Yesterday we looked at far-right manospheran clod/philosopher Vox Day’s melodramatic response to a Canadian sexbot ban that’s completely imaginary (but that Vox, natch, believed was real). Today, let’s look at an almost 3000-word post by one “Ian Ironwood” of the Red Pill Room, spelling out the dire implications of this imaginary legislation.
ProTip: Before writing 3000-word screeds denouncing something, spend 5 minutes with Teh Google to see if what you’re denouncing is in fact real.
Ironwood opens his argument with this dramatic (if slightly ironic) assertion:
The Sexbot threat to feminism is real.
No one wants to admit it, but it’s coming. Indeed, the only people who recognize it as such are the radical feminists and the radical nerds, and rarely do folks take those groups at face value when they speak. But they both have it right, sexbots are in our future. Indeed, they’re closer than you think, and their capacity to seriously screw with the SMP is very, very real.
For those not fully versed in the pseudoscience of pickup artistry, SMP stands for “sexual marketplace.”
Ian starts us off with a little trip to Japan:
Japan, the undisputed global leaders in male masturbation technology, are [sic] investing literally millions in research into this market. Why? Because of the herbivores.
The “herbivores” are the adult males (I hesitate to call them men) in Japanese society who have opted out of the dating-and-mating SMP entirely. In consideration of the exhausting and complex web of social and financial penalties involved, these men have just . . . given up on women.
Manospherians like to pretend that Japan’s much-discussed “herbivores” are essentially the Japanese version of Men Going Their Own Way. I’m no expert on Japan but even I know that’s a bit of an oversimplification.
Naturally, in Ian’s mind, it’s all the fault of those uppity ladies:
You think American women feel entitled? Japanese “princesses” put them to shame. Their demands and requirements for a husband are often so grandiose or unrealistic that they have turned-off an entire generation of Japanese men to the very idea of marriage, just at the point where their female contemporaries, themselves working in corporate jobs, are starting to consider it.
But when your day consists of going to work in a cube farm and playing the corporate warrior competing with women all day, apparently it saps your desire to deal with them all night, too.
So, naturally, these poor cube farming herbivores are turning to vagina replacements:
Long an important part of international sex culture, the last few decades have seen rapid advances in masturbation technology, including the disposable Tenga “egg” stroker you can buy in a vending machine for those long lunch hours. Japanese dudes whack it a lot, and that’s big business.
And soon – oh, so soon — Japanese masturbation technology will be able to replace not just vaginas but entire women:
[B]y 2018, and certainly by 2020, we’ll see animatronic Sexbots available for purchase that you will not be able to distinguish from a human being more than ten feet away.
Ian, I will bet you literally a billion gazillion dollars that you are wrong about this.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Ian is correct, and let him continue his most interesting – and increasingly NSFW — survey of the future.
Every aspect of the phenomenon is being developed: realistic-feeling skin, realistic-looking eyes, realistic-sounding voice, realistic weight and mass, realistic movements …
The current state-of-the-art is still primitive, but that’s changing rapidly. By 2020 your Sexbot will be able to walk, talk, see, hear, suck, fuck, give you an endless handjob, take it up her vibrating butt and do stuff no mortal woman can.
“Endless Handjob” is going to be the name of my ambient-drone cassette label.
You will be able to order them in any style, from African to Asian to European to Latin and beyond, any height, any weight, and you will be able to personalize them to suit your particular fetish. Advanced models will have changeable bust sizes and other options. Hair, eyes, and accent? Standard options.
I am glad to hear that sexbots will indeed have eyes as an option. It would be sort of weird otherwise. Can they have more than two? Could they have eyes instead of nipples, and nipples instead of eyes? Could you simply swap out various body parts as if your sexbot were some giant sexy Mrs. Potatohead?
Sorry, I’m getting a bit carried away with all the possibilities.
Let’s go back to Ian’s post, which is sounding more and more like some sort of sexbot informercial.
And just how much will dudes have to shell out to get a perfectly-programmed girlfriend delivered to their door?
About the price of an economy car. Estimates indicate that the best consumer price-point for a Sexbot is about US$7,000.00 (2013). Leases will likely be available. So will financing. But for the average dude, shelling out that kind of cash for the perfect sexual companion is a no-brainer.
I’m pretty sure Ian isn’t thinking with his brain at this point. Heck, he’s even wrong about the cars: a decent economy car is going to cost you at least twice that, and most of them don’t even have vibrating butts.
Imagine a dude getting home from work in his single apartment. His Sexbot has been pre-programmed to start his dinner and have it ready on demand. She greets him at the door, asks about his day, gets his dinner, and then spends the rest of the evening satisfying him any way he chooses. With a sophisticated AI (one of the major focuses of the effort) she will be able to converse with you on nearly any topic or stay blissfully silent. And you don’t even have to ask about how her day went.
