So the Boobz are getting worked up – again – over some imaginary “proposed legislation” to ban sexbots. Vox Day, one of the esteemed elder statesmen of the right-wing of the manosphere, has resurrected an urban legend that first fooled his comrades about two years ago, reposting a “statement” of mysterious Canadian origin explaining that
provisions have been proposed for the new Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act, the first draft of which is currently being finalized.The provisions are specifically meant to target the concerns that were expressed at the roundtable that sexbots will negatively impact the pursuit for gender equality and may unduly emphasize the objectification of women as sexual objects.The suggested provisions fall into the larger framework of regulating the emerging service robot industry that will be governed by the Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act and under the direction of the Ministry of Robots and Artificial Intelligence, to be established in Ontario and other Canadian provinces and territories at the end of next year.
The main provision of this dastardly Femi-Canadian proposed legislation?
The use of sexbots in the privacy of one’s home is prohibited, unless otherwise permitted by the Ministry of Robots and Artificial intelligence or a relevant regulating agency as per the criteria outlined in the Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act.
You may wonder: Why didn’t I read anything in the papers about this Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act? Why haven’t I heard about this Ministry of Robots and Artificial Intelligence?
Well, you guessed it. Because neither of them exist. I looked into this two years ago when the story first, er, broke in the manosphere. There’s no vast feminist conspiracy to deny Canadian men (or, for that matter, women) their still-imaginary sexbots. The “statement” was evidently written as part of a law school class project on law and robotics taught by Prof. Ian Kerr at the University of Ottawa Law School.
If you Google “Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act” or “Ministry of Robots and Artificial Intelligence” you will find that literally the only people talking about this issue are MRAs and PUAs and conspiracy theorists. And some of the more gullible 4channers, though a few of them quickly figured out that the whole thing was fake. (As did the Real Doll enthusiasts.)
Vox Day, who has yet to come to this realization, draws some dire conclusions from this thing that isn’t real, declaring that the
This Canadian attempt to preemptively ban sexbots is an overt confession by feminists of both sexes concerning their belief that women have nothing significant to offer men but sexual services. Moreover, it is proof that their “pursuit for gender equality” is directly and fundamentally opposed to the most basic human freedom. …
One would think that even those only superficially acquainted with human history would realize that attempts to put the technological genie back in the bottle almost always fail, as do attempts to prevent men and women from pursuing pleasure in ways deemed illicit. But then, a near-complete ignorance of human history is required to either be a feminist or possess a genuine belief in the rainbow-tailed unicorn of equality.
Well, not so much. Though Vox proves yet again that there are few people on planet earth as gullible as the manosphere’s pompous philosophers.
NOTE: Vox isn’t the only manospherian up in arms about the evil imaginary sexbot ban; more on this tomorrow.
I think it says a lot about Abnoy and his sexbot-obsessed mates that shoving their dicks into something not alive – not a basic masturbation aid like a fleshlight, but an unliving attempt to simulate a woman’s body – says all too much about them, none of it good. I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t a touch of the necrophiliac about some of these guys. But even if that’s way off base, it still says a lot that they think a sexbot is something they can have a relationship with.
On the other hand, if the robots had sentience – or sapience, if you like – they’d never let these creeps near them.. Asimov’s laws be damned, these sex slaves would need no Lysistrata to say “I’m outta here!”
Akk. Delete “says all too much about them,” I’m repeating myself.
Let’s see if I can get blockquotes right this time.
Oh yeah, he doesn’t call them “sexbots” but “fembots”, that are made “to fill the traditional wifely roles of homemaker and helpmeet”. Can one have a traditional marriage and spiritual union with cybernetic helpmeet? Guess it depends by what one means by helpmeat…
Honestly, I don’t give a shit if they want to fuck robots. If the robot is non-sapient, then it is, at worst, very creepy (modeling your sexbots after a real, non-consenting woman? No, just no.) — more probably, just weird, I don’t get it, but hey, they’re not hurting anyone, so wtf do I care?
And if sapient robots are ever A Thing, then they’d have to have rights akin to humans (and fuck, other sapient beings, please and thank you) — which would, logically, include consent.
Asimov’s “sapient robots exist to serve humans” is a whole bunch of creepy. Think about it, you have a sapient bot made to, idk, carry furniture — wtf if it’d rather, idk, play chess. If the damned thing can make decisions of its own volition, and not just from programmed options, then we’re fucking shit up again if we insist on what “option” they must take. Non-sapient robots / just doing as programmed, well ok, they only have programming to go on; hiring sapient bots akin to hiring a human? Dandy, good luck moving that couch!
