Milo’s up to the same old sexist nonsense again — what a hack. His latest is a bit of contrived outrage about sexbots. He’s for ’em. He somehow thinks liberal SJW’s are going to suppress the technology, as if we care. I think he was so upset that he drank until he couldn’t see straight and then started typing.
Who, or what, men have sex with is the basis of our civilisation. It is the driving force behind our greatest accomplishments. Men don’t compete for abstract pleasure: they compete to bag the best mate. The internet, the pyramids and the moon landings would not exist were it not for man’s desire to have sex with woman.
Keep in mind that this was written by an openly gay man. He does not really believe that aspiring to sex with a woman is the basis of our civilisation
or the driving force behind our greatest accomplishments
(oh, and by the way — I read the hyperbole and the padded prose of first year students, and they aren’t this bad). He’s just pandering to his audience of juvenile MRAs and angry people who are pissed off that there are women in video games.
He has a very strange perspective. Almost all the things I do lack any kind of sexual reward, direct or indirect — it’s almost as if my brain can find joy in ideas and activities that don’t involve my penis at all. I work with all these people all the time with no desire to have sex with them. I am on a blog, writing to people most of whom I will never meet, and I will never have sex with any of you. Isn’t that weird?
Well, if Milo’s claim were true, his lack of drive to have sex with a woman would explain why he’s wallowing in the vermin-infested pit of Breitbart, writing columns that are patent idiocy. He’s lacking in aspirational drives.
But wait…here comes the biological pseudoscience. He loves this crap.
That’s why Nature experiments more widely with men: the male IQ range is wider, and there is more variation in male behaviour and biology than in women. Men are where experimentation happens, because a wider variety of male aptitudes and preferences will keep women happier and result in a more well-rounded and healthy society.
No, it’s not. That paragraph makes no sense. Male gametes have a higher frequency of novel mutations than female gametes, but it’s not because Nature
is intentionally tinkering with men to keep women happier. It’s because males produce gametes profligately in a process that requires a series of cell divisions, and the reproductive machinery has a fixed error rate. More cell divisions yields a higher frequency of error. Females set aside a small number of gametes early in development, suppress cell divisions, and produce ova with fewer deviations from the initial genetics.
But, ladies and gentlemen, you may have noticed that you all had a mother and a father. Women are produced by the same fusion of ‘experimental’ sperm and conservative ova as men. Nature is tinkering with all sexes equally, if you need to anthropomorphize it.
Males have a higher rate of developmental error in large part because they’re hemizygous for one chromosome — that makes them slightly more fragile, genetically. It does not give them compensatory super-powers, because Nature doesn’t work that way. Culture has a stronger effect on variations in behavior than genetics. You can’t justify inequities in opportunity, income, or education by pointing to magically inflexible biology, when all the evidence shows that the differences in what individuals can do is largely shaped by the environment.
But male sexual appetites are easily satisfied, despite what women will tell you. Blow jobs really aren’t that difficult, and in any case most blokes are fine with a pizza and a wank. For many men, sex is a nice bonus, but it’s not essential. When you introduce a low-cost alternative to women that comes without all the nagging, insecurity and expense, frankly men are going to leap in headfirst.
Wait, what? Go up to the first paragraph. I thought sex with a woman was so awesomely vital to men, was such a powerful driving force behind our civilization, that it was needed to build the internet, the pyramids and the moon landings
! Now Milo is telling us that it’s no big deal? This completely contradicts what he was saying earlier! I can’t tell if he’s arguing for or against his thesis now. Did Neil Armstrong fly to the moon because he wanted to convince women to have sex with him, so if someone had told him he could just stay home, order a pizza, and get a sexbot to give him a blow job, the whole space program would have collapsed?
This is what happens when you write while drunk.
The other disturbing thing about his model is the idea that women’s virtue lies entirely in being a willing receptacle — that anything beyond being warm meat wrapped around a moist hole is a source of nagging, insecurity and expense
, rather than the whole idea of a partner being an autonomous individual who can complement your life (and you, hers) in many ways. It’s a bizarre attitude, and I can’t quite wrap my head around it.
I think I’m convinced. I’m strongly in favor of sexbots, if they’ll convince people like Milo to retire to a nice comfortable hole with vibrating, oscillating, self-lubricating torus of motorized machinery and reduce their interactions with the rest of humanity to ordering out for pizza. We’ll all be happier.
Another reason men might be enthusiastic about female-free sex is obvious: the sociopathic, man-hating feminism…
OK, I couldn’t read any further. The man who’s arguing for machines that would masturbate him and remove the need to interact with human beings as human beings is accusing others of sociopathy.
And he has fans. Very disturbing.
The fucking missandry…It’s interesting how these patriarchy lovers who think men are the shit, can’t put 5 words together without insulting men. You’ll never find anyone who paints a bleaker picture of what being a man is, who is more insulting, demeaning and dehumanising towards men, than one of these assholes…
I for one couldn’t give two fucks about a sex-robot….because not being a complete sociopath, i actually like human contact and enjoy the company of others even when my dick is not being stimulated in any way. Something which is of course unthinkable for these broken shadows of what a human being should be.
My favourite part when i saw this at WHTM was when Milo said that feminist women is largely why he turned gay. I mean, i expect this was a joke pandering to the shitstains that he writes for, but still, if this doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about how healthy Milo’s mind is….I almost pitty him…..
By the way, the contradiction between “men’s desire for sex with women is the sole force that drives civilization” and “a wank will do, because men don’t need anything else”, as you pointed out, is unbelievably glorious in its mindboggling stupidity.
The good thing is that guys like this rarely procreate now and giving a mechanical alternative will seal the deal. I guess “Nature” has a way of self correcting when she/he/it fucks up, eh?
I just realised the paralels between how these odious fuckers (or wankers, i suposse, since men’s sexuality only requires jizzing) think and christianity. Both simultaneously propose that humans/men are the most glorious creation and the most pathetic and broken creatures on earth.
This shite isn’t genetic…and since these people are among the least likely to take care of their offspring and raise and educate them, whether they reproduce or not is not really a factor in how many of these assholes infest the planet at any given point in time.
“Who, or what, men have sex with is the basis of our civilisation”
Isn’t ancient Greece the basis of our civilization? And they had lots of sex with goats.
“Torus.” Awesome… but that’s a description of women. Sexbots would almost certainly be spheres. Unless you’ve got a fetish for cleaning out the insides.
I didn’t know my childhood curiosity (that has since stretched into adulthood) to discover new and better and more interesting things was driven by a desire to have sex with women.
Can I go build another moon landing now?
I don’t get what their problem is. They are already sex dolls, and no evul feminazi agenda is outlawing them. Also they are creepy as fuck, right in the uncanny valley, but I doubt actual sex “robots” would be any better.
A good way to start the day. A laugh at misogynist illogic. Their self-contradictions are massive.
So… the Pyramids then? Those monuments built by thousands of citizen labourers at the behest of the one guy in ancient Egypt who had absolutely no problem finding someone to have sex with. I would ask how that was supposed to work as an example of things done to procure sex, but I’m not sure there’s going to be an answer.
“Did Neil Armstrong fly to the moon because he wanted to convince women to have sex with him”
Obviously neither he nor you know your history. He did it so that Mr Gorsky would get a blow job!