After two years, trade her in for a newer, more advanced model. Repeat as necessary.
And fellas, this stunningly realistic female human being replacement, with a vibrating butt and as many eyes as you want, will be yours for less than half the cost of a cheap car – in as little as six years from now!
And heck, these sexbots won’t just replace women – they’ll even replace women who are whores.
Our children’s generation will look forward to a whole lot of men (if Japan is any indication, over half) depending on Sexbots for their erotic entertainment over actual human beings. Even whores. Because sexbots are safer than prostitutes by any estimation.
Sounds like life for heterosexual-yet-woman-hating men will become some sort of wondrous sexual utopia!
What could possibly stand in the way of this glorious dream?
Oh, you guessed it already: jealous, and probably ugly, feminists – who for some reason apparently want all of the woman-hating straight men for themselves.
Ian trots out that wholly imaginary Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act that we talked about yesterday. The “proposed law” that turned out to have been an assignment in a law school class about law and robotics. The law that Ian didn’t bother to Google before writing his long, long screed.
Ian is as worked up about this imaginary law as he is excited about his imaginary robot girlfriend(s) of the future. “[T]he thinly-veiled, incredibly obvious motivation behind this freakish proposed law,” he thunders, is that
feminists are upset because when dudes can buy a girlfriend for less money than an engagement ring, and then have elective temporary vasectomies to cover their bases for the few times they do end up with a real woman, then the future looks an awful lot like a male paradise and a female hell.
Wait, now all men are getting vasectomies as well? Even though they have no reason to bother with mere human females, what with all their talking and their lack of vibrating butts? I’m a little confused now.
What happens when you’re a woman, you want to be a mom, but not only can’t you find a husband . . . you can’t even find decent sperm? When in order to conceive, you have to convince a dude to commit to providing you with semen, which he can do only AFTER he consciously gets his vasectomy reversed? No surprise pregnancies, no one-night-stands gone wrong, suddenly the only way a woman can get pregnant is if she can convince a man to commit to her? If she can even find one who is interested? …
What happens in our society when a majority of working women can’t find husbands – or even dates, thanks to the Sexbot craze – and end up working and paying taxes to subsidize other women’s childbearing? What happens when a dude with superior genetics can start a bidding war on his balls?
Yeah, but what if Japanese women develop ROBOT SPERM and use it to get pregnant and somehow force men to pay child support for their new human-robot hybrid babies? Did you ever consider THAT, Ian?
I’m not quite sure how all of that would work, exactly, but, hey, the Japanese are awfully clever so presumably they could whip up something like this in, oh, six to eight years or so, right?
But let’s just assume that my idea of robot sperm remains a pipe dream, and that Ian’s pipe dreams somehow become reality. He continues:
The temporary vasectomy is literally just a few years away. Throw in Sexbots, and suddenly men have reproductive power the likes of which they’ve never dreamed, even at the height of the Agricultural Age. They will decide when they conceive as a conscious choice, not as a whim of Nature. Have a bad date with yet-another desperate woman who only wants you for your sperm? Kandi the Asian 19year old Sexbot will make it all better.
Why is her name Kandi? Is that a common name in Asia?
And that’s why feminists are trying to ban them. Not because they “objectify” women, but because they make women largely redundant to men. Suddenly the allure of their genitalia will pale in comparison to the outrageous sexual bombshells rolling off of the Kyoto assembly lines.
I’m sorry; I just love that last sentence there so much I have to repeat it:
Suddenly the allure of their genitalia will pale in comparison to the outrageous sexual bombshells rolling off of the Kyoto assembly lines.
Ian dreams on:
Sexbots will actually cure a plethora of social ills: STDs, AIDS, unwanted pregnancy, sexual frustration, loneliness, heartbreak, child sexual exploitation, and more. Far from making men objectify women . . . it will merely make them ignore them. Men with Sexbots won’t treat women poorly, because more likely than not, once they have the “perfect” programmed girlfriend at home, there really won’t be any reason to interact with women unless you’re at work.
Yes, because aside from sticking his penis in them, there is clearly no possible reason why a man would ever want to have anything to do with women.
Just imagine a society where any man can get his ashes hauled at any time, in any way, without having to ask a live woman to participate. Just imagine a society where women can’t get “accidentally” pregnant anymore. Not only is the impetus to marry absolutely killed, but even the impetus to mix with the opposite sex. And that’s what is scaring feminists, not the potential for objectification.
Yes, I’m sure feminist women are crying themselves to sleep at the notion that asswipes like Ian will refuse to “mix” with them any more.