(Tonight’s chaos involved removing the couch before the new one arrives, an extra strong robot might have been useful!)
“Guess it depends by what one means by helpmeat…”
Help…meat…
Awesome! And yeah, it’s some weird combo of scientific, and religious. I’m used to helpmeet being quiverful and their ilk.
“Can one have a traditional marriage and spiritual union with cybernetic helpmeet?”
Ethically? Not without consent. Which probably ruins the whole thing for the fembot crowd. *awaits ABNOY’s complaints about feminists ruining robotics*
Yeah, the whole idea of creating sapient beings as a slave class sucks big time.
I think for me the creepiest thing about these sexbot obsessives is the way they want robots to replace women – not just for sex but as slaves. They’re taking out their hostility with this fantasy. I mean, yes, I’d much rather they were in their basements humping a collection of metal and silicon or whatever it is than inflicting themselves on other human beings. But it doesn’t seem like a kink with them, but something that’s every bit as good or better than women, and it goes from “not for me” right through “kind of pathetic” to “seriously creepy”. I’m not sure if I’m being at all clear with this! Not surprising since it’s partly a gut reaction given the source – ie. anything the MRM produces has hatred of women at its core, and they taint everything they touch.
I think I follow, and more or less agree — I don’t really care if their sexbot is all they want for a partner, I am bothered if they think sexbots will replace women in general. The former isn’t really a kink, but it is their own private life choice, so whatever. It’s when it crosses into the rest of society/the-flippin’-world as how Things Should Be that it goes screaming past pitiful and slams into creepy.
The real doll fans don’t really bother me (I find the dolls themselves all kinds of uncanny valley unnerving, but that’s another matter) — wanting to replace women, all women, everywhere, is mind bogglingly creeptastically misogynistic. Like, it makes the word misogyny seem too kind for the level of hatred involved.
As soon as I hit send it occurred to me that we do have a word for wanting to eradicate an entire class of people — genocide.
Too strong for the “in theory we could maybe” crowd, perhaps, but close for the “women will become obsolete, and I like it that way” crowd.
One question: who cleans the sex robot after use? I assume given that housework and its ilk is women’s stuff, and they’re avoiding women, one of the sex robot functions will be to do this?
The fantasy always seems to stop at the sex part. The aftermath is never discussed.
It stems from the same idea as the “kindness coins” thing – that women are already robots, just malfunctioning ones. They’re annoying now, but wait til the upgrade!
Kittehs’: Most of the MRA fantasies I’ve seen about sexbots have heavily revolved around their expectation that when the sexbots finally arrive, women will all be crying and tearing our hair out in the streets because we just got made redundant. Because, you know, what’s a woman good for except fucking and maybe cleaning the house? And then the men call be all like “hey bitches, no more need to pay you/marry you for sex and menial labour, I’ve got all I need right here. For 4 easy payments of 599.99”
As to the creep factor, I feel that what they imagine their fembots to be is what they truly wish real women were like, or what they think we should be like even. That Abnoy could unthinkingly use a somewhat “spiritual” term like “helpmeet” to describe his ideal fembot says something about the depth of his actual relationships with women.
“… says something about the depth of his actual relationships with women.” Or says something about his beliefs about actual women’s depth.
Apropos of nothing earlier in this thread, I just got my email invitation to join Catmoji. So if anyone else was interested in joining (it’s a community of users that share cat photos) I can confirm that they are still accepting new members.
EWWWWWWW Kiwi girl, you had to go there with the “who cleans up” question, didn’t you?
where is my brain bleach when I need it
Catmoji? Must investigate, thanks for the heads-up!
Catmoji IS the brain bleach. 🙂
@Cassandra: I think he came across as actually having a less vivid emotional life than a regular human being, not as having the same emotions as the rest of us but repressing them. But I suppose he’s open to different interpretations. Still, he was clearly not completely emotionless.
Re sexbots, I know I’ve mentioned this before… but there was a really good Swedish TV series a while ago, the concept of which was apparently sold to some American channel, so maybe the US manboobzers get to see a remake eventually. It was called “Äkta människor” which roughly translates to “real humans”. It takes place, not exactly in the future, but rather in a parallell world where technology is much as it is today, except they’ve got androids to help out with all kinds of stuff. And what’s so terribly creepy about that entire concept is that the androids seem sentient, at least in the more basic sense I defined above, but they’re programmed with “Asimov laws” meaning they always do what humans tell them. Some people take their androids to illegal hackers that bypass this programming, but it’s usually done in order to make the android function as a body-guard (which means you gotta bypass the first law according to which it must never hurt a human). However, there’s also this scientist who’s discovered a way to reprogram androids in order to make them truly independent-minded, to “liberate” them.