:-)
As David Futrelle pointed out, this sexbot thing has been a go-to diet of sour grapes for MRWs for quite a while. At this point, Milo’s “job” is mining AVFM, ED and 8chan for stuff that will give him hits. To repost something I wrote elsewhere:
Milo has discovered there’s a meal ticket in offering shallow validation to seedy Internet subcultures by re-publishing their crackpot ideas in a way that allows them to say “See, it’s not just us talking amongst ourselves! This outsider gets it!” It’s like those web comics where the punchlines are literally no more than “And now I shall drop a reference to this thing my target audience likes.”
So, Milo takes his own shallow self, his complete inability to have any sort of human relationship with a person that does not end with his ejaculation, checks with his pals at AVFM and then runs with it.
Yes, misandry exists…
Who, or what, is an SJW? And what is an MRA?
Larry, u no have Google available on your internet connecting device?
If a wank is good enough for most men, why not get a fleshlight?
What got me is this little chestnut:
Okay, my wife and I have disagreements about money sometimes, but I imagine that a sophisticated sexbot would require some amount of not-cheap maintenance. Also, my wife has a job. Can sexbots earn money?
My apology to all of humanity. I was just trying to create a pizza oven and wank machine hybrid. I didn’t know that I would create Skynet.
PZ
There seems to be a <q> error in the third paragraph.
gmacs, in the land of fantasy where men (ALL men) don’t need emotional connections or human contact and all they require to lead satisfying, happy lives is to jerk off on a piece of plastic between bites of a slice of pizza, sex-bots are self-cleaning, require no maintenance and last forever.
This is not someone talking about real things, this is nothing but the surreal fantasies of very damaged, very sour people…
Goodness. Milo does a great job of painting men as complete idiots, as well as his usual hack job on women. It’s a good thing that most actual people bear no resemblance to Milo’s descriptions.
Larry @ 14:
You might want to spend some time at the Pharyngula Wiki, linked in the sidebar (right above PZ’s picture), because regulars here get a bit weary explaining things for the nth time. SJW stands for social justice warrior, which is used as an insult towards liberals who are concerned with social justice issues. MRA stands for Men’s Rights Activist, which doesn’t actually have anything to do with men’s rights. I suggest you do some reading at http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/ for a compleat eduation in that regard.
gmacs @ 16:
Haven’t you heard? The evil feminazis have destroyed all fleshlights, blow up dolls, real dolls, and any other sex toy which might enable a man to avoid interaction with said evil feminazis.
me thinks Milo saw the movie The Real Girl as a documentary presenting the psychology of men in general and presenting the best therapy to provide them.
excuse me for strawmanning Milo, just what his arguments for sexbots sounds like. Where he goes off the rails is the SJW accusations and such.
sounds like he knows the obvious response, to the question, before the word I embolded. hint, starts with “W”( “H”, phonetically), rhymes with “moar”. Then again, they can be a risk (rarely), so he basically is advocating a totally safe alternative to a sexworker. (see The Real Girl)
ummm like every other type of ____worker, bots are the answer so “___bot”. What could possibly go wrong there?
I think that particular rant was triggered by this:
https://campaignagainstsexrobots.wordpress.com/about/
which is actually a real thing as far as I can tell. It’s run by a “senior research fellow, focusing on the ethics of robotics, at De Montfort University”.
Up until now I’ve never heard of anyone who wants to suppress that technology, but now there is one otherwise-liberal anthropologist who does think we should.
Here’s the paper she published on the subject:
https://campaignagainstsexrobots.wordpress.com/the-asymmetrical-relationship-parallels-between-prostitution-and-the-development-of-sex-robots/
Optimal Cynic @ 23/24:
Source.
It’s a nice sentiment, but I think it’s a bit on the silly side. I tend to think we need to do more for people at this point. Anyroad, it’s more than a bit ridiculous for Milo to have taken this seriously enough for that idiotic rant, it’s not as though there’s a mass movement to ruin robotic fun or anything.
Oh, I completely agree. It’s one academic throwing out an idea, although dressing it up as a campaign is a bit over the top on her part.
The other thing I’d note is that her paper cites something by Julie Bindel, so those sirens you hear are the TERF alarm going off.
Aaah, but you see Milo chose to be gay because, well, let him tell us himself…
Well, PZ definitely made the right call by stopping readining when he did – it only gets worse from there. A few lowlights:-
That Milo knows toxic masculinity (and all its various expressions) exists is obvious from the fact that this entire piece panders directly to that male entitlement culture. Wage and workplace advancement gender inequality are both well documented phenomena, and as for campus rape culture supposedly being a ‘myth’, how would Milo explain the widespread and now traditional frat chants of ‘no means yes, yes means anal’? How is that not and example of rape culture?
If MRAs (clearly Milo’s target audience here) are so unconcerned about being without women, why do they rage and rant about it so much? Why does their sense of entitlement lead to such vitriol toward women who wont give them what they believe they are owed? As for single women over thirty being ‘shrieking, neurotic messes’, he clearly doesn’t know many single women in their thirties, and he doesn’t stop to ask/is too stupid to grasp (delete as appropriate) why women who are worried about being single in their thirties experience that anxiety – it is almost as though society behaves as if women who are unmarried in their thirties have somehow failed as women and have no worth, an attitude born of outmoded patriarchal societal norms. Ironically, he also talks about the alleged differences in the degree to which women and men need one another sexually without ever bothering to mention gay men, lesbian women, or bisexual or asexual persons at all. He ignores any number of social groupings, including other gay men like himself, just to fail dismally at making a point.
Milo’s interpretation of what heterosexual relationships consist of is disturbing and revealing in equal measure.
Note the ugly fantasizing of a future where women will be forced to do pretty much whatever men want sexually, and then Milo’s heterosexual fellow travelers will really have women where they want them. It is repugnant and sails dangerously close to being rape apologia in its own right.
As for Milos’ waffle about the supposedly mythical character of the female orgasm, it is a known biological phenomenon. It has been studied and quantified for decades. It is an established aspect of female sexual and reproductive biology, and in no way some wacky assertion of ‘conspiracy theorists and biological extremists’. That really is some quality projection on Milo’s part there, given that his entire article is all based upon an imagined and unevidenced feminist conspiracy against men and male sexuality. His own words from a few paragraphs earlier;
(Emphasis added)
And again, a bit further on in Milo’s piece;
(Emphasis added)
Who is the conspiracy theorist here again, Milo?
Milo also has no problem throwing other gay men under the bus in pursuit of a cheap shot against women either;
That’s right Milo – align yourself with all the homophobic bigots who claim that homosexuality is just an idle choice anyway, and who advocate cruel and pointless ‘gay cure’ programmes, and all in the name of a feeble attempt at a misogynistic joke. That couldn’t possibly contribute to harmful outcomes for gay people, could it?
Milo really cannot imagine a relationship built upon mutual respect and a desire for meaningful emotional and intellectual, as well as physical, intimacy with another human being, can he? I feel sorry for his boyfriends, stuck in a hollow relationship with a self-obsessed arsehat who thinks in terms of a sexual marketplace. It must be deeply unfulfilling.
Milo:
Oh yes, quite. It’s not as though there’s an actual attraction there or anything.