Happily, for him, Ian concludes that the (wholly imaginary) Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act won’t stand up in court. Because of NAFTA, or something. (I kind of skimmed this bit.) But then he’s back to imagining the wondrous possibilities of a sexbotted-up world. Which apparently involves a lot of robot dismemberment.
Just imagine the result if sex with “realistic” Sexbots is actually made illegal . . . why not just pop an alien head on? Or a animatronic animal head? Or just a silvery glass sphere? That’s the real danger for women when it comes to Sexbots: their ability to be customized in ways no woman would ever consent to.
Uh, I’m pretty sure no living creature, regardless of gender, would consent to having their head “popped off” and replaced with a sphere.
Can’t have a “realistic” full-body Sexbot? Then just buy her from the waist down. And then next year spring for a separate torso and head. You can use them separately, or together!
Who needs a human girlfriend when you can just fuck a torso?
Cant’ have a Sexbot that portrays a minor? Get a really, really small model, and no one knows what happens in your imagination.
How thoughtful! So even pedophiles will have a place in Ian’s sexbot utopia.
So while imaginary feminists propose imaginary laws to fight the coming sexbot utopia, Ian will be licking his chops.
I, for one, will be welcoming our new Sexbot masters. It’s going to tighten up the SMP worse than gay liberation did. And it’s going to make shallow, poor-quality women completely and utterly undatable, and leave them little or no options to reproduce. And the women who do reproduce will do so only with the permission, consent and acquiescence of men.
I’m beginning to wonder if this “red pill” is actually some sort of hallucinogenic.
I feel bad when I don’t change my soft toys’ clothes to suit the weather – seasonally, at least.
I wonder if MRAs ever had toys they cared about?
My MRA name is Orlando Stickmixerstainlesssteel. bit of a mouthful…
@Kiwi girl – I know! I mean, first off, if the majority of women are not having sex with someone who can impregnate them, there wouldn’t be very many pregnancies, so why would subsidizing them be a problem? Would those non-pregnant women want to support the precious few babies in order to protect the survival of the species? Second, men going their own sexbot way would be the ones refusing to pass down their genes, so *if* it did lead to the collapse of a humanity… that’s somehow not their fault? *boggle*
(disclaimer: not only women can be pregnant, I’m speaking from the MRA POV momentarily)
In other Manboobz-related news, the Reddit Islanders need to get in on this plan to turn an island in the Detroit River into Galt’s Gulch:
http://wonkette.com/496672/go-galt-in-detroits-centrally-planned-puerto-rico-for-rich-jerks#more-496672
@drst Yes! 🙂 And the total reason I have never been pregnant is because of all those sex robots that already exist. “I don’t want to have children,” said by NO woman ever in the absence of sex robots.
Then there are those that cannot have children through biological reasons. For those people I am sorry, and I hope this hasn’t been a triggering conversation for you.
Righto, I’m off for another ostepathic knee-wrangling session. Or knee-mangling, depending on how you look at it. Catch yez later!
Someone else already pointed this out, but nope. You can’t use the likeness of a person to sell or promote a product without their consent. There’s no First Amendment protection for commerce. A sexbot wouldn’t be a parody by any possible definition. And if this should ever start to become an issue, famous people could trademark their names and likenesses, which would afford them even more protection, since trademark law is much stricter than copyright law. It’s why commercials frequently use “Our stuff is so much better than Generic Brand X!” instead of a competitor’s name. They can’t risk infringing on trademark.
Also to make a realistic sexbot with a person’s face and body would require high-res pictures/scans far more sophisticated than what they currently can do. The best results would be something like an action figure, and that looks almost nothing like the person it’s based on. That lack of accuracy would interfere with selling it as “looking like” someone and as I said, you can’t use someone’s name to sell shit without their consent.
And even the photos and data they need to make action figures with current technology are not something you could obtain without the consent of the person. Again, if this came to pass, I’m sure there would be laws in place and the actor’s unions, for example, would have strict rules written into contracts about controlling those kinds of images and keeping them out of the wrong hands. Only the porn industry would probably be on board with this.
Replication of the likeness of a private citizen for either personal use or for a product would be illegal as well, since a private citizen has a far higher expectation of privacy than a celebrity. So sorry Ian. You’re not going to be able to get a sexbot that looks like that one girl who once had coffee with you and then refused to fuck you. Your revenge will have to come some other way.
There’d have to be a reasonable argument in that pile of delusional garbage for us to respond to first.
@Kiwi girl – indeed. And good point about the infertility thing. I apologize for any stress this conversation may have caused.
And now, unlike Steelebutt Varpole, I am actually leaving for the night.
