# Sex robots for Incels? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 12, 2018, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783 "2018-07-12T15:15:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 25
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/481 "2018-08-15T06:26:11Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > Would you consider a sexbot [bikeshare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle-sharing_system) arrangement, where there’s a \*\*small pool \*\*which is shared among a number of public users? (Bolding mine) _PHRASING!_ For the love of god, man. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/482 "2018-08-15T09:03:52Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > (Bolding mine) > > _PHRASING!_ For the love of god, man. From Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > For many systems, smartphone mapping apps show nearby available bikes and open docks. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/483 "2018-08-15T09:31:36Z")
Yes, now what other small pools might one find on a community sexbot? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/484 "2018-08-15T09:35:42Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > To be clear I don’t necessarily think that the idea of a sex robot is necessarily bad. Sex robots are exactly as bad as video games. > [@](#): > > And I also am very wary of letting people with hateful, misogynistic tendencies have a realistically human-like plaything that they can just have their way with. > > It’s basically letting them practice mistreating people and there’s no reason to believe that this won’t carry over to their attitudes and actions with respect to real humans. Should people with violent tendencies be allowed to play with first person shooters or GTA-style games? Should we ban porn, since it’s not proven that it doesn’t have a negative impact? Consensual BDSM, since it might twist the minds of participants in bad ways? Violent movies, that could conceivably turn an unbalanced high school student into a mass killer? You can’t ban people from doing something simply because it’s conceivable that it might have a bad influence on them, possibly eventually resulting in them comiting a crime at some point. If you want to ban something, you have to show in a much more indisputable way that it’s going to much more directly result in harm being done. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/485 "2018-08-15T09:55:37Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > So if I understand you right, in a thread suggesting that we go to extraordinary measures to avoid incels having to learn to cope with the difficult emotion of jealousy, the suggestion is that we attempt to teach _everyone_ to cope with the difficult emotion of jealousy? > > I’m not sure I’m on board with this plan. Teaching everybody to cope with jealousy would be an excellent thing. In our societies, jealousy is tolerated, normalized and even encouraged. Jealousy is a very unhealthy feeling, and we would be vastly better off if we were teaching people from an early age how to cope with it, counseling people who suffer from it, and generally reject the notion that being jealous is perfectly normal and even expected. Despite it not being their natural tendancy, we teach kids to get over their feelings and share their candies. Natural tendancies to jealousy shouldn’t be encouraged either. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/486 "2018-08-15T12:46:36Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > To be clear I don’t necessarily think that the idea of a sex robot is necessarily bad. > > I do have serious reservations about creating a robot sex slave at public expense for the sole purpose of quenching the sexual urges of people who are so extremely socially dysfunctional as to end up in a hateful, violent, misogynistic cult. > > Such people might need treatment or therapy of some kind and it might be in the public interest to fund such treatment. > > However I am very wary of the idea that the public should pay for simply their sexual satisfaction because they want something they aren’t getting. > > And I also am very wary of letting people with hateful, misogynistic tendencies have a realistically human-like plaything that they can just have their way with. > > It’s basically letting them practice mistreating people and there’s no reason to believe that this won’t carry over to their attitudes and actions with respect to real humans. > > If there’s some scientific reason to believe that having some people interact with a cybernetic sexual surrogate would help treat mental or emotional disorders then maybe that should be considered, but under the strict supervision of a licensed professional, and certainly not just for the purpose of quenching their unmet sexual desires. Perfectly articulated. This suddenly feels like I am reading a proposal for a script for the TV show Black Mirror. These twisted people exist with their devices and abused them just as much as they want to but in public they have to control those urges. Everyone else knows what the “tell” is. They can’t get in trouble for exhibiting to tell because the tell is non-sexual. This is what we’ve come to. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/487 "2018-08-15T12:47:38Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > To be clear I don’t necessarily think that the idea of a sex robot is necessarily bad. > > I do have serious reservations about creating a robot sex slave at public expense for the sole purpose of quenching the sexual urges of people who are so extremely socially dysfunctional as to end up in a hateful, violent, misogynistic cult. > > Such people might need treatment or therapy of some kind and it might be in the public interest to fund such treatment. > > However I am very wary of the idea that the public should pay for simply their sexual satisfaction because they want something they aren’t getting. > > And I also am very wary of letting people with hateful, misogynistic tendencies have a realistically human-like plaything that they can just have their way with. > > It’s basically letting them practice mistreating people and there’s no reason to believe that this won’t carry over to their attitudes and actions with respect to real humans. > > If there’s some scientific reason to believe that having some people interact with a cybernetic sexual surrogate would help treat mental or emotional disorders then maybe that should be considered, but under the strict supervision of a licensed professional, and certainly not just for the purpose of quenching their unmet sexual desires. Perfectly articulated. This suddenly feels like I am reading a proposal for a script for the TV show Black Mirror. These twisted people exist with their devices and abuse them just as much as they want to but in public they have to control those urges. Everyone else knows what the “tell” is. They can’t get in trouble for exhibiting the tell because the tell is non-sexual. This is what we’ve come to. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/488 "2018-08-15T16:23:18Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Sex robots are exactly as bad as video games. I see no reason to take this assertion on faith. The more a robot accurately represents a live in the flesh human being, the less it is like a video game. And I don’t think I have used the word “ban” here, so I don’t feel the need to argue over any banning. ---
**Author:** ![pnschofield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/43a26b/32.png) [@pnschofield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pnschofield)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/489 "2018-08-15T20:35:40Z")
If a man is not sexually interested in women “in his league” (i.e. women that would potentially be physically attracted to him), one potential cause might be that he is looking at too much pornography featuring women “out of his league.” If you want to develop an attraction to women that would date you, you have to take responsibility for making that happen instead of blaming the world. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/490 "2018-08-16T00:35:53Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I see no reason to take this assertion on faith. The more a robot accurately represents a live in the flesh human being, the less it is like a video game. Maybe, but it’s still up to you to demonstrate the likelihood of harm. You can’t forbid people from doing something just because you have a feeling that it could have indirect harmful consequences. My point about video games was that abusing a robot is as much of a moral issue as killing a person in a video game. This part of my post wasn’t contradicting you. The rest I adressed in the paragraph above. > [@](#): > > And I don’t think I have used the word “ban” here, so I don’t feel the need to argue over any banning. Not this word, but you stated that you were very warry of letting people abuse robots except as a mental health tool under the supervision of a medical professional. Which amounts to the same thing as banning. My opinion is that for this like in many other similar scenarios, most people (not necessarily you) are simply deeply repulsed by the person proclivities, and want to forbid what he does essentially for this reason, arguments like “it might turn children into serial killers” being an afterthought to justify the interdiction of something they really don’t like. And that it’s no different for an actual unsavory book and for an hypothetical sex bot. This kind of argumentation has been around forever, and despite trying hard, people repeatedly failed at demonstrating a link between bad books, violence on TV, role playing games, pornography, video games, etc… and crime. I see no reason to assume that, after having been wrong about it with every novelty, they would turn out to be right about the next technology to come. In any case I stand by my statement that it’s up to people who want to forbid sex bots of whatever kind to convincingly demonstrate that they’re harmful. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/491 "2018-08-16T00:46:27Z")