“One woman has published a paper talking about how sex robots might be a bad thing and OH NOES I HAVE NO IDEA IF ANYONE ELSE AGREES BUT THEY’RE COMING TO TAKE OUR SEX TOYS AWAY !!!!!ELEBENTY!!!!111!!!”
Milo, dear, even if anyone cared what mechanical devices you choose to stick your dick into, you will always have the fallback of common household items and your own hands. The only thing that can stop a dude from getting a wank is a medical issue. And they make drugs for a lot of that, too.
Seriously. “They’re coming to stop me from masturbating”? Is Milo living in a Fundie compound now?
Milo:
Oh my. So, Milo thinks wanking is the sole purview of people with penises, eh?
“One woman has published a paper talking about how sex robots might be a bad thing and OH NOES I HAVE NO IDEA IF ANYONE ELSE AGREES BUT THEY’RE COMING TO TAKE OUR SEX TOYS AWAY !!!!!ELEBENTY!!!!111!!!”
That’s literally it. Nobody else has brought this up, and suddenly they seem to think it’s a Vast Feminist Conspiracy.
OptimalCynic @ 32:
I was unaware of the ‘campaign’ until you linked it. Hmm, that must mean I’m a very bad evil feminazi.
Initially I thought that the campaign against sexbots was a ridiculous notion, but on further investigation I realised that the heart of the argument is that it is unwise to provide any more social validation to the idea that sex is a person acting on a thing.
In a world where misogyny didn’t exist, there would be no problem, but anyone likely to use a sexbot would probably be better off learning not to need one.
Personally I suspect that the primary consequence of the continuing advancement of solo sex aids will be to highlight even further the fact that sex with another human being is more than simply physical pleasure.
Sexist remarks. Ableist remarks. Anti-LGBT remarks. Misogyny. Misandry. Favorably quoting an actual white supremacist.
Yep, sounds like the posterboy for GamerGate alright.
@OptimalCynic #24: I don’t get it. What exactly are now the arguments in that paper? To me it felt like the writer is mostly beating around the bush, with some hints to weak arguments like “it’s bad if sex can be bought”.
@Caine #25: The part you quoted is ridiculous. It’s a common assumption that machines will automatically aquire all instincts of emotions of humans if they turn sapient, but I think it’s almost certain that they won’t. Especially if it happened by accident. It took humans millions of years to evolve that complicated set of instincts and emotions. There is no way it could happen on accident.
What I’m trying to say is, no, that is not a reason for these hypothetical robots to get angry. There is absolutely no reason in assuming that.
Caine @ 33: Don’t you get the newsletters? Get in touch with Evil Feminazi Overlord HQ, you don’t want to miss this weekend’s events. Saturday we’re going out to laugh at short men and Sunday we’re rounding up all single men who go within 50 metres of a child for re-education at the electroshock facility.
Re: this “need for a loving origin story” thing.
We humans don’t have one. Some of us responded by making up several million of them.
If the sentient robots find the need for the same, I’m sure they’ll have little trouble applying their sentience to make up a few of their own.
Heh. Milo has responded to me on Twitter.
He’s not sober again. Just to cite the most obvious refutation, I have twice the number of Twitter followers as he does, so no, I don’t think that’s true.
Besides, everyone knows the one other time anyone will hear my name is if Sam Harris snarls about me.
@16 and @20.
No need to be rude. Googling MRA yields in order of frequency 1) Magnetic Resonance Angiogram 2) Marketing Research Association 3) Medical Reimbursement Account and 4) Men’s Right Activist.
Searching SJW on the Pharyngula wiki yields … no results.
PZ
So, Michael Nugent has given up on you?
Milo, to PZ:
But, but…he signed off with kisses, PZ!
Amphiox @ 38:
In the creator sense, no, we don’t. On a purely personal level, I don’t have a parental / family loving origin story, either, and neither do a great many other peoples.
Woozy @ 40:
I wasn’t rude, I provided an explanation, quite nicely.
signed,
@20
Probably too subtle, Caine.
I don’t know if Michael Nugent has given up on me. I’ve given up on him.
Wouldn’t the whole advantage of a sexbot over masturbation or porn is that they’re more like being with an actual woman? Clearly sex is not the whole point.
Of course, the reality is that MRA and PUA types don’t think of sex as pleasure, but as status-signaling. And there’s nothing impressive about having sex with a sexbot. If anything, I would expect having sex with sexbots will be a note of shame among MRA or PUA-types once they exist.
The only reason they’re doing this is to do a “We don’t need no woman!” stance, which I suppose is empowering in its own bizarre way.
all “natural” women are lesbian feminists that deprive men of their sexfun, so lets build mechtoys to empleasure all the poor deprived men?
so menz were so desperate for easy sex, they invented the internet in preperation for “Ashley Madison” site resultant, for anonymous hookups? me thinks he exaggerates our foresights.
alternatively, he could be saying that unrequited desire is what keeps the internet going, that it is too complicated for news, entertainment, education, conversation, information, shopping, etc that porn maintains the internetz, all the rest are just incidental side-effects…
pfffft
Chigau @ 44:
Most likely.
Here’s my thing with this whole MRA obsession with sex bots:
Why do they assume a fully functional sexbot, when invented, will be for them (i.e. dudes)? And why do they assume such robots would be only for them? These fantasy land scenarios they bring up never address the possibility of bots existing to service both men and women.
Mechanical aids for female sexual activity have existed for an extremely long time. Dildos obviously have been around thousands of years, while electrical toys have been around for well over a century. We have a very clear understanding of how to build a physical/mechanical device that services a woman’s body in a sexual capacity, enough that it could work for large swathes of the population, if not everyone. Putting such an assembly into a humanoid robot would be far easier than making a similar device that worked for a comparable portion of the male population, as evidenced by the lack of success of fleshlights and the low adoption rate of real dolls, etc.
It makes far more sense from an engineering standpoint, not to mention a monetary standpoint, that sex bots that serve women would exist first. The construction problems are mostly solved, there is an audience out there already used to using mechanical aids which could induce investors to put money into making them, and there is a lot less stigma about women using such aids than there is about men using them. There are already machines available for purchase for this use now, so there are precursors, they’re just not in humanoid robot form yet.
Top all of that off with this: unlike sex with a man, especially a stranger, a woman who has a sex bot never has to worry about the sex bot not getting the job done. It will go on for as long as it needs to (or has power) and do exactly what she needs it to do without complaint or finishing first. It will always be ready and able to act (as long as it has power), will never choose video games or monster truck rallies or some other activity over her, or have flatulence problems. It will also not require her to make it a sandwich. And most importantly, no woman will ever have to fear being raped or assaulted by a sex bot.
If this world they crave where sexbots existed came to be, unless the MRAs of the world suddenly managed to ban the creation of such bots for women (as they fear women will do to them), there would be bots for everyone. If they were widely adopted, the reality is not that women would suddenly be a thousand times more desperate for sex and create their utopian paradise of women being utterly subjugated to their whims. More likely, the number of women willing to have sex outside of an established relationship would decline significantly because the bots would have replaced the dangerous and unreliable straight male stranger on whom they currently have to rely. Why take the risk or endure the disappointment of a fumbling stranger when your Chris Evans lookalike bot is at home, charged and just waiting for you?
