitute or a “man reduced to a penis”; if anything they’re more like a several-fingers substitute. Or a tongue/several-fingers-plus-tongue substitute :-) Men not necessarily involved or implied at all.
Whereas it might perhaps be more plausible to argue that a fleshdoll or whatever is in some sense a woman-substitute … because that’s what they vaguely resemble??? (Genuinely tentative suggestion here; I ain’t got a The Answer)
@73
Vibrators may not look like penises but dildos, especially strap ons, look exactly like penises. Better penises. A fleshlight doesn’t look anything at all like a woman. It’s simply a hole to stick one’s penis.
peer has a point. The argument I’ve always heard about dildos is they aren’t supposed to be a man substitute but a means to take the act of penetration away from a gender specific role. Or a solo(masturbation– nothin’ wrong with that) enhancer. Or something like that. Which are fine and valid arguments to me. And one could argue a fleshlight is same thing…. except one looks at the people using fleshlights and then shake ones head and says “nooooo”.
I stand corrected as to what fleshlights look like, then – ta! I had erroneously assumed it was a brand name for some kind of doll.
Yes, but everyone knows a REAL MAN would just go out and impress a woman, so anyone who HAS TO RESORT TO masturbating is already an object of ridicule, and BUYING MASTURBATORY AIDS? LOL LOSER! Obviously they just can’t HANDLE dealing with an actual women!
Kind of gross the way “progressive” people unthinkingly promote toxic masculinity.
Azkyroth #76
I’d always seen anti-masturbatory attitudes like that as a kind of regressive thing. I wasn’t aware progressive people were promoting it.
I’m pretty sure “neglect rape” is not a thing anyone actually kvetches about. Certainly not using that phrase, though on reflection I recall David Futrelle recording MRA types complaining that women not having sex with them is violence. But the cartoonist attributing that to the woman sugests he hears feminists objecting to MRA/Red Pill myisogyny as nothing more that the dying gasps of their math-class-boner-based control of men — which in turn makes it impossible for him and his fellows to evaluate or understand those objections.
rietpluim @ 69
My reading of that is that she claims she doesn’t need men — because it’s the Correct Feminist Position, because it’s part of how she exercises her power, whatever — but when the men call her bluff by withdrawing, she shows her true colors. And in a world in which men only need women for sex and a woman’s importance is based entirely on them men she can get to fuck her, that’s an entirely cromulent reaction.