Fair enough. I'd be more than willing to give an ear to those arguments. There is a sort of sitcom joke culture about the reduction of men to dildos who can open jars. So yeah, I'd absolutely be willing to think about whether there are kinds of sex toys that play into that, and whether that has a wider cultural impact.
I'm absolutely certain it does. It's not even treated as a joke anymore, just something that's "okay".
Let me use your example - if there was a machine that looked like a pair of hands that opened jars, men wouldn't object. Men wouldn't form protest groups and get angry about it. They'd just invest in the company that makes them and make a tidy profit.
With respect, I don't think it's a good idea for us to get into a debate on prostitution here. This isn't the forum for it, and frankly I can see it spiralling into a huge time- and energy-devouring debate. This is also why I haven't responded to your points about prostitution or porn below.
Fair enough.
I'm now curious as to who on earth wants to make sex socially unacceptable. Is it a splinter group of the
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement?
Anyone who tries to cover up, restrict or ban pornography and prostitution. When I see people complaining about men's magazines, not even pornographic ones, I can see only one reason for it. Oh no, Eliza Dushku is on the cover of a magazine in her underwear! Put a brown paper bag over it!
My point was really about turning the focus from the theoretical rights of an android to the theoretical person who uses one. As you say, people would find it socially unacceptable because of what it represents - because the inference is that a person who would use one is using it to live out a fantasy of 'sex' with a child.
I say I'm squicked by the idea of a sex robot, because it seems to me to represent fantasy sex which removes consent from the equation. Enthusiastic consent is such an important aspect of what sex is to me that its absense - which appears to me to be not only an unavoidable feature, but actually a selling point of the sexbot fantasy - is something I find incredibly unsettling.
It's a perfectly arbitrary choice we humans make. We say one thing is okay and another is not and so it is.
As for
enthusiastic consent - you realise that a significant portion of the world's men never receive that, right ?
I would have to severely disagree with your logic here.
[Heterosexual] Sex isn't a commodity to which women unfairly
monopolise and withold from men. It's two or more people mutually consenting to [insert activity of choice here].
If one partner can get exactly what they want from a non-sentient doll then I'd put it to you that those dolls are not in direct competition with real people at all.
Since I'm the one whose been most vocal in my dislike of the idea of sexbots in this thread, and I'm not currently aware of any group campaigning against them, can I infer that you think my objection may be predicated on jealousy. Let me reiterate firmly that knowing a man or woman thought of sex as a commodity for which I was unfairly making them pay through tedious fulfillment of tasks they didn't want to perform would be a surer sign of our incompatibility than their thinking Nemesis was the best Trek movie.
You leave Nemesis alone!
Stuart Baird is a fine and talented director. (Sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little there)
Do not get me wrong, I have always felt that in a relationship both partners should
want to have sex with the other. When that stops, I believe it's a sign that something has gone wrong.
I'm not talking about jobs like mowing the lawn, I'm talking about the often ridiculous things either gender put themselves through to attract others. Whole industries are based on selling products to men that will supposedly make them more attractive - from clothing to even cosmetics now. A lot of men don't go through all of that, don't do the things that supposedly make them more attractive and as a result they don't get a lot of attention - and a lot more would stop if they didn't think it was worth it.
If these androids existed, it would free those kinds of men from having to jump through the mating ritual hoops. The pool of guys willing to do this crap would shrink, and some women might just have to look outside it.
Allow me to explain why I'm here, because of "Android sex slaves", it's too disturbing to treating them as your sex slave to please you the way you want them to! Oh, good god, it's so wrong for me to thinking of them as my sex slaves at all! I would treat them as my true friends, no matter how bad they've been through, I would have been there so passionately!
People needs to get their life straight, I mean it seriously! Treat them as this sex slave is wrong.
Yes, treating them as your sex slave is wrong especially when in the BDSM community submissives (i.e. women - and yes, men - who enjoy being sexually dominated who actually would rather enjoy being someone's sex slave, in a fantasy sense) outnumber dominants by about 8 to 1. They don't need the competition.
Since, however, these androids are not Data, they are just tools and not real people. If a woman can use a dildo that looks like a human penis then a man can use an android that looks like a woman.
Yeah. It all comes down to whether or not the Shep 2000 makes the user feel like a loser. Speaking from the female perspective, inasmuch as any female who isn't completely atrocious looking can easily line up real-live guys, the Shep 2000 should not harm anyone's self-esteem.
Shep 2000 ?
You should feel like a loser for paying money for a sex android that looks like Flanigan!
