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 haven’t heard that before, LBT, but it rings true.
Insecurity is one thing, but so many insecure guys find these very toxic websites to build a persona around.
@lumi this guy didn’t seem all that bad, just really weird, it never said if the “heartbreak” he was afraid of ever actually happened or if it was just an overstated fear. Ive seen weirder though, there was this one dude on strange sex that had a stronger relationship with his car than most guys have with their real girlfriends…he even bought it flowers.
RE: Starla
I actually find that kind of sweet. I mean, it’s a car, but he’s expressing affection for it and caring for it, and he’s not hurting anybody. He obviously cares about the car. These guys… not so much. They don’t seem to think so much about caring for their bots as their bots caring for THEM.
I didn’t mean to imply that all insecure guys have no reason for it or become MRA, just that the “movement” exploits the vulnerable in a cultish way.
@lumi I completely agree
@LBT it is sweet, just a little out there. The whole Ian rant just got me thinking about what the world would be like if sexbots were mass produced. Maybe more people like them around? I am pretty sure Ian would be the asshole of the bunch in such a world.
Sexbots cannot procreate your DNA into the next generation. Game over. Think about it. If women don’t need to be with a man they will mostly choose to be only with guys who are good to them – assholes get abandoned, mostly. If you check the stats on divorce, having babies and know that twice as many men are looking for a woman to procreate than women looking for a man to procreate with – it’s clear the cold war is full on. The only way the standoff can be broken is women have no money but despite republican efforts, and MRA’s coaching each other to harass women out of their jobs and throw women’s resumes in the trash, it’s too late. Pandora is already out of that box and she’ never going back in (the kitchen). The economy will not allow it.
I’d happily donate to a cause that distributes sex bots to MRA’s. They can slink of into a scummy corner and play with their dolls and their DNA can quietly die out on web sites I ignore. They can stay home and leave me to roam in peace across this land which is just as much mine as theirs though I’m absolutely sure they don’t agree lol even though my gender gave life to them all and raised them and did most of the farming labor for generations before machinery and grew all the gardens and collected all the medicinal herbs and hauled the water and on an on an on it goes – all for free without awards and badges and medals and credit. Yes, I’d pay money to have them stay home with their sad dolls. I have no intention of ever being their crying walking sleeping talking living doll and by the looks of it nor do many other women, which is why they whine so much. Boo hoo.
Let them herd around toxic web sites and build bromances because they can’t get a woman to put up with a real romance with their toxic male supremacy. Fine. I can’t hear or see them on line, The only place they bug me is at work, but like I said, I am patient and I have ways of dealing with them. I can spot them a mile off at work. Companies know they cannot staff all their positions only with men and the most successful fortune 500 companies have the highest balance of male female brain power – which evolved very differently and is COMPLIMENTARY. Too much male energy is not balanced and nor is too much female. We are two sides of the same coin. Different and complimentary. Otherwise we are a mess. It’s game over for male supremacists. Male supremacists are just noisy like white supremacists and we all know how pathetic and despised they are. I see male supremacists going the same way. They used to dominate and that power structure is crumbling like all org structures that are not balanced and healthy. Equalists are the next wave of evolution. No amount of vitriol can supplant evolution.
I thought Asimo was supposed to be one of the most advanced human like robots. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yND4k4NM0qU I got to see him kick a ball which was really cool but it is a long way off being able to cook. It was deliberately made small to make people more comfortable being around it. Robots that can clean already exist with Roomba, and although I know several people who have/want one they don’t want to sleep with it.
I remain unconvinced robotics will develop that fast, although something which lies down and simulates sex might be possible within six years. Movement further than that and performing household chores like a person seems very unlikely. I would also comment on the AI aspects but since it seems most MRAs don’t actually want anything that will pass a Turing test just something that says how wonderful they are, so that might not be much of a problem.
“They don’t seem to think so much about caring for their bots as their bots caring for THEM.”
*DING DING DING* And there you have the narcissism of MRAs and other bigots in a nutshell.
Now l hope to live long enough to see whining about how the robots demand oil or whatever.
Okay, I’ve been seeing a lot more MRA dudes commenting here that reversible male medical contraception (in various forms) will up-end relations between men and women because cis women* won’t be able to have kids. I just wonder how often they think that cis women get pregnant purposefully by cis men who don’t want kids? I don’t really think it is all that common–sure, there are contraceptive failures and failures to use contraception, but those aren’t planned by the woman and frankly we’d all be happy if that happened less.