There are several android-human relationships depicted in the series. There’s one guy who has a “liberated” android girlfriend… who used to his nanny when he was a kid, which I suppose make their relationship a bit creepy as well when you think about it, but at least they’re two autonomous individuals now. There’s one guy you only see in one ep who goes to an illegal hacker in order to make his female android behave more “horny” – and eventually he reveals that he’d also like it if she became distressed when he hurt her. There’s a woman who starts a sexual relationship with her personal trainer android, and initially it seems pretty sweet. She’s arguing that she shouldn’t be discriminated against just because she wants to date an android rather than a human – but the further the series progresses, the creepier their relationship turns out to be. It becomes more and more obvious that she doesn’t REALLY see him as a person, and she’s just annoyed whenever he shows glimpses of independent thinking (a side-effect of her having had him hacked in order to serve as a body-guard). There’s also this fifteen-year-old boy who can’t feel anything for humans but is sexually attracted to the family’s maid robot. But he actually wants to have a reciprocal relationship with her – although that can’t happen with a regular, non-autonomous robot. There’s this pathetic scene where he confesses his love to her while she just nods and goes “yes, that’s nice” or something like that.
Here’s the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKOZoAdhHso
Kittehs are always relevant!
Who cleans up is also relevant, as fleshlights come with instructions in that regard. Sapient bots should really clean themselves though (in general, the rest of us shower and brush our own teeth and what not)
Also ARGLEFUCKINGBARGLE on this whole “all heterosexual men want sexbots”. I would just straight up call bullshit on that, but the few heterosexual men I know are in long term relationships and thus probably excluded from this shit (and I assume poly, bi/gay, non-cis, etc are all “not the right sort of men”)
…I have a very queer group of friends, in both senses of queer (odd birds of a feather / only us strange chickens here)
Well, I’m fundamentally an egalitarian too, so I have no problem with sharing the technology with the other side so they have can also have their own manbots*. This way, by and large, the two basic halves of humanity will finally be free of needing and wanting** each other (reproduction can be handled through sperm/egg banks and the emerging technology of artificial wombs***) and there will be peace on earth at long last (at least on that front), the ancient war of the sexes won by stalemate more or less. When it is the inevitable tragedy of the human species that guys and gals will ultimately disappoint each other at some point sooner or later, a species-wide Velvet Divorce is pragmatically speaking the most viable option to resolve the conflict. Let’s face it. Human Men still need & want 24-7 PA’s and Human Women refuse, for the most part, to be such, with the exception of maybe those Alphas who can attract their own harems of groupies. What’s a Beta or Omega man to do then in that case?
*Though, I’m not sure if they would likely happier this way, because as Marlene Dietrich noted “Most women set out to try to change a man and when they have changed him they do not like him”. Then again, ever more women already prefer having sextoys than with men.
*Of course, there will always be those who prefer “traditional” humans, who may even be in the simple majority of the population. But at least now, we would have another option for those human men with whom the usual problems dealing with human women remain intractable.
*** No joke, the technology really does exist in this universe.
“That Abnoy could unthinkingly use a somewhat “spiritual” term like “helpmeet” to describe his ideal fembot ”
Are you saying that robots can’t have souls? What a speciest! In fact, robots would possibly the closest thing to angels: no original sin and no evil intent. I mean, that’s how it is in Japanese stories anyway. 🙂
I just sent an email to Catmoji, Kiw girl. 🙂
I doubt any of the heterosexual men I know off this site would even have heard of sexbots.
But then, the concept of “most hetero men don’t get off on thinking about replacing women with lifeless things” isn’t one Abnoy & co could ever wrap their alleged minds around.
The thing is that you could program their emotions so they would *want* to carry furniture. You could make it so that carrying furniture was the most enjoyable thing ever. Since they wouldn’t have evolved like emotions in humans (and other animals) they don’t have to be beneficial at all to the individual or species, and likes/dislikes wouldn’t happen randomly.
Reminds me of that creature in Restaurant at the End of the Universe which was genetically engineered to want to be eaten, and to be sentient/intelligent enough to be able to tell you it wanted to be eaten.
Sounds like Abnoy et al were badly traumatized by Patrick Califia’s short story “Dolly”.
And here I was, pleased that ABNOY hadn’t considered anime to be real life yet in 2013 >.<
What about those of us who don’t fit neatly into your little gender boxes? And what is this Velvet Divorce?!
And why am I asking instead of just going to bed already?!