I’m wondering by the way if, if we were talking about “target bots” (bots being hunted and “killed” in a game, for instance) instead of “sex abuse bots”, people would be nearly as much worried about it potentially turning the robots owners into criminals. I strongly suspect not. People have a strong tendancy to want to ban any kind of sex they don’t like, and to use arguments that they wouldn’t use in any other scenario that is unrelated to sex. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/492 "2018-08-16T00:47:43Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Maybe, but it’s still up to you to demonstrate the likelihood of harm. You can’t forbid people from doing something just because you have a feeling that it could have indirect harmful consequences. I have not spoken of forbidding anything. So I have no obligation to justify anything. > [@](#): > > My point about video games was that abusing a robot is as much of a moral issue as killing a person in a video game. Maybe or maybe not. I don’t accept this as a given. > [@](#): > > Which amounts to the same thing as banning. No. Nothing I said “amounts to banning.” Im not going to follow you down the rabbit hole of video games for this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/493 "2018-08-16T01:05:23Z")
You wrote : > [@Acsenray](#): > > I also am very wary of letting people with hateful, misogynistic tendencies have a realistically human-like plaything that they can just have their way with. > > It’s basically letting them practice mistreating people and there’s no reason to believe that this won’t carry over to their attitudes and actions with respect to real humans. > > If there’s some scientific reason to believe that having some people interact with a cybernetic sexual surrogate would help treat mental or emotional disorders then maybe that should be considered, but under the strict supervision of a licensed professional, and certainly not just for the purpose of quenching their unmet sexual desires. How is not letting people practice violence on robots or having their way with a realistic plaything except to treat mental disorders under the supervision of a professional not forbiding the use of those “abuse bots”? If it’s not what you meant, then can you please explain what you actually meant, because I don’t see how I should interpret it differently. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/494 "2018-08-16T01:07:38Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Maybe or maybe not. I don’t accept this as a given. Wait. We’re talking about something else here. How exactly abusing a machine could be morally different from abusing a 3d critter? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/495 "2018-08-16T01:14:06Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > You wrote : > > How is not letting people practice violence on robots or having their way with a realistic plaything except to treat mental disorders under the supervision of a professional not forbiding the use of those “abuse bots”? > > If it’s not what you meant, then can you please explain what you actually meant, because I don’t see how I should interpret it differently. This thread is about government-funded provision of sex robots to incels. Further than that I will not explain my remarks other than to invite to to read this thread more carefully. And I will not follow you down the rabbit hole of video games. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/496 "2018-08-16T02:28:23Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I’m wondering by the way if, if we were talking about “target bots” (bots being hunted and “killed” in a game, for instance) instead of “sex abuse bots”, people would be nearly as much worried about it potentially turning the robots owners into criminals. I strongly suspect not. People have a strong tendancy to want to ban any kind of sex they don’t like, and to use arguments that they wouldn’t use in any other scenario that is unrelated to sex. It’s prudishness that makes the idea of paying taxes so an incel can fuck a free robot repugnant? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/497 "2018-08-16T02:34:48Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > People have a strong tendancy to want to ban any kind of sex they don’t like, and to use arguments that they wouldn’t use in any other scenario that is unrelated to sex. Who said anything about a ban? Most of us here don’t give a shit if an incel wants to fuck a robot. We just don’t think we should be required to pay for it. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/498 "2018-08-16T06:22:18Z")
Hmmm…I guess I didn’t realize that most of discussion was about public funding of the sex bots. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/499 "2018-08-16T12:05:51Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Hmmm…I guess I didn’t realize that most of discussion was about public funding of the sex bots. I think most of the conversation is about what’s wrong with Incels and how sexbots won’t help that. But the OP started with the premise that taxpayers should buy Incels sexbots. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783/500 "2018-08-16T18:49:01Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Hmmm…I guess I didn’t realize that most of discussion was about public funding of the sex bots. From the first post: > [@](#): > > 1. Sex Robots/Dolls. It has the downside of a higher initial cost on investment, but I’m sure in the long run a sex robot would be cheaper than hiring a prostitute to stop by once or twice a week. I think the government should pay for sex robots to ease the suffering of Involuntary Celibates. He can put crotchless panties on a reciprocating jigsaw and call it Trixie for all I care, but don’t expect me to stump up for it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-robots-for-incels/817783.md?page=26)