We recently told you about Sinthetics, the $25,000 life-like, “individually handmade” male sex dolls taking the internet by storm. Now, one woman is making it her personal mission to stop people from engaging in sexual intercourse with these kinds of robots.
“I started thinking, ‘Oh, no, something needs to be said about this,'” Kathleen Richardson, a senior senior research fellow in the ethics of robotics at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, tells the Washington Post. “This is not right!”
Related: What Is It About These Male Sex Dolls That’s So Creepy? Oh, Everything.
Richardson has dedicated her academic career to researching sex robots and the harmful impact they’re having on humanity, particularly the sex industry.
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“I propose that extending relations of prostitution into machines is neither ethical, nor is it safe,” Richardson says. “If anything the development of sex robots will further reinforce relations of power that do not recognize both parties as human subjects.”
That’s right, Richardson fears if people continue doing it with robots they’ll lose the ability to differentiate between machines and humans and, in the process, forget how to empathize with one another. Or something.
“These robots will contribute to more sexual exploitation,” Richardson says. Not only that, she adds, but companies will begin manufacturing sex robots that look like children. In fact, they probably already are!
“It’s a new and emerging technology,” she cautions. “Let’s nip in the bud!”
Related: Turns Out There’s An Abundance Of Creepy Sex Toys Out There
The robot sex industry, however, is displeased with Richardson’s crusade.
Douglas Hines, CEO of True Companion, told the BBC that his company isn’t trying to exploit anyone, nor does it want to replace people’s real-life sexual partners.
“This is a solution for people who are between relationships or someone who has lost a spouse,” he said. “People can find happiness and fulfillment other than via human interaction.”
Tuthor of Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, David Levy, added that he believes love with robots “will be as normal as love with other humans.”
“The number of sexual acts and lovemaking positions commonly practiced between humans will be extended, as robots teach us more than is in all of the world’s published sex manuals combined,” Levy proclaimed.
But Richardson isn’t buying.
“It’s important that we have a debate about this,” she says. “Einstein’s theory of relativity–it didn’t have to turn into the atom bomb, right?!”
Right!!!
Related: Encase Your Beloved’s Ashes In An Elegant Glass Sex Toy. Wait, What?
McShane
Show me a robot that can give better head than I can, and I’ll blow you both.
Taskebab
Finally, somebody standing up to the great social crisis’s of our time!
Xzamilio
Bitch, say what now??
jwtraveler
What? WHAT?!! WTF?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1EqualityUSA
Fuzzy robotic sheep…baa-aaa-aad!
1EqualityUSA
Wool, I never…
1EqualityUSA
On the lamb.
Large Marge
I’d like a semi sentient robotic companion. I don’t expect to be involved in a relationship with another human being… so I might as well have it with a robot. If you think that is weird, fine… but you don’t get to dictate what I do especially if having a robot companion makes me happier.
The real problem is that these are just dumb dolls and not robots with some imitation of intelligence and independent locomotion. I don’t want to bang a mannequin, but I’d still love one as a companion to talk to.
Sidney Davies
They’re robots? How about we fight for human rights instead of wasting time.
Tobi
I’m com— *meh* forgot to charge it. 🙁
Chris
Someone has wayyyyyy too much time on her hands.
Captain Obvious
The world is becoming so stupid it’s infuriating. Why even give this woman attention? People like her have been around forever and had no medium to spread their “message”. Now we must pay attention to and shine a limelight on crazy. Why?
Is it her or is it you? (the answer is you)
Billy Budd
When robots reach a stage of development where they can be sentient, I am sure I will fall in love with a robot. It will be wonderful.
Esteban1971
Yet, no similar movement to ban “marital aids” overwhelmingly bought and used by lonely women. Because Richardson is a feminist through and through, and when feminists are not using gay men as emotional tampons, they’re denigrating us as “more misogynist than straights” and other such blather.
Richardson’s objection may be reduced to the following axiom: what’s good for the goose is good for the goose. It’s the same objection to legal prostitution, only without the human shields of “protect the children!”
This debate has been had before, and it always follows along the same pattern: it’s *bad* for men to be able to relieve their tensions without the active participation of women–who must be paid for and comforted and provided homes, medical care, etc.–while women continue to enjoy sexual aids (dildos, vibrators, etc.) which have been around for thousands of years. Because if men no longer need women to acquire the lower rungs of their Maslow’s Hierarchy or to slake their Freudian Id, women’s overall value goes down like a hooker at the Kennedy mansion.
1EqualityUSA
WD-40, anniversary gift?
1EqualityUSA
Esteban1971, Go back into your mother’s basement, play some more solitaire, and take your meds.
CarrieV
@Esteban1971: “when feminists are not using gay men as emotional tampons, they’re denigrating us as “more misogynist than straights””
lol, way to ass-backwardly prove that at least *one* certain gay man is more misogynist than straights. (Jesus, read your post again, you’re dripping with the very hate that proves even the most misandrist feminists right.)
Look, this woman is not a feminist, she’s a scientific ethicist. She is concerned with ethics, and most other ethicists who decry sexbots happen to be MEN. (Frankly, feminists would be mother-humpin’ ecstatic if big, bad men switched over to sexbots and left decent wimminfolk alone. She is NOT a feminist.) Where she is 100% correct is that people’s perceptions of their fellow Earthlings will be forever changed once they are under no obligation to treat other humans decently after acclimating themselves to non-humans. Much like the Internet has made it all but impossible to have become less civil to strangers, having fully-romantic relations with polymer corpses (which never make human demands and never commit human faux pas) will make robot-bangers see humans as the new second-class citizenry. This is a step BACK in evolution, a devolution.
I can’t speak for how gay men will see robot-bangers, but straight women will be delighted to see that certain male effectively removed from the dating pool!