But you still get the filet, buddy. Mmm Mmm Good.
elfbabe, I think he’s dead on. Even when fantasizing about real people they’re…agreeable, get me?
We’re not talking about fantasizing about sexbots here. Let me try explaining it this way:
When I fantasize, at least some part of me wants a real woman who’d like to be my fantasy, who wants to do of her own volition the things my fantasy lover does with me. There may or may not be such a real woman out there, but a part of me would like for there to be one. But whether such a real woman exists, my fantasy of her is not a real woman; it’s a bot. The woman on the screen of my imagination does what I want her to do; I’m both the male lead and the director, pulling her strings.
When I masturbate, does my hand want to have sex with me? 
I have no idea how it would feel, having sex with a sexbot, other than that I doubt I’d confuse it with the real thing. But would it be an improvement over fantasy and masturbation - say, if you wanted a harmless way of exploring some kinks that your SO had no interest in? Perhaps.
I find this subject really interesting. And the responses are pretty much as I expected. But I wonder about the truth in them. Many people have been citing the lack of emotional attachment. IMHO emotional attachment is pretty relative. I know people who get attached to pets, people, and objects with relative ease. People who cry their eyes out when their goldfish dies. People who just can part with some old piece of furnature. And people who fall “in love” with every person they date.
This makes me wonder if emotional attachment is just a biological means to get us to put up with each other (in order to survive and procreate). If technology gets to the point that we no longer need to deal with another person in order to “procreate” (or at least do it on a level that fools the body), would we need that emotion? Or would we simply develope that emotion with the object?
My personal feeling is that should they build a bot that truly feels like the oposite sex, romantic relationships will dramatically decline. Our culture in America already seems to be in decline as far as that is concerned (more and more people waiting until later in life to bother with serious relationships). In particular I think men would be less likely to seek it out. Whether men want to admit it, sex is probably one of the more important items in a relationship. Lack of it is a predominant complain of men that are unhappy in a relationship. And on a biological level, it is the primary goal.
I think it would be an interesting experiment.
This seems to assume that the majority, or at least a strong portion, of people will avail themselves of sexbots. I don’t think that’s even true of much, much tamer sextoys available now. Although it’s becoming more accepted, many people don’t feel comfortable buying a dildo, much less a fake sex partner.
I don’t see why this would have any impact at all on marriage rates or society as a whole. People have been finding ways to orgasm with or without toys since people began to exist. Sexbots are nothing more than a new way to do so. They do not mitigate the general human need for human intimacy, partnership and interaction. I can have my sexual needs satisfied by a totally undemanding partner: me. I’d rather be satisfied by a demanding, interesting, passionate and most of all sentient partner. Sex is ever so much more exciting when it involves your partner acting out of their own volition, because they think you’re hot, or they want to please you, or they love you. More than a physical need, sex is an expression of humanity. Nothing will change that.
It is possible that some people will give up human partnership because they feel satisfied with this fancy form of onanism. There are people like that, anyway (someone mentioned a Savage Love column devoted to just that topic). People forsake human interaction for a host of reasons, and none of them have had damaging effects on society.
If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that men would be the biggest buyers of sexbots, simply because it’s still more acceptable for men to be unabashedly sexual. They’re the biggest customers for porn purveyors, sex shops and strip clubs as it is. However, sexbots could be a real boon for women. Women are less likely to orgasm through intercourse and, speaking in very broad general terms, are uncomfortable asking for what they want or taking control of a sexual encounter. With a sexbot, she’d have no option but to take control and no reason not to get it to do exactly what she wanted. It can be awkward to ask your partner to do specific things differently. Maybe practicing satisfying sex with a “safe” (i.e. non-judgemental) toy would get more women comfortable expressing what they want in real encounters.
Sure.
