Sex robots are already here, and they will rapidly grow more Stepford-like.
In the film, they are designed to be indistinguishable from human women in bed, are able to simulate desire, and to append all the expected peripheral behaviors to sexual acts. They are intended to give their users whatever pleasure is asked of them, without conditions, without consequences. And they are so life-like, they believe they are alive.
We will later meet a female android created by a man who seeks a true partner, an intellectual equal as well as a lover, an artificial woman of real substance and feeling. But Stepford wives aren’t that; they’re simply very advanced sex toys, animated fantasy women. And they are almost on our doorstep today.
In 2016, a Chinese AI engineer named Zheng Jiajia faced a disheartening dilemma: at 31, he was under pressure from family and friends to marry, but had found that he simply could not compete in the real world. He was unable to attract a mate, possibly due to his country's one-child-per-family policy, which has led to the practice of sex-selective abortion, resulting in more males than females in the general population.
Applying his professional skills to his problem, Zheng crafted a partner for himself, just as the fictional Flint did. He literally built himself a woman.
Naming her Ying-Ying, he even went so far as to marry her in an unofficial ceremony attended by his mother and friends. He even wrapped her head in a red cloth, as tradition called for.
Ying-Ying cannot walk. But she can speak a little, can recognize images - and Zheng takes her to work with him each day. She will someday be given upgrades, Zheng has said, so that she can do chores.
This is a bit of a jaw drop, but the truth is that sex dolls - life-size silicone simulacrums of human women and men, with whom actual human women and men can have sex - have been with us for a few years now, and have become quite the luxury item. As futurists and technologists have been assuring us for some time, sex robots are the inevitable next step - and they are beginning to appear.
The difference between doll and robot amounts to responsiveness: a sex doll does not react to the mating acts of its user; a sex robot is able to see and hear the user, and offer spoken responses. Those responses are limited, of course; but even a simulated sigh or ecstatic outcry is enough to make a huge difference for some. And the most sophisticated models are able to learn about their human partners, to a very limited degree, and offer a very limited range of conversation, making them even more user-friendly.
Doll or robot, these sex commodities are, unsurprisingly, deeply controversial.
But they are also inevitable, and will change us more and more as we develop and improve them.
The controversies are what you'd expect: Sex with a robot or doll is the same as cheating! They are no substitute for true intimacy! They will dehumanize us! They could be hacked, making them blackmailers or assassins for the hackers! The list goes on.
Alice Vaughn of the Two Girls, One Mic podcast, doesn't see a problem:
"There are a myriad of reasons why someone would want to purchase a sex doll," she said on The Thinking Atheist podcast in 2019. "The most common that you're going to hear are persons who say, 'I'm just tired of being alone'... 'I don't want the head games'...'My spouse and I have a sexless relationship'... 'With dolls, I can be myself.' These are people who either are in struggling relationships where they're not being sexually fulfilled, or they're people who just had a number of experiences with others that just didn't pan out, and they're frustrated. And I can understand and relate to that, frankly. I think most people can: if you just have shitty relationship after relationship, wouldn't something that gives a lot of the appeal of a human being, that might resolve the frustration, wouldn't that be appealing? to at least give you some release?"
She offered other reasons. "There's also the flexibility and submissiveness, allowing you to try any sexual stunt without cheating or risk of an STD or STI. You can potentially use a sex doll as a couple without any judgment, do a threesome, in the case of failing marriages, or even losing a partner, which is very hurting and can take time, you know, before going into another relationship."
Vaughn's optimism is shared by many. The company Real Doll believes its male love robots will become utterly suitable and desired substitutes for actual men, not only able to speak and listen, but to offer up a stored narrative - a personal history! - and personality traits that are compatible with their owner. The relationship, the company claims, will even be unique and, therefore, special. Put another way, sex robots are poised not only to fill a niche market, but to one day enter the mainstream.
Let's think about how all of this is going to play out.
First, let's remember that we're talking about technology, and it's technology that is poised to be very, very popular. Today a quality sex doll can cost $5,000 or more, and a sex robot up to ten times that much - but that cost will fall to the barest fraction of that amount, when sex robots are mass-produced, just as the cost of any new technology drops when it goes viral. Digital calculators initially cost hundreds of dollars; today, you can buy one for pocket change.
Then let's consider whether Vaughn is right about the "toy" factor: no matter how lifelike, a sex robot is ultimately an appliance, just an ultra-sophisticated vibrator or dildo or fleshlight with Siri built in. Unless you watch the 700 Club, that means zero-judgment sex, pregnancy- and STD-free, for many if not most who desire it.
As prices fall and availability increases, these robots will begin taking up residence in homes - and, inevitably, dorms, college fraternity and sorority houses. They will become party participants. Given their accountability-free nature, they could usher in a sharp increase in selective group sex. That will certainly tilt our cultural sensitivities, for better or worse.
They will make homosexual sex easier to explore, also consequence- and shame-free, for those who are naturally inclined toward it. That, too, will significantly impact our social frame - probably for the better.
As Vaughn predicts, synthetic partners will be invited into real relationships. Couples who might never even think about including another human in their private intimacy, even though they desire it, could easily integrate an artificial one.
Sex robots could - and certainly will - be used to teach sexual technique, a desperately-needed social function. They could - and certainly will - replace human brothels, and may be positioned to decimate human trafficking.
On the downside, it is easy to imagine a person in a relationship with another person abandoning that relationship, if challenges arise, for the ease of an artificial relationship with a synthetic one. Or turning to the robot, rather than the partner, leaving the partner still in the relationship but sexually ignored. It is also easy to imagine the anything-goes nature of human-robot sex bringing down shame and judgment upon a partner who is unable to comply with a robot user's over-the-top desires.
Then there's the door that might open in some people who are monogamous, once they've tasted of silicone promiscuity, indulging that taste back among human partners, to their own detriment.
All of this isn't just possible; all of it, every last bit of it, is inevitable. All of it.
And there's another thing we can be absolutely certain of: as sex robots become ubiquitous, integrated into the marketplace and ultimately embedded as a permanent feature of society, the market will demand that they grow more and more sophisticated, more and more lifelike, as their economic success attracts the resources to drive the technology forward. It will, you can be certain, happen at astonishing speed. We can even anticipate that the evolution of androids in the human story will be driven, not by their potential role as workers and labor-savers, but as lovers.
And a final thought, as certain as those above: the introduction of artificial sex partners into the human equation, despite whatever benefits accrue, ultimately won't change the one thing that needs changing.
We were, as a species, sexually crippled before they came along. We have been for many thousands of years. Patriarchy and inequality gave us misogyny, to the horrific detriment of both women and men, tearing our social intimacy asunder, ripping us apart, depriving us of the deep fellowship that kept us alive for three million moons. We'll still be crippled later, regardless of how sex robots evolve and how we integrate with them. What's broken inside us has made human intimacy less than it should be, as far back as memory goes - and robots can never fix that.
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