@Kiwi- But we are TEH WIMMINZ. EVERYTHING is our fault! Because clearly we are scaring men who want to be attentive, caring fathers to their children away from reproducing because of our beastliness!
@drst- Magnificent takedown. Have a trophy.
Emphasis mine. Dude, you seriously just answered your own question. What happens to working women who are already paying taxes if they can’t get dates, get married or have kids? Same thing that usually happens even if they get dates or get married or have kids. They most likely keep working and keep paying taxes. According to this guy, I’m already “subsidizing other women’s childbearing”, and I’m pretty meh about that. I mean, I’d rather we more readily subsidized better contraceptives so that way there’d be potentially fewer people who found themselves having trouble with unplanned pregnancy, but I’m ok with “subsidizing other women’s childbearing” because the other name for that is “not letting children in struggling families starve”.
But, you know, as others have said, this dys/utopian future of Ian’s basically means unplanned pregnancies would be extremely rare, so basically theoretically everyone would work, fuck their sexbots, and be single parents. Ok, sure. It sounds kind of unrealistic and is operating basically on totally horrible assumptions of men (assuming all men just want sex slaves) but of all potential futures, this one is ranking somewhere in the middle. It’s not super cheery, but way less scary than the Atwoodian nightmare it seems like a lot of U.S. politician are determined to head for.
@ostara- and wouldn’t the sexbot-having men still have to pay taxes anyway? Maybe even to support some of the children of some of the sexbot-having men?
*mind boggles*
“@Penny- or she. I shouldn’t assume.”
He : )
These guys act like women invented marriage. Women, in fact, did not. And hello, show of hands, ladies and gay gentlemen, who would mourn the dudes going off the market because they are so into Stepford sex? *Looking around* I don’t see any hands. Bon appetite, fellas. Can’t miss what you never wanted.
On another note, can I just say how interesting I found the linked “grass-eating boys” article? It actually sounds like a pretty cool cultural phenomenon. I couldn’t get over how so many people in the article are so caught up in trying to figure out what these guys’ “problem” is, instead of just dealing with the fact that some guys are just not interested in sex right now, for whatever reason.
Psh, Shiraz, everyone knows teh wimminz invented marriage way back when to entrap men so that men would have to go hunt mammoths and women could sit around eating cave bon-bons and stealing sperm. The idea that marriage was a construct for legally signing women over to men is a feminist myth. .sarcasm
“And hello, show of hands, ladies and gay gentlemen, who would mourn the dudes going off the market because they are so into Stepford sex?”
Are you kidding? It’s the same way I feel about the Rapture: please, go, and leave the rest of us in peace.
Goddammit, Al came back AGAIN? And AGAIN with the, “I’m leaving! Really now! EVEN IF YOU BEG AND PLEAD FOR ME TO COME BACK I WON’T!” crap.
“Are you kidding? It’s the same way I feel about the Rapture: please, go, and leave the rest of us in peace.”
Exactly.
LBT — and we’re the crazy ones! Go figure! (This is meant as a joke, I hope the Internet doesn’t fail to convey that tone)
Re: MGTOW and the rapture — yes, please go already. (Hell, it’d leave more women [and other non-male people] for the rest of us!)
My favorite part was when he started talking about how the sexbot would make him dinner and ask about his day and the maybe two sentences later relish the idea of not having to ask a girl about her day. Would it be so far fetched to wonder if maybe a lot of them have some “mom” issues? They seem open to the idea of love so long as they don’t have to return it in any way. It kinda explains the way their so accustomed to being catered to.
Yeah, I have nothing against sex toys, but these guys just show their creepiness when they exalt the idea of a female-shaped thing that has no desires except to please their boners. It’s really for the best to roll out this technology as soon as possible to keep them away from actual women.
And because someone meeting the description may twist my meaning: it’s cool if you want a sexbot to fill your lonely hours, it’s fucked up to want one because humans won’t bow to your every whim.
Yeah, what Starla and Lumi said.
*jarred memory*
Wait, wasn’t there a guy like that on worlds dumbest lovers? He had like 13 sex dolls, and went on and on about how a real woman might leave you or cheat on you, while his “girls” belonged only to him…maybe Vox IS on to something.
Of course I think this guys issue was mostly from deep-seeded insecurity than it was from being an unbelievable prick.
Change Vox to Ian in my last post, my bad.
I actually have always found it disturbing, the idea of having a thing to fill all your desires and love you without anything coming back from me. Like, does it bother anyone else? I find the idea of using someone/thing like that really creepy.
Then again, I subscribe to Spider Robinson’s idea that you can survive without anyone loving you. You’ll be fucked up, but you can survive it. What you CAN’T survive is being unable to love anything or anyone else.