Heh heh heh. Sounds extremely expensive for one, and hard to discover, for another. But let’s say my neighbor DID make a sexbot like me (I’m having flashbacks to a certain Biffy storyline). It would be creepy, and maybe I could file a lawsuit based on mental anguish, or something. It’s not really invasion of privacy, though, nor a violation of any laws we currently have on the books. Maybe there should be a new law: Though shalt not have sex with thy neighbor’s likeness?
While it is gross and disturbing to me, I’m leaning towards thinking that such sexbots would offer a viable outlet to people who cannot overcome their attraction to either. I know that some around here have successfully defended beastiality, but I don’t buy it, personally. No matter what kind of creature it is, if it’s alive and incapable of giving consent, don’t screw it, say I. But a sexbot modelled after either children or animals don’t need to offer consent and aren’t created using either. There’s a reasonable law against child pornography because of (in part) the extreme difficulty in proving that a child’s image was digitized instead of being an image of a real child. I think the current ban on child porn could remain in place, but child sexbots could be available for the uncurable pedophile. Again, I think it’s disturbing as hell, but better they screw a toy modelled on their desires than prey on a child (or dog, or whatever).
Overall, I think sexbots could and likely will be introduced without having a material impact on society, just as other sextoys have been. Some will use them, some won’t, and I believe it will mostly remain a bedroom issue, just one that belongs in the (literal) closet rather than the nightstand.
HAhahahaha… Would you rather have me saying that sexbots are a GOOD idea?
Love ya.
I think this was a very interesting ques. I agree with some of the others that posted that I do not think it would be a huge issue to dating or marriage. In fact is it weird to think that this would be a “good” thing for those youngsters who are curious about sex and “experiement” on eachother and wind up geting themselves in trouble. I think that maybe it would be an interesting way for those curiousities and practices to get out of the system before the real thing. Here is another ques. If a girl had sex with the robot, would she still be a virgin?? Just curious
By the way, I think in gereral more woman would buy these things, just like in general more women have sex toys
This is definitely a fascinating question, but I will offer more questions and concerns than answers.
Re the 30-100 year time frame, I also think it’s toward the long end of the scale, for reasons that fall into (and partly overlap) two categories: practical and societal.
From a practical standpoint, what guy is going to want to take fifteen or twenty minutes to scrub the spooge out of his sexbot? The advantage of today’s masturbation aids (videos, websites, whatever) is that you shoot into a sock or kleenex or something and get rid of it. If you shoot into a sexbot, you’ve got to soap and sponge it out, because you definitely don’t want it sitting around getting sticky and crusty before the next time you feel like using it. Given the number of men (maybe not a majority, but many certainly) who leave their partner to deal with the wet spot while they roll over to fall asleep, this could be an obstacle. Evil Captor’s story presupposes the 'bot is capable of self-maintenance, but I think that’s a ways off.
Similarly, who’s going to be willing to haul their sexbot out to the car and down to the repair shop when you get too frisky with it and break off one of the arms, or spank it too hard and rip the butt cheek, or do some other damage? It’s one thing to order a RealDoll over the web and have it arrive anonymously; while you actually possess one, nobody at the company knows what you do with it. It’s another thing entirely to have to send it back for repairs: “I, uh, I chewed the, uh, nipple off.” Because you’re basically admitting your specific kink, in painful detail, to a complete stranger.
That starts to cross from the practical aspect into the societal. Personally, I think the Internet has the potential to be one of the most significant catalysts for social change in human history, specifically because the web’s free-market model has found, of its own accord, such an emphasis on pornography. In the privacy of your own home, you can explore and indulge your own kink, and it doesn’t take long to find out that, likely as not, the stuff you like is pretty vanilla compared to what’s available. (Those dudes who draw pictures of tiny naked Japanese girls on enormous plates, served as meals to ravenous giants: What the hell’s up with that?) It may take a while, but eventually we’ll move toward more openness on the subject of sex. That doesn’t mean we’ll casually mention to our neighbor that we’re looking for a Mexican midget to shit on our forehead, but right now we’re so prudish that we can’t even mention that we have sex.
