I’m sure this is nothing you are unaware of, but I recently read in the news about a sex robot released at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas this past Saturday. This is apparently a robot that engages in conversation, because sex isn’t enough sometimes. Why don’t people interested in sex with conversation just get a prostitute? It probably costs less than a sex robot and it may help to actually converse with real humans, which could possibly help with a real romantic relationship. What are your thoughts on sex robots?
Curious Lindsay
My response after the jump…
Sexbots are expensive—the robot rolled out at the Adult Entertainment Expo starts at $7,000—but a high-end escort charges $5,000 for a weekend’s companionship. If you have the dough and you’re already paying for it, it’s clear that a sexbot pays for itself pretty quickly. As for the conversation…
One upside to a sexbot that you own, CL, is that… a sexbot isn’t going to judge you. It’s not programmed to judge. (Although the sexbot introduced last weekend can be programmed to dominate.) So a sexbot’s owner, unlike a sexworker’s client, doesn’t have to worry that his bought-and-paid-for-companion is thinking, “Jesus, what a freak this guy is,” while she pretends to think it’s sexy to pee in his mouth. I know that the culture regards men who patronize prostitutes as brutes and monsters—and some certainly are—but many more are insecure and inhibited guys who actually worry about being judged. There are doubtless sex-starved men out there who would like to visit sex workers don’t because they’re so worried about being judged.
As for my thoughts on sexbots: I laid them out in a “Savage Love” column back in April of 2008…
In his newish book Love and Sex with Robots, author David Levy predicts that in five decades or so, people are going to be fucking and falling in love with humanoid sex robots. Levy believes that some people are going to have a problem with the humanoid fuckbots in our future. I disagree. People aren’t going to have a problem with dudes fucking and/or marrying humanoid robots. It’s dudes like DRAGON, here—men and women fucking and/or marrying dino-dragon robots, robot centaurs, 50-foot-tall female robots, and, it pains me to say, kid robots—who are going to freak people the fuck out.
There’s going to be a lot more to fuckbots than Levy imagines in his philosophy. While Levy foresees fuckbots that can be programmed with voices, eye colors, or “particular personality traits” that their owners/mates find sexy, I foresee a future in which every last unrealizable fetish or fantasy is suddenly within the grasp of all—well, not all. The first few generations of fuckbots will most likely be available only to the superwealthy and/or those willing to spend a small fortune on a visit to a robot brothel. But the coming of fuckbots is going to make fantasies that are currently unrealizable for reasons of biology, logistics, or morality suddenly very, very realizable.
And as I wrote on Slog a few weeks ago: “Sexbots! What could possibly go wrong! Besides the stalking! And the killing! And Richard Benjamin’s mustache!”
As for the “world’s first sex robot”—named Roxxxy—that was rolled out in Las Vegas last weekend: the technology isn’t quite Jude Law in A.I. or Yul Brynner in Westworld. The Las Vegas Weekly has a good write up—there’s a 9/11 connection—and a terrifyingly unsexxxy photo.
More pics at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/10…
The only good sex robot is one that give footrubs and cleans your house.
There are also men who are ugly or deformed or mentally challenged who could use the services of prostitutes and would otherwise never have the chance to experience one of life’s greatest joys. I just never thought of men who use prostitutes as somehow “brutes or monsters” and find that judgement of them itself brutish and monsterous.
Maybe it’s a sign I’m getting older, but I can think of a whole hell of a lot of things I’d rather spend that kind of money on.
child star sexbots will be good outlets for priests and youthpastors.
Hmmm… a Yul Brynner sexbot. I could almost be talked into that. Rawr!
But does she taste like canned ham?
My wife enjoys peeing in my mouth.
Sure they’ll be popular. Until the first guy takes his bot into the shower and gets his dick bitten off when it short-circuits. Then maybe not so much.
Well, there goes my boner for the next week or so. Seriously, I think having sex with something that had that vacant expression on its face would make me feel like some kind of roofie-packing rapist.
yes, the thought of someone fucking a kidbot is disturbing, but isn’t it so much better than the likely alternative? could kidbots mean the end of kiddie porn?
That robot photo is definitely unsexy. It looks like a waxen Julie Kavner, circa 1986. No offense to Ms. Kavner, but that’s not the feminine ideal, is it?
Also – robots present 0% risk of cooties
If you can enjoy fucking a sexbot, you can probably just as well enjoy fucking a vacuum cleaner.
@1
I loved the comments, especially the person who pointed out that the robot’s maker had her underwear put on severely wrong. Poor guys…
@ 13 – Not if you share your bot without washing it. Now THERE’S sexy for ya!!
This whole thing is so comically, pathetically misguided. First, this guy was initially inspired to create a robot after a friend died in the 9/11 attacks:
“Hines said he wanted his friend’s children to grow up and still be able to interact with their father.” (!?)
As if that isn’t fucked-up enough, the end result isn’t a robotic dad, but a robotic hooker. The twisted underwear sums it all up, in a way. Sad.
I initially thought…”Ugh! who wants to have sex with a largely inanimate, cold & unfeeling automaton, with whom you cant converse.” And then, I remember the years 1989 thru 1994 with my Ex. You expect a robot to devoid of feeling; you pray your lover is not the sociopath you suspect them to be.
at this stage its creepy as hell, because these robots look more like corpses than people. but if well ever really have the technology to make halfway non-creepy sexbots… well, i think lots of guys will change their views on the subject.
somewhat related: interesting/fascinating/sad/scary documentary about “real-dolls”:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/guys-and-…
@19,
Wow, I just watched the first 5 minutes of that, until I got to the tongue part. Holy shiiiiit…. I can’t go on. Highly recommended for others, though!
@11, I think the definition of kid sexbots is kiddie porn. Not sure, but I suspect the way some of the statutes are written, not only would it be illegal to use them in making pornography, but simple possession might be prosecuted as 3-D kiddie porn. I could see a prosecutor arguing that practicing on a kidbot meant the accused was getting ready to graduate to real children.
Generally, I’m in favor of civil liberties, and possession of an artificial sex toy would seem to fall in that category, but there’ a squickiness factor here that might be hard for even some civil libertarians to deal with, never mind a jury.
Am I the ONLY person on this blog who remembers Bladerunner? Oh Rutger Hauer where ARE you now?
@ 17:
Nipper.
Google it.
The concept’s kind of the same.
i’m not sure i agree with the queasy response to childlike sex robots. i for one would rather have people who are sexually attracted to children fingerbang a robot than fingerbang some six year old. maybe that’s just me.
I don’t know how much weirder they are than the real doll sex toys; things that don’t talk or respond to you but things that people still give personalities to and have one sided conversations. At least with a sexbot it actually responds.
@20: please do watch the whole thing. the tongue thing is freaky as hell, but the documentary calms down after that… until they start talking about GUNS. thats when i completely freaked out.
Seems like one of the creators of the robot used to have a crush on Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders.