My God, He Never Took Middle School Hygiene! He Never Saw the Propaganda Film!
| posted by Jeff Fecke | Saturday, December 29, 2007So Andrew Sullivan points us to an interview with David Levy, the author of Love + Sex With Robots. This is a book wherein Levy postulates that people will, some day, be having sex with robots.
First of all, we all know where this leads.
via videosift.com
Okay, I'll admit it, part of me just was looking for an excuse to post that snippet from Futurama. But only part. Part of me thinks Levy is absolutely right -- but only partly.
Humans will have sex with robots; indeed, humans already are. Robots need not be anthropomorphic; very few are. Most fit the standard Webster's second definition for robot: "a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks." I would wager you a friendly bet that over half of the women reading this have, in fact, had sex with a robot that fits this definition -- a vibrator, or other electrically-powered device.
I bring up vibrators because I think they give us a good roadmap to the future. Some vibrators are, in many ways, superior to the penis in bringing arousal to women. The penis as constructed lacks any way to stimulate the clitoris; this is a restriction on form that vibrators need not suffer from. And yet most women would rather have an actual human partner than a vibrator. Why? If you have to ask why, you've gone too deep into believing that sex is a transaction. Come back out to humanity, and you realize that women will take men and their inferior penises or women and their non-existent penises because they're humans, and humans seek contact and love with other humans.
No doubt, as anthropomorphic sexual robots are built, there will be a market for them; I mean, the Real Doll sells, and that gives you all the real action of having sex with a corpse (which, for the men who by them, is probably all they're looking for anyhow). And they'll sell to men and women alike. I assume you'll also be able to rent them, though I'd make sure they were sterilized first.
And there will be all sorts of interesting ripples through society as they move out into the general public. I think you can make good cases for female sexbots making objectification of women more or less problematic; you can also make good cases for male sexbots having the same effect on men.
But while I can see these being quite popular, I can't see them replacing interpersonal relationships. Why? Because masturbation has yet to supplant interpersonal relationships, despite tens of thousands of years of practice and a constant technological improvement in aids to that end. You can masturbate with a robot that appears, in every way, to be human. That moves like a human, that reacts like a human, at least in every way that matters. But when coitus is done, and you lie back in bed, you can't ask the robot if it was good for them. You can't ask what you should try next time. You can't talk about where you'd like to go the next day, or what you should name your first daughter, or why you're grateful that of all the people you could have been with, you're with them.
Sex is good, and I'm a strong proponent of it. But sex is only part of a relationship. And while sexbots will sell -- and sell well -- they will never replace love. Indeed, they won't even replace sex.
My God, He Never Took Middle School Hygiene! He Never Saw the Propaganda Film!
So Andrew Sullivan points us to an interview with David Levy, the author of Love + Sex With Robots. This is a book wherein Levy postulates that people will, some day, be having sex with robots.
First of all, we all know where this leads.
via videosift.com
Okay, I'll admit it, part of me just was looking for an excuse to post that snippet from Futurama. But only part. Part of me thinks Levy is absolutely right -- but only partly.
Humans will have sex with robots; indeed, humans already are. Robots need not be anthropomorphic; very few are. Most fit the standard Webster's second definition for robot: "a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks." I would wager you a friendly bet that over half of the women reading this have, in fact, had sex with a robot that fits this definition -- a vibrator, or other electrically-powered device.
I bring up vibrators because I think they give us a good roadmap to the future. Some vibrators are, in many ways, superior to the penis in bringing arousal to women. The penis as constructed lacks any way to stimulate the clitoris; this is a restriction on form that vibrators need not suffer from. And yet most women would rather have an actual human partner than a vibrator. Why? If you have to ask why, you've gone too deep into believing that sex is a transaction. Come back out to humanity, and you realize that women will take men and their inferior penises or women and their non-existent penises because they're humans, and humans seek contact and love with other humans.
No doubt, as anthropomorphic sexual robots are built, there will be a market for them; I mean, the Real Doll sells, and that gives you all the real action of having sex with a corpse (which, for the men who by them, is probably all they're looking for anyhow). And they'll sell to men and women alike. I assume you'll also be able to rent them, though I'd make sure they were sterilized first.
And there will be all sorts of interesting ripples through society as they move out into the general public. I think you can make good cases for female sexbots making objectification of women more or less problematic; you can also make good cases for male sexbots having the same effect on men.
But while I can see these being quite popular, I can't see them replacing interpersonal relationships. Why? Because masturbation has yet to supplant interpersonal relationships, despite tens of thousands of years of practice and a constant technological improvement in aids to that end. You can masturbate with a robot that appears, in every way, to be human. That moves like a human, that reacts like a human, at least in every way that matters. But when coitus is done, and you lie back in bed, you can't ask the robot if it was good for them. You can't ask what you should try next time. You can't talk about where you'd like to go the next day, or what you should name your first daughter, or why you're grateful that of all the people you could have been with, you're with them.
Sex is good, and I'm a strong proponent of it. But sex is only part of a relationship. And while sexbots will sell -- and sell well -- they will never replace love. Indeed, they won't even replace sex.
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First of all, we all know where this leads.
via videosift.com
Okay, I'll admit it, part of me just was looking for an excuse to post that snippet from Futurama. But only part. Part of me thinks Levy is absolutely right -- but only partly.
Humans will have sex with robots; indeed, humans already are. Robots need not be anthropomorphic; very few are. Most fit the standard Webster's second definition for robot: "a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks." I would wager you a friendly bet that over half of the women reading this have, in fact, had sex with a robot that fits this definition -- a vibrator, or other electrically-powered device.
I bring up vibrators because I think they give us a good roadmap to the future. Some vibrators are, in many ways, superior to the penis in bringing arousal to women. The penis as constructed lacks any way to stimulate the clitoris; this is a restriction on form that vibrators need not suffer from. And yet most women would rather have an actual human partner than a vibrator. Why? If you have to ask why, you've gone too deep into believing that sex is a transaction. Come back out to humanity, and you realize that women will take men and their inferior penises or women and their non-existent penises because they're humans, and humans seek contact and love with other humans.
No doubt, as anthropomorphic sexual robots are built, there will be a market for them; I mean, the Real Doll sells, and that gives you all the real action of having sex with a corpse (which, for the men who by them, is probably all they're looking for anyhow). And they'll sell to men and women alike. I assume you'll also be able to rent them, though I'd make sure they were sterilized first.
And there will be all sorts of interesting ripples through society as they move out into the general public. I think you can make good cases for female sexbots making objectification of women more or less problematic; you can also make good cases for male sexbots having the same effect on men.
But while I can see these being quite popular, I can't see them replacing interpersonal relationships. Why? Because masturbation has yet to supplant interpersonal relationships, despite tens of thousands of years of practice and a constant technological improvement in aids to that end. You can masturbate with a robot that appears, in every way, to be human. That moves like a human, that reacts like a human, at least in every way that matters. But when coitus is done, and you lie back in bed, you can't ask the robot if it was good for them. You can't ask what you should try next time. You can't talk about where you'd like to go the next day, or what you should name your first daughter, or why you're grateful that of all the people you could have been with, you're with them.
Sex is good, and I'm a strong proponent of it. But sex is only part of a relationship. And while sexbots will sell -- and sell well -- they will never replace love. Indeed, they won't even replace sex.
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