(Yes, I know, most people have sex to have sex with another human being not just to masturbate with another body, and there are many people who are not interested in sex at all, or only in specific circumstances, or who would not be capable of using a bot for such a purpose even if it was affordable. I’m rebutting Milo and his buddies on their level, not on the level of “reality.”)
drst @ 49:
Supposedly, the makers of Roxxxy are working on Rocky.
is he going all Hunt on us(?), using his sly British humor to say something ambiguous, that we are supposed to recognize as “obvious” humor? That not being Brits, we don’t “get it”? That the “obviousness” is born out by the contradictions within it. Like the one PZ pointed out to deride Milo, yet he put it there deliberately as the “giveaway” that it is all satire humor?
(sorry for overuse of ques)
@Caine (#50):
Question is, who are they making him for? Also, will it take “just” seven days to make him?
interesting synchronicity. io9 posted In Defence of Sex Machines: Why Trying to Ban Sex Robots is Wrong, from Kate Devlin—The Conversation.
Where the argument is that by providing nonhuman sex, it could be used to resocialize the anti-social need for a sexbot. Use the sexbot to personify their misogyny, so it can be considered as an actual affliction, and not just as an abstract discussion. Then use the bot as a deterrent to train misogynists how to deal with real people in meatspace.
mmmm, no response opinion
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) @ 51;
For what it is worth slithey tove, I am a Brit, and I do not see anything approaching actual humour in this dreck, British or otherwise in flavour. This is simply a misogynist rant from a person that we Brits would usually refer to as a ‘numpty’.
“Who, or what, men have sex with is the basis of our civilisation. ”
Socks?
Richard @ 52:
He’ll do press-ups and chin-ups
Do the snatch, clean, and jerk
He thinks dynamic tension
Must be hard work
Such strenuous living
I just don’t understand
When in just seven days
Oh, baby
I can make you a man
Oooh baby.
Say what!?
Now I have nothing to live for.
I would have thought that introducing artificial intelligence to masturbation aids would be a backward step. One of the reasons I find masturbation vastly more enjoyable than trying to have sex with other people is the fantastic degree of social awkwardness that sex with people entails. On your own there’s no worrying about how the other person is doing, no fear that you might offend or disappoint or accidentally injure them, no wondering what they’re thinking, no sense of social anxiety, no fear that you might contract an STD. Taking steps to introduce that into masturbation is a horrible idea!
drst @ 49;
Now for the all important question; does he come with full Captain America get up, including shield? If so… then I actually can’t imagine why any woman (and about 10 percent of men) who actually likes guys that way wouldn’t go for that option – that Chris Evans is a handsome fellow you know…
Unless of course, you actually had Chris Evans himself waiting for you at home, in which case I suspect that you might have to endure a not insignificant degree of envy from other straight women (and about 10 percent of men)…
Gregory @ 59:
To some. I don’t find Evans attractive.
@56 Caine
Oooooh, i know what i’m watching tonight.
Yes, please substitute Idris Elba, Henry Cavil or your particular man of choice for the model, if you happen to find men attractive. I meant no disrespect to people who have different tastes.
@Gregory – I would personally prefer the Commander Rogers uniform from “Winter Soldier” which maybe is an accessory. I think the default model would be the jeans and one of the “I’m wearing a smaller shirt than I ought to to make my muscles bulge even more” t-shirts.
(Please note that while I personally find Chris Evans attractive, I would not support anyone manufacturing versions of him without his consent for any reason. Also if I had him waiting at home I would not be sitting at work right now. )
Caine @ 60;
Fair enough. Most of my straight female friends and gay male friends do rather like him, and he always struck me as the classically handsome, chisel-jawed type of chap, but taste is of course personal. As drst suggests, you could easily exchange him for someone like Idris Elba, Henry Caville or Chris Hemsworth if that is more to your taste (all of whom are also firm favourites among my various friends and relatives).
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drst @ 62;
Ah, the original uniform is undeniably a classic. I can also see how the T-Shirt-a-couple-of-sizes-too-small-for-reasons-utterly-unrelated-to-posing look might appeal to one with an appreciation for the male form.
All jokes aside, that would actually be a real problem with any sexbot technology, and probably already is with various types of dolls – it seems inevitable that sooner or later an unscrupulous manufacturer would start creating products that bear the likeness of prominent persons (or anyone of whom they have a good enough image, probably produced to order) without their consent, and inevitably some people would use those products for nefarious purposes. Should the technology advance to the point that it is genuinely difficult to tell an android from a human at first glance then that could open up all manner of dangers with regard to creating faked imagery of criminality or otherwise harassing innocent persons, and of course the law will be slow to adapt to this new reality as it is slow to respond to everything.
I briefly considered responding here by making a similar comment about someone like Scarlett Johansson, but the truth is that would just be creepy if I wrote it. I would just like to thank the culture of toxic, patriarchal masculinity for that. You know, the one that Milo claims somehow doesn’t actually exist…
This is a test.
Dreaming @ 61:
I may have to dust off the DVD m’self.
In Freudian Tradition, I call it orgasm envy: The feeling of being inferior to people with clitorises who can have half a dozen of them within half an hour and who do not even have to change the sheets afterwards.
***I’ll post this just once more, in case the first version got eaten by Cthulhu or something***
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Caine @ 60;
Fair enough. Most of my straight female friends and gay male friends do rather like him, and he always struck me as the classically handsome, chisel-jawed type of chap, but taste is of course personal. As drst suggests, you could easily exchange him for someone like Idris Elba, Henry Caville or Chris Hemsworth if that is more to your taste (all of whom are also firm favourites among my various friends and relatives).
————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
drst @ 62;
Ah, the original uniform is undeniably a classic. I can also see how the T-Shirt-a-couple-of-sizes-too-small-for-reasons-utterly-unrelated-to-posing look might appeal to one with an appreciation for the male form.
All jokes aside, that would actually be a real problem with any sexbot technology, and probably already is with various types of dolls – it seems inevitable that sooner or later an unscrupulous manufacturer would start creating products that bear the likeness of prominent persons (or anyone of whom they have a good enough image, probably produced to order) without their consent, and inevitably some people would use those products for nefarious purposes. Should the technology advance to the point that it is genuinely difficult to tell an android from a human at first glance then that could open up all manner of dangers with regard to creating faked imagery of criminality or otherwise harassing innocent persons, and of course the law will be slow to adapt to this new reality as it is slow to respond to everything.
I briefly considered responding here by making a similar comment about someone like Scarlett Johansson, but the truth is that would just be creepy if I wrote it. I would just like to thank the culture of toxic, patriarchal masculinity for that. You know, the one that Milo claims somehow doesn’t actually exist…
drst @ 62:
Obligatory Futurama episode: I Dated A Robot, with multiple versions of Lucy Liu being manufactured.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- @ 65;
Haven’t you heard – those clitorises and their multiple orgasms are great and all, but Milo ‘went gay’ because he couldn’t put up with the ‘nuttiness’ of their owners. He might even now be appreciating the glory of the little man in the boat, if only women didn’t insist on being actual people with their own personalities and thoughts and all.
Of course, there is the possibility that Milo is simply attracted to other men, and it has nothing to do with the notional nuttiness or otherwise of ‘broads’, but how likely is that…?
I find it really funny that these idiots think having a sex bot will make them happier. It won’t. If all they need is to ejaculate into a warm hole, they could manage that with a fleshlight (or just blowing each other). That’s clearly not what they’re craving, whether they realize it or not.
It could not be more obvious that what they want is the feeling of conquering a woman. They’ve accepted our society’s premise that until you fuck a woman, you’re not “a man”, and thus being rejected emasculates them. They are pathetically desperate to reassert their power and dominance, while sadly deluding themselves that they don’t need real human intimacy; a sexbot will provide, initially, the fantasy of having conquered a woman, but the fantasy is untenable. There’s a reason they don’t find a fleshlight satisfying. Why would it be any different for a fleshlight with a face?
I can tell you with certainty, they’ll fuck their robots in every possible way for the first few weeks, and then that realization with start to creep up on them. Their sex will grow increasingly sadistic, putting the robot through increasingly abusive sexual acts as an effigy for all women, but the joy in that will fade as well, as robots can’t feel pain or humiliation. The MRA will take this frustration out on her, slowly destroying and dismantling the machine in acts of psychotic dehumanizing violence, actually taking the machine apart piece by piece, but all of it just reminding him that this is not a real person – you didn’t reassert your masculinity over a woman, you just bought one online, you pathetic schmuck.
It’s also why I don’t really buy the thesis in @53. Sexbots are just going to distract these creeps for a few months, maybe a year at best, and then they’ll be back out there, looking for women to trick into sleeping with them after months of fucking a severed robot’s head.
I’m really not in favor of sexbots, if that wasn’t apparent.
Caine @ 60;
Fair enough. I didn’t intend to suggest that considering Evans to be attractive should in any way be a universal opinion. Everyone’s taste is unique.
(I did write a longer post which included this point, but it has disappeared into the trackless halls of the Pharyngula server. It will probably pop up later long after everyone has stopped reading the thread.)
Zibble @68:
I’d say you don’t have any way of knowing whether or not it would make anyone happy / happier to have a sexbot. There are plenty of people with Real Dolls who are happy, and feel the quality of their life is better with said doll. It’s very easy for this type of judgmentalism to be applied to every other possible permutation of a relationship or sex life.
Well, you’ve certainly given this scenario a great deal of thought. Why would you assume that every person who might be interested in a sexbot would be an MRA? Why would you assume all those interested would be men? That’s not even getting into the other assumptions you’ve made.
Also, as somebody who quite enjoys masturbation and who also regularly has sex with a sentient, enthusiastic partner, I know that those things are quite different and satisfy different needs. If dear Milo thinks they are the same it’s probably a lack of experience with sentient, enthusiastic partners.
drst @ 62;
(I had a longer post which covered this, but it has gone on sabbatical for some reason and will likely only reappear some time from now)
Idris Elba, Henry Caville, Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Craig all stand as firm favourites amongst my various friends and relatives who like men that way. Let a thousand (really kind of annoyingly handsome) flowers bloom and all that.
It is a classic
Nope, that isn’t about posing at all. They just didn’t have that shirt in any bigger sizes, you see…
Humanity being what it is, you just know that unscrupulous sexbot manufacturers would create versions that looked like prominent people without their consent, and that some of their consumers would employ those products for unethical purposes like harassment. It isn’t really cynicism when the horrible behaviour of humanity is a foregone conclusion.
I briefly considered replying to this by making a similar comment about someone like Scarlett Johansson, but it would just sound really creepy if I wrote something like that. I would like to thank the toxic culture of patriarchal masculinity in which we all live for that. You know, the one that Milo insists doesn’t really exist…
Caine @66:
From the anti-robot-dating propaganda film (sponsored by the Space Pope):
It’s funny in Futurama because it’s obviously scare tactic bullshit. That someone would write it seriously is depressing…
@70 Caine
That’s pathetic and I judge them and I feel no qualms about it. I’m sure people fucking their dogs feel the same way as them.
You are not entitled to sex. You are entitled to wank and use your imagination. Anyone who wants sex or affection without the complication of having to deal with an actual human being with agency and the ability to say “no” is a creep.
Don’t be dense. It’s not an assumption, it’s a response to the original post.
Themann1086 @ 73:
You won’t get an argument out of me.
zibble @ 74;
This strikes me as something of a false equivalency. Isn’t it kind of the point that the dog is a living creature that can experience trauma and suffering, and the doll is an inanimate object that cannot?
Also, are you sure you want to broadcast your tendency to judge the private sex lives of other people, when what they do breaks no laws and demonstrably harms no one? Are you so certain your own sex life is entirely above reproach from the perspective of everyone on the internet? As an example, I remind you that there are TERFs out there that argue that all penis in vagina penetrative sex is automatically rape, even where the woman offers full and crystal clear consent and is the initiating party. How would you feel about someone like that judging your sex life or those of the people you care about?
But the doll isn’t an actual human being; it isn’t alive and it cannot offer affection. It is no more a person than a vibrator or a fleshlight – should those masturbation aides similarly be a source of judgement because their use somehow implies a sense of entitlement to sex because… why, exactly? You never actually made an argument with regard to that, merely asserting it instead. And if not, why not? What makes one inanimate sex toy different from another?
In all my years first lurking and later commenting on Pharyngula I have never seen Caine be in any way ‘dense’. Any reasonable reading of the context of your post @ 68 – the attitudes and motivations you ascribed to the hypothetical sex doll user – make it abundantly clear that you were assuming that people who use them were men and were tarring them with the MRA brush. It is hardly reasonable to act as if this is not the case after the fact, when all anyone needs to do is scroll back up a little way and read your own words to see that this not true.
PZ, I noticed something you wrote was a bit cisnormative (I know you wouldn’t have intended it like that so I thought I’d bring it to your attention):
“But, ladies and gentlemen, you may have noticed that you all had a mother and a father.”
Some people only have two mothers or two fathers, with no man or woman (respectively) involved in the process at all. I know you care about the language you use, and I hope this comment isn’t taken as needless nitpicking.
Zibble:
How interesting. I find judgmental assholes to be on the creepy side.
@Ian King #34
That could be true for some of them. But as for Milo’s targeted audience–I’m all for keeping them far, far away from real women. Heck, I’d gladly chip in to a fund to buy sexbots for MRAs and PUAs. Buh bye, fellas! Wank on!
zibble,
I find it really sad that you seem to genuinely believe your own nonsense. You seem to have very little, if any, actual insight into the actual actions and motivations of real people on this topic. Just for instance, my husband and I (happily married 23 years last month) bought sexdolls for each other to play with, and we both have a blast with them, usually when the other is away but occasionally when we’re together as well.
Neither of us has the least bit of interest in conquering anyone and you seem like an unhinged crank for asserting it with such unfounded and unwarrented confidence. But why let that stop you, right?
LMAO, sure you can. I can tell you with certainty that you are making a jackass of yourself right now, because my lived experience, and that of many other people, contradicts your false certainty.
Funny, I don’t feel pathetic at all and I don’t consider my husband pathetic. You on the other hand… well you’re working pretty hard to get there. I’ve never seen this much sex-negative garbage in my life and it’s also quite disturbing that you don’t seem to understand the significance of the fact that dogs are alive and sex dolls/robots are not.