Until that changes, I don’t see sexbots catching on, because of the infrastructure that will be required to support them, and the amazing number and complexity of the cultural byways that would be touched upon by their proliferation. One small example: Would the guys here go to Victoria’s Secret to shop for lingerie, knowing the clerk would “suspect” them of dressing their sexbot, instead of picking up something for the girlfriend? Naturally, you could order from the web, but how do you know what it feels like under your fingertips? No, to ensure satisfaction, you have to go there and pick it out. Would you be seen doing that?
Unless and until American society gets a lot more open about sex and sexual topics (and I don’t mean bikini bimbos selling cars and beer; I mean actual sex, like in A.I.'s Rouge City), there are too many associated needs that will make owning and operating a sexbot impractical in the near term, despite the fact that technology makes a rudimentary model possible right now.
Now if them made them into internet connectable telepresence devices (so cybersex would actually mean more than ‘typing with one hand’), then I could see a big market for them, but I still wouldn’t be interested myself.
Well, thanks, but I would not tend toward the long end of the estimate, because I still don’t see the need for an AI-capable processor to run a sexbot. And think about how long a century is in terms of tech. In 1903 the average person in the U.S. wouldn’t have had cars, phones (of any kind, much less cell phones) electricity, computing power other than what’s in their head — let’s face it, a century ago we were still mostly in the horse-and-buggy area. And it’s likely that the rate of technological change will do nothing but accelerate over the next hundred years if we don’t blow ourselves up or ignore the environment til it cooks us. So I’m thinking 50 years is a realistic outside figure, and that the 50 years beyond that are all fudge factor to handle any simple but unexpectedly difficulty problems that come up (like the difficulty CGI animators have had with realistically displaying hair in motion).
I mean, what would you need an AI for? People have already responded to very simple programs that don’t have anything LIKE the complexity of a good expert system (much less an AI) as if it were human, so you don’t need one for conversation or bedroom behaviors. Walking is something INSECTS can do! INSECTS! You think it’s gonna take an AI to handle that and any other motions a sexbot will need to manage? My suspicion is that sooner or later we will light on some fairly simple combination of algorithms and hardware that will handle motion as well as humans and other animals and shortly thereafter, much better than humans and other animals, at which time humans will become obsolete on the battlefield.
Power supply I don’t know that much about, but if we can generate enough power to run a scooter capable of carrying a 300-pound man (or woman) for an hour or two, we probably already have what we need to power a sexbot for four or five hours at a shot.
I see the really tough problem as being more delicate – creating a simulacram that has the look and feel of humanity. A Real Doll that can move roughly like a person won’t do it. It’s important to the commercial success of sexbots that they be just about indistinguishable from the Real Thang for reasons I’ll handle in response to another post.
Thinking about that… development of humanoid-mimic ‘droids would probably be driven by research into cyborg-ing for replacement of regular humans’ body parts.
Obviously, there’s a humanitarian need here as well as a marketplace need. Think how wonderful it would be if we could develop an armature that could allow folks like Christopher Reed to move around independently again. Obviously, any such armature would also have an app for sexbots. 'Cause I don’t see anybody sinking a lot of money for R&D into sexbot production so long as there’s so many real women around who need money, but so many sexbot functions have other real world apps that eventually it’s not going to take much in the way of R&D at all to build one. Guys’ll be building them in their garages, like they build battlebots now – and with similar mixed results!
One question that would be raised is what if the proud owner of a mint-condition 2072 Carmen Electrica starts dating and even gets to marrying some nice human lady – Would the new Mrs. Geek expect Mr. Geek to sell “Carmen” off or reprogram it for gardening, or would she let him keep it as a “hobby project” so he can spend Sunday afternoons customizing and upgrading.
Jetta 3000 covers similar turf – it’s about boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy meets new girl, first girl divorces boy (messily, they’ve got a kid), boy buys sexbot, second girl tries to get him interested in her instead of sexbot story. Been done a million times, I know, but it’s fun.