Wow, this is one of the the most out-of-touch assertions I’ve ever read. “Anyone who wants sex or affection without the compication…” describes a huge number of people, at least at various points in our lives. For instance after a messy break up from a long relationship, I had a real craving for intimacy but a real dread of the complications and the risks and downsides that tend to go with it. It was a phase, and I moved on, but it was also perfectly normal and natural and even healthy. That you would consider this in any way “creepy” says way more about you than it does anyone else.
You (apparently) enjoy indulging in and concocting elaborate and bizarre fantasies involving MRAs being sexually abusive towards robots. Some people mind find that to be really creepy, just so you know. I don’t have a problem with it, but I do find it really off-putting that you are trying to pass these fantasies off as certain knowledge.
Also apparent is that you lack real understanding of human sexuality and psychology, and that you have no idea the limits of your own knowledge. Apparently that’s causing you to repeatedly spew nonsense and make a fool of yourself in the process.
busterggi@55:
Who, or what, men have sex with is the basis of our civilisation. ”
Socks?
You joke, but socks are actually a more distinct motivator for human civilization than sex.
The end goal of all civilization is a place that is dry while it is cold or rainy, where one might bundle up warmly and read, listen to music and drink tea.
The British Empire enslaved half the world for cotton, tea, and sugar. The sexual violence they perpetrated on those peoples was a byproduct of the insatiable greed for comfy blankets and afternoon tea, not an endgoal.
@76 Gregory Greenwood
So it’s the difference between raping an animal versus raping a thing. A thing intended as an effigy of a person.
Lemme put it this way. You can simplify this down to the rudimentary fact that abusing an object is, itself, a victimless crime. This much is true. But the act itself reveals something creepy in the psyche that should be shamed. Remember that guy who sells shooting range dummies that look like women or Obama?
http://yourblackworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/06/obama-zombie.jpg
No one’s harmed there, right? Nothing creepy about that, right?
I’m gay married.
And also sick of the obvious right to private sex with consenting adults being appropriated by straight kinksters.
What makes an animate sex toy different from an inanimate sex toy? Not everything that’s alive feels pain. What makes a human more able to consent than any other sentient life form? Where will the exact dividing line be, when sexbots are programmed better and better, between fucking a mindless machine that looks like a human and raping a sentient artificial life form that can’t say no?
The fact that the line is blurry doesn’t mean there isn’t a line.
Considering I led with “these idiots” in a response to a post about MRAs, I think it’s abundantly clear you’re full of it.
I have no doubt that if artificial sentience is created or evolves it will have its own views on sexuality. An interesting take on the idea was in David Willis’ webcomic Shortpacked! One of the characters was Ultra Car, who, as their name implies, was originally a sentient car. They briefly disappeared, and when they returned it was as a female body robot.(When one of her coworkers asks her why she’s not male anymore Ultra Car retorts that in her car form she wasn’t male, but an it, and that it was the others who assumed Ultra Car was male.) Before the change Ultra Car had a sort of friendship with the cast’s resident misanthrope, Malaya, who reveals she’s interested romantically in the new female robot version, since her attempts at relationships with human men and women have failed. Despite the fact Ultra Car thinks “Mating is horrific and vile!” and generally thinks humans are disgusting, decaying meatbags a romantic relationship develops between them.
(His current comic, Dumbing of Age, revolves around his previous characters rebooted into a university setting. Ultra Car’s DoA version/equivalent, Carla, is a young woman who was assigned male at birth, although most the cast don’t know this yet, and shares Ultra Car’s asexuality.)
If the sexbot has some form of a rudimentary AI at least as good as SIRI they will probably do very well
Milo is having a hard time if his protestations are really true (unless it is just BS on his part to get fame and fortune)
but what he is having a hard time with is cultural change and his own disillusioning. He wanted the conventional way society and the sexes were ordered and understood that he learned and believed to be true. They never were universal in the US always exceptions all through out our history. The whole MRA movement is about fear of learning new behavior and new understanding and fear of being criticized by other men if they are caught learning anything new.
everyone is people and as people are equal to everyone else regardless of wealth, power or accomplishment.
uncle frogy
Zibble:
You are aware of that massive hole you’re digging, aren’t you? Going solely by your words in this thread alone, you are coming across as a judgmental prude who enjoys projecting violent fantasies onto others. Now, I’m sure that isn’t fair, and I certainly hope it isn’t correct, but perhaps now you can see why your viewpoints are being contested.
All consenting adults should be able to enjoy private sexual activity of their choice. That has nothing at all to do with orientation, and unless you’re the one true psychic, you don’t know the sexual orientation of the other folks in this thread, unless they have specifically stated it.
There’s no such thing as sexbots.
Seriously, this has gotten ridiculous.
@85 Caine
Going solely by your words in this thread, you’re intentionally misreading me even after you’ve been corrected so as to not even address the core points about objectification and dehumanization. Your misreading of me is so bad, you’ve accused a semi-professional kink pornographer of being a prude because I care about things like “consent”. And, from my viewpoint, all so you don’t have to genuinely think about why people seeing your Real Doll makes them uncomfortable, and if they might have a good reason for that.
Societal attitudes about sex shape the attitudes of adolescents as they explore sexuality. Our misogynistic culture contributes to rape culture. As does the cultural belief in entitlement to sex.
What the law does is one thing, but even if it should be legal to buy a Real Doll, it’s an obligation of society to pressure people into growing the fuck up out of the juvenile desire to want a lifeless sex partner. It is a signifier of some real fucked up shit. The desire to have a partner you can do anything with was what inspired Jeffrey Dahmer, for fuck’s sake.
zibble @82,
“raping a thing” and “abusing an object”
Really? By what definition of those words? I dare you to present an actual definition of those words that even begins to make any sense in the context of non-living objects.
Lemme put it this way. I mean surely this has to be a joke. If so, well played zibble. My jimmies were rustled for a second and now I’m just plain amused by your ideas. If it’s not a joke, well… I can’t even.
I’m new here, can someone please tell me if zibble is a known commenter, a jokster, potentially a troll, or what? I’m having trouble believing anyone could type this stuff with a straight face.
Zibble:
What is the difference between a “Real Doll” (which isn’t a robot, at all, in any way) any different from me using dildos that look exactly like penises?
I have a few (female) friends who do cam sex work, and they often use MALE “real dolls” (covering the face with an interesting angle) during their performances. Are they “pathetic”?
SEX TOYS are different from ROBOTS.
MASTURBATING with a SEX TOY is … masturbating.
I should clarify: SENTIENT robots are different than sex toys. Which aren’t sentient.
And you can’t rape “things” or “abuse” objects. That’s fucking ridiculous, and icky.
How can we be sure that zibble is not a sentient robot?
That would explain the comments and the hyper focus on MRAs sexually abusing robots. That’s actually pretty consistent with one of the things I’d expect a sentient robot to be concerned about, come to think of it…
You are a prude. Doesn’t matter if you are a pornographer. You are still a prude because:
because other people’s behavior makes you uncomfortable because you project your symbolic (but not actual) interpretation, and you conclude that others should conform to *you* because it make *you* uncomfortable for *implications* .
and:
Society is obligated to reflect moral instruction and impose righteous thoughts and behavior onto others (possibly under legal authority– the idea of making illegal a piece of plastic with an image is apparently a fair topic of discussion).
Those are definitely defining characteristics of a prude to me.
I guess I shouldn’t go buy a dildo then, because then it’s just a fake part of a person and a sign that I don’t want to deal with real people making me like Dahmer….?
zibble
Are you aware of this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
Zibble:
Yes, you are a prude. A rather nasty one, too.
No, it’s not the obligation of society* to tut over individual peoples’ sex lives. It’s certainly not an obligation on my part, and last time I looked, I’m a member of society. Every word you write has you popping a monocle while your nose is buried in other people’s genitals. You might want to stop that.
If someone wants to hang with a Real Doll, or a sex robot (non-sentient, natch), exactly why is that your concern? Right now, you’re a perfect Mrs. Grundy, shouting that the tyranny of conventional propriety is all important.
* Please, define society. Which society? What part of the world? What is the overriding culture of the specific society? Simply using “society” is a lot like using “God”, it’s a useless placeholder generally seen in an argument from authority.
zibble – it’s awfully convenient that every time someone points out how closed-minded and judgmental you are being, you step up your offline credentials a notch. First you’re “gay married” then you’re a “kinky pornographer” too? OK. If you are those things, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re being a judgmental jackass.
Sex bot /= sentient robot, for starters. You’re projecting. A regular robot doesn’t have self-awareness, therefore it is incapable of experiencing suffering, being a thing. You can’t rape a non-sentient robot any more than I can rape the footpost of my bed. A robot designed to be used a sexual aid would be a tool no different than a vibrator.
Ironically I agree with you that for MRAs specifically, the sex bot would not satisfy them because what they desire is not sexual fulfillment but subjugation of women. The MRA sex bot fantasy world revolves not around the bots but the desperation of human women that they imagine would result. There are also documented cases of men destroying their real dolls as their frustration with the object mounts because it’s not fulfilling the real desire, being incapable of being hurt. (I’m not Googling to find this right now, I’m way too fucking exhausted, but if you look, you will find the stories.)
But you’re extrapolating to the entire world that using a non-sentient object for sex is somehow something to be judged:
So a rape victim, who is not ready to handle intimacy with a human being who could pose a threat, should be legally banned and viciously shamed by people like you for engaging a real doll or a sex robot for their comfort? A person with severe social anxiety, who struggles with human interaction? A woman who simply doesn’t want to be in fear of rape, assault, STDs or unwanted pregnancies?
There are a lot of people who feel “it’s an obligation of society” to shame gay people until they “grow the fuck up out of the juvenile desire to want” a same sex partner, you know. It sounds like your mindset is sadly close to those people’s.
Milo, and MRAs in general, seem to have learned everything they know about human sexuality from sitcoms. The notion that men are little more than crude life-support systems for a sentient, free-floating penis constantly searching to insert itself in the nearest available vagina, while women have no sex drive whatsoever, only viewing sex as a means of producing children or coercing favors from a man with the promise of sex. Why do they embrace a worldview that reflects so negatively on men? I suspect it’s because it gives them an excuse: When they’re called out for their boorish behavior and treating all women like sex toys, they can just say, “I’m a MAN! I can’t help it!”
@94 chigau
I am, but I’m not sure what you’re driving at with it.
zibble #98
You seem to have no problem with detached parts (eg. dildoes and fleshlights)
but if the sextoy looks like a whole person, it bothers you.
@99 chigau
It doesn’t bother me viscerally. I think you’re also misunderstanding the valley a little bit; the idea of the valley is that being close to identical to a human being is disturbing, because our brain is repulsed by something trying and failing to look human, but being identical to a human would be fine. A sexbot that is perfectly indistinguishable from a human is much more repulsive to me than fucking something that is clearly distinct from humanity.
What’s interesting about the uncanny valley, in this context, is that it implies that the more successful sexbots will be stylized and possibly caricatures rather than attempting identical human faces (unless human race replication gets *extremely* good). So expect anime sexbots; likely resembling young girls, knowing the pillow-fucker market over there. I’m amazed at the number of people here who see nothing wrong with that.
We might not like it. We might criticize it. And we might even ridicule the “pillow-fuckers” and judge them among ourselves. Some of us might even hate them and consider them scary. What we *don’t* do and can’t and shouldn’t do, is evoke societal standards and righteousness to declare it a public moral harm of which it is any of our business to stick our nose into it. That’s what separates the prude from the SJW.
Or so I think. Maybe. (I suspect someone, other than zibble and probably Caine, is going to point out something blinding that I overlooked or didn’t think all the way through and I’ll be very embarrassed)
zibble
I expect slippery slopes are involved.
Spacy Tracy
A sentient robot would probably see the difference between itself and something that look similar but has no sentience. So no.
zibble
I see nothing wrong with that, even though I would personally never engage in that. Maybe you can explain why we should be view it as wrong instead of just assuming everyone shares your same hang-ups?
zibble @ 82;
That would be an emphatic yes; there most certainly is a difference between sexually abusing an animal and ‘raping’ an inanimate object. Once again, the animal is a living creature that can experience suffering and trauma, an inanimate object is not and cannot. it worries me more than a bit that you seem so reluctant to concede that point. It is also a total non-sequitur to talk about ‘raping’ an inanimate object – any meaningful definition of rape revolves around the absence of consent from a living being, either because they withhold that consent or are incapable of providing it at all. Consent is obviously a non-issue when talking about an inanimate object, unless you expect society to start judging (or even prosecuting, if your scenario were to go that far) every person who has ever used a masturbation aid, but that might throw up something of a problem once you start acting against a significant proportion of women for sexually assaulting their dildos/vibrators. As for the anthropomorphisation of a sex doll, it is really neither here nor there – an inanimate object in the shape of a human being is really no more alive than one in the shape of a flower pot. It may strike you or me as being a bit strange, but we differ in that you think that information is enough to judge the entire worth of another human being, and I do not. Trying to argue that it is somehow evidence of a desire to sexually abuse or brutalise actual human beings is beyond ridiculous. I hate to break this to you, but you aren’t actually a mind reader, and the mere fact that you make ugly and offensive assumptions about other peoples thoughts and motivations doesn’t make those assumptions in any way accurate, nor your personal sense of faux-moral outrage universal.
Are you really so far gone that you see no difference in using a generalised masturbation aid and employing a lethal weapon against something that is clearly being used as a simulacrum of another specific human being? Really? You don’t see that you are directly comparing sex organs to firearms here?
Which isn’t relevant. And I note that you dodged out of actually answering the question. There are plenty of people who harbour wholly unjustifiable judgemental attitudes towards gay persons’ sex lives. I find that kind of homophobia repellent, and I would assume that you do too. So why is it OK for you to adopt an almost identical attitude toward other persons’ sex lives that also aren’t illegal and that don’t do any demonstrable harm to anyone (your attempts to demonstrate that it is some gateway drug to rape having failed entirely)? I think you should think very carefully about the kinds of people you are aligning yourself with here.
Consensual kinky sex between adults (whether straight or gay) is still consensual sex, and since you haven’t demonstrated that sex dolls actually harm anyone, what people do with those dolls in their private sex lives is still none of your concern. They aren’t appropriating the right to a private sex life, they are exercising their right to a private sex life, a right that straight people, including kinky straight people and straight persons who use sex dolls, have as much claim to as gay people do. You don’t get to redefine the parameters of other people’s legal rights in order to ameliorate your own hangups.