I think that may be because realdolls, with their blank, unmoving eyes and their unmoving limbs, look a lot more like corpses than human beings. That necrophilia tinge is fairly shuddery.
I’m kind of confused about the “Every guy already carries a sexbot or three around in his imagination, the ones who pop up when he indulges in sexual fantasy. EVERY guy.” comment. I’m not naive, I realize that people have sexual fantasies, sometimes very often, that these things are healthy and normal, etc… but is a figure in a sexual fantasy necessarily a sexbot, and not just an imaginary/real human who wants to have sex with the person fantasizing?
I did not mean to imply that everyone who fantasizes, fantasizes about sexbots. I am sure very few people do. What I meant was that the female figure in a fantasy is the equivalent of a sexbot – able and willign to do anything the fantasizer proposes. A sexbot is just a living simulacrum of your typical male sexual fantasy.
**I guess I just don’t get the motivation behind having sex with someone/something unless it wants to have sex with you. Trying to duplicate the physical sensations is one thing, I understand that… but the rest I don’t get. **
Whether a sexbot wants to have sex with you is beside the point. It is neither living or sentient. It can’t want – or not want – anything.
The mind boggles at the possibilities. You could get a sexbot to match your preference in height, weight, etc. But the implications go far beyond that – people with weird sex kinks will be able to realize their fantasies. :Lovable Exe"? What about all the Furries and Plushies out there? Or people into hairy individuals, or fat ones, or very thin ones? Or sex with giants or tiny people, or those with multiple body parts, or… you see where all this could go.
If this technology did develop, I predict it would still be expensive. Far and away cheaper, smaller, easier to pack up and store away would be sexual body parts – maybe a male or female torso with parts that look and respond naturally, with appropriate temperature, lubrication, etc. It might look creepy, but not as bad as those Real Doll heads. And no need for complex and expensive arms and legs! Less to break down! (Imagine taking one’s Sex Surrogate into the Shop for Repair. Or Tune-Up.)
Not as romantic, but cheaper and more practical. And you can store it next to your Nordic Trak under the bed.
I think the comparison between a dildo and a sexbot isn’t apt. As I conceive of it, doing it with a sexbot would be so much like doing an actual partner that most people will probably need labelling to tell one from the other. Or maybe a 95 percent similarity – you can tell if you try, but you have to focus on it and if you’re distracted by other things, it’ll be impossible.
This means in essence that a young man or woman can BUY what amounts to a sex partner. I don’t think it’ll stop people from dating or marrying one another, but it’ll DEFINITELY be something everyone will WANT to own. I can see sexbot theft becoming a major problem … and a lot of it going unreported, because who’d want to report it? I figured they’d cost a couple grand to start out with, with “used” models going for less than a thousand, and every adult who wants one pretty much able to afford one.
People might even interview each others’ sexbots before doing any serious dating, to find out if they’re sexually compatible (“He likes you to do WHAT? With WHAT?”)
Plus, sexbots may have other uses such as security, cleaning up the house … you could probably hire them out on a temporary basis to friends, acquaintances or total strangers, as workers or … whatever.
And of course NOBODY (pimps) would ever wnat to be the FIRST (pimps) to buys a sexbot. There’ll be no pre-existing market (pimps brothels) for automated sex workers that don’t get a cut of the money and can’t be arrested because they’re not human and can’t be made pregant or diseased for the same reason.
I see the sex industry driving the initial prodjuction of lifelike sexbots and everybody else getting in on it when the price comes down.
And of course, the nastiest insult in Joan Rivers’ vocabulary? “She dresses like a SEXBOT!”
I’m fairly dubious about the idea that everyone will want to own such a thing.
There are a good number of people who aren’t especially interested in sex. There are also a good (and I suspect significantly larger) number of people whose sexual responses are partner-specific, keyed to the other person’s responses and interest. If there were a social pressure to have sexbots, I’d suspect that members of those groups would only do so to fit in, not because they have any particular interest in same. I suspect they’d be joined in that by the people who are happy using various sorts of sex toys, but find the concept of a bot too weird for words.