And if say a woman wants to pleasure herself with a cucumber that is no more capable of being harmed by the act than a rubber sex toy then I wouldn’t have a problem with that either, even though it may well still be biochemically alive. Why do you object? The capacity to experience suffering and actually to exist (or have existed) in a state such that you might be aware that something is happening at all is the key point here – the capacity to be harmed in some manner by the act. If there is no harm, and no possibility of harm, then where is the problem? Why can’t you grasp that?
I would be very surprised if a piece of human shaped latex suddenly evinced sentience, so you might be getting a bit ahead of the argument by trying to smuggle strong AI into the debate here.
It should be obvious that we were discussing non-sentient sex dolls or robots. Clearly, a self aware machine would be an entirely different question, immediately bringing the possibility of suffering and the need for meaningful consent back into the equation. Since no one on this thread has suggested otherwise, I am curious as to why you have taken this approach, other than as an attempt at moving the goalposts in order to misrepresent the arguments of other people on the thread in pursuit of some hollow ‘gotcha’ moment?
‘These idiots’ doesn’t refer to MRAs in particular, does it?
You know, with projection skills like that, you could find gainful employment as a spotlight.
Zibble:
How nice, you’re a bigot, too. You continue to get more repulsive every time you touch your keyboard, zibble. I don’t know how you’re defining pillow fucker, but that term usually means someone who masturbates with pillows. I’m sure you have a judgmental, prudish, bigoted definition.
You keep reaching, trying and trying to hit some point that will make others say “ohyourgods, you’re so right, we will join you in prudishly inspecting everyone else’s genitals and passing judgment!” Sex robots modeled after adults aren’t yet a reality, and when they are available, it’s not like you’ll be able to pick one up at the local toystore for 10 bucks.
I can’t say I’d be happy with the reality of child modeled sex robots, but my point of view about such things is a bit different from most. First, though – child modeled sex robots will never be a reality in the States, because the thick streak of puritanical prudery here would not allow it. No, in the states, we’d much prefer it if those whose orientation is pedophile or ephebophile to make do with actual children, because we can’t stand the thought of those people having a sexual outlet which is legal and does not cause harm. That would be wrong. Much better to allow children to be harmed, then possibly lock someone up in prison. Oh my yes, that works perfectly!
I was raped on a regular basis as a child, from ages 3 to 9, by a family member. I’m not foolish enough to think that every case of child rape wouldn’t happen if there were child-modeled sex robots, but for me, if they would prevent even one case of an actual child being raped, well, that’s good enough for me. However, I doubt child-modeled sex robots will ever be a reality, anywhere in the world. Too many people would be uncomfortable with the idea of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, so to speak.
Now, instead of all these half-hysterical imaginings, why don’t you try to examine your need to pass judgment on everyone else?
How right you are Caine. Harm reduction, be it condoms for teens, clean needles for the addicted, or safe shelter for the homeless is never acceptable to righteous. It destroys the narrative that belief in Gawd and Country is all you need to be pure and whole. I hate those people with a crushing fury that I suspect isn’t conducive to a long and healthy life. /end derail.
Who doesn’t want a good pizza and a thorough wank once in a while?
What about queer kinksters, are we allowed to claim the right to a private sex life, or is that “appropriating”, too? If it is, do I have to somehow treat my sexlife with my boyfriend (who is straight) differently to my sexlife with my girlfriend (who is not)?
Jefrir @ 109:
Don’t be silly, you have more than one partner, that’s disgusting, and wrong! Stop that right now!*
* I have no faith at all in zibble having a lightbulb moment.
zibble… you are just as creepy as those MRA’s. Your “robot rape fantasy” made my skin crawl.
The fact that you’re comparing human beings and animals to inanimate objects is creepy. Human being and animals aren’t “things” in any way shape or form; and “things” aren’t human beings and animals.
zibble,
Riiight, because kinky people are never prudes about the kinks they don’t share. Just like religious people are never judgy assholes about other religions.
And if you cared about consent, you’d know that it’s a concept that applies to relationships between sentient beings, not those between one person and an inanimate object.
Appropriated? You can’t appropriate a right; you just have it. Straight kinksters have it too.
Wait, aren’t you a “semi-professional pornographer?” So it’s fine to make a career out of taking actual humans and generating lifeless images of them, which will then be used for sexual satisfaction by people they’ve never met. But using a human-shaped chunk of plastic to get off is “creepy?”
If they’re anime sexbots, they’re not going to resemble any actual human being very closely. This is like clucking over people attracted to Cabbage Patch Kids.
And you don’t think there is a difference? You think we’re entitled to treat a dog and a block of wood in the exact same way?
You’re talking about the mass creation and enslavement of androids with human-level intelligence…and the part of this scenario that you find most troubling is that someone might fuck them? That’s creepier than anything I’ve ever heard a RealDoll owner say.
I think there’s a slight difference between fantasizing about having sex with someone and fantasizing about putting a hundred bullets in them. Just a hair.
At @1 i made some comments that looking back are too general and sound like i’m judging the entire concept of sex dolls and the people who enjoy them. I’m sorry, i should have been much more specific and made it clear that my judgement applies to the MRAs and their fantasies because of their self-proclaimed motivations. I also understand that what they describe as a sex-bot is not what some people currently enjoy in the privacy of their homes. I have absolutely no issue with how many people enjoy these kinds of sexual toys and understand that for some they may even be preferable or very helpful and that this is just fine.
Caine@112: “* I have no faith at all in zibble having a lightbulb moment.”
Just as well; among inanimate, non-sentient sex toys, lightbulbs are notoriously dangerous. (LEDs less so, of course.)
has anyone but me seen the show Humans? (It was aired recently on the TV network franchise, AMC.)
Most of these issues were presented as explicit “thought pieces”. To consider the creepy factor of sentient androids slightly past the uncanny valley, their use as sex toys, or domestic help, or caregivers, etc. Actually verbally presented the question, “what’s the difference between buying an android for servant, and buying a slave?”
one of the scenes therein, where some androids were being used as sexworkers. the issue of “rape” was presented. Where one client tried to use one of the sexdroids to playact in one of his fantasy scenarios of raping an underage girl, to which she declined, murderously. The madam told the cop, “they can’t be raped, they’re only androids, under contract to provide sex. He paid cash, ‘rape’ would only apply if he didn’t pay and was trying to steal service.”
While not excellent, it was an interesting piece of mind-candy worth savoring. I wait for season 2.
(gotta make a passing reference to one of the stars being the previous co-star of Torchwood, but that had minimal influence on my fandom for this thoughtpiece)
Lee @ 117:
Yes, yes, I wasn’t thinking of the Danger! Could possibly bring about Doom!
It looks like zibble won’t be stopping back to defend their, erm, stance. However, if you do stop by, zibble, did you comment here under the nym zerple a while back?
If he was as smart as he thinks he is, he wouldn’t let his sexuality control him so much.
I’m trying to remember who wrote the story about the android that killed a person, and was later discovered to have undiagnosed problems due to moisture in its body cavity because, you know…
It’s bothering me to see “pizza” and “wank” in close proximity.