If everyone wants one of these things – if it’s a socially common and acceptable thing – then of course thefts will be reported, because there would be no stigma involved. If one presumes that there remains a stigma, then the “everyone wants it” I just can’t see as being supportable; if everyone wants something, having it is not a sign of loserdom.
I’d suspect sexbot brothels would be a pretty immediate response. At a guess, I’d speculate that that would lead to some legal wrangling (either to try to end them, or to resolve what was actually legal there). Eventually, I’d suspect lobbying for the establishment of legal real-human brothels as the high end of the service, like the difference between fast food and a sit-down dinner with human service.
HIJACK! Hey Cal, thirteen dwarves, not fifteen.END HIJACK
Enjoy,
Steven
Sily to say everybody; there are few true universals.
My boyfriend suggested this possibility during a conversation on the subject last night…
While a lot of sexbots would be as close to human in appearance as possible, some would have funtionality that human beings lack. Vibrating sex organs, vibrating tongues, suction capacity in places that normally don’t have such, etcetera. Let your imagination roam, if you will.
Now, I’d already projected the possibilty that there may be people who find themselves unable to climax with another human being; once accustomed to having a sexbot, they may not be able to adapt to having sex with a partner who has needs. Given these enhancements, I think it’s pretty likely that, just as some people have trouble climaxing without the aid of their hands, or vibrators, some people will become sexually dependent on sexbots.
OK, ALMOST everyone …
Still not happy I see …
Almost all regular guys …
All right then …
MOST guys.
And that’s as fer as I’m a goin’.
Well, I’m a regular guy, I think, and the idea doesn’t appeal to me at all … partly, because I want more than sex from a relationship …
… but also - you have your programmable sexbot, right? Let’s assume that all the bugs have been worked out, and that there’s no pesky morality legislation telling you what you can and can’t do with your bot. So … you have a perfectly responsive sex partner now, don’t you, who will meet all your needs, however you want them … so, what happens when you’re still not happy? Wouldn’t having a perfect partner throw all your flaws into sharp relief? (To pick a very crude example; how do you feel, the first time you can’t get it up for your sexbot?)
Steven,
What else do you want that you couldn’t get from a friend? In my mind, the biggest difference from a good friend and a “relationship” is the sexual part. IMHO most people associate emotional closeness with a “relationship”, but these can be separate. I am emotional close to several people and love them, but there is no sexual feelings.
I think that given the option to have realistic sex with an always willing partner would eventually lead to people not feeling the need to build up a relationship that will also facilitate those “needs”. As such, much of the emotional attachment people have could be given to other people and the pressure of sex would be gone. Women wouldn’t have to worry about leading a guy on and men would be less likely to desire to get into a girl’s pants.
Procreation would be the main reason people would form a relationship bond. But, even in todays world, that it fading (if one looks at the numbers of single parents).
Mind you, I am looking at this through very Jaded eyes. Of all of the people I know, only my parents in any way seem like they should be a couple. The rest all complain constantly about their SO, and it seems like the relationship is the largest cause of stress in their lives (without an equal ammount of stress relief coming from the relationship). It is because of this that I feel that emotions were simply natures way of keeping our species from dying out. Were it not there, people would not put up with the crap.
sghoul, as far as I’m concerned, the problem is more or less the other way around. It’s not that I can’t be friends with someone without having a sexual relationship - it’s that I can’t envisage a sexual relationship with someone (or thing) I can’t be friends with. (Does this mean that I never engage the services of prostitutes? Why, yes, in fact, it does.)
So … I don’t want sex, however mechanically “perfect” (and, I repeat, a “perfect” partner is just going to highlight my own imperfections), with anyone (or anything) that I can’t be engaged with on an emotional level … and I don’t have it in me to get that attached to machinery. So, for me at least, imperfect, fallible, exasperating, but ultimately loveable, human women are the way to go.
(One particular human woman, I hasten to add … )