I mean, men want kids too. I know my dad wanted my sister and I, so cis women who are in a relationship with one of the many cis men who want kids will still be able to reproduce, and if they aren’t is a relationship, are infertile, or not in a relationship with someone who can have kids with them, there are always adoption and sperm banks.
I guess it would be an extra protection for cis men (and some trans women) who don’t want children, especially if they are in a relationship with a cis woman who wants children and is willing to lie to get them but I don’t think that is all that common. Also it is a really shitty thing to do, and preventing it wouldn’t reduce women’s “bargaining power” in relationships.
*I said cis women because I know some men can get pregnant but MRAs don’t talk about them and so probably aren’t thinking about cases where a man can get pregnant by another man.
I’m pretty sure more women have accidentaly killed themselves trying to end unwanted pregnancies than have “tricked” men into knocking them up : P The whole sperm-burgling “crisis” is mind-bogglingly idiotic. Most women want sex for sex, not babies, especially meal-ticket babies. And those are generally of the mythical Welfare Queen variety; child-support is scarcely a living wage, let alone enough to raise a child on.
Yep, cos drunken marketing people always tell the absolute truth & would never exaggerate or lie …..
Oh wow the part about men all getting vasectomies (when they fuck dolls that can’t procreate ha ha) made me laugh my head off. Let me let you in on something that should be obvious. Men have never and will never be stingy with their sperm. Procreating is a primal urge. If men were so willing to have vasectomies we wouldn’t have nearly as many abortions would we. We can’t even get men to take responsibility for condoms can we. Yeah, all the stupid MRA’s will get vasectomies for the cause and annihilate their bloodline in the process. Go for it boys lol. I’ll donate to your cause – thanks to feminism I can afford to 🙂
Secondly – getting a real live woman that can procreate with you will be much harder and fem bots will only drive up real human women’s value adn men that have used fem bot porn will have such blinted dopamine responses from the glut of self focused porn, they will mostly be impotent. Google porn impotence if you don’t believe me. There is an epidemic of impotence among even young men because porn getting what you want all the time and constantly upping the excitement threshold) deadens your dopamine receptors. No hard on no babies buddy. Few women with any self esteem want to sleep with a man or stick around long enough to raise kids if he’s impotent or he’s totally and utterly lazy and selfish in bed.
There have always and will always be human men who crave human women. Lots of them. Man cannot replace nature. He thinks he can but where has it gotten man to date. To the brink of total species destruction. Men have always destroyed themselves. That’s their track record. Women survive the constant wars and go on to make more babies when they are forced to but we aren’t forced to have 12 kids anymore. No more overpopulation so our kids can be your cannon fodder. We are so done with that power trip.
Thank god all those morons mating with dolls haven’t realized their DNA will die out with them when they commit suicide in abject desolate loneliness – a prison they built for themselves from their male supremacist value system – a self made woman repellant. Bravo.
Oh gosh. Only my second or third comment here and already the topic of ridicule in a manboobz post addressed my comments specifically. I feel all a-flutter.
Oops, nope, just gas.
Since everybody else here has already done a fantastic job of telling Mr. Ironwood exactly why he sucks and where he can stick it, I’ll just say that Cherry 2000 is exactly the kind of movie I can see an MRA writing an impassioned screed about, completely missing the fact that it’s total B movie shlock and meant to mock their kind anyway.
I’m a lurker on these boards, but I had to finally leave a comment as I live in Canada and I also work in law…and…wow…this is so completely off the charts I couldn’t help but laugh. I’m wondering what drugs this guy is on, because I want to warn the cops about the new batshit insane drug on the streets that makes people rant like lunatics about non-existent laws made by non-existent ministries in Canada.
“If a robot gets to the point where it can do these things…sorry, you’re not dealing with a toy anymore, you’re right back to dealing with people.”
Yes, but people YOU CAN TRUST not to abandon, betray, cuckold, deceive you.
“but for most guys? They’re going to want the affirmation that comes from knowing that the person you’re fucking could have chosen someone else, but they chose you.”
Must be a Western thing. In my country, most guys that I know aren’t insecurely competitive in their egos and really don’t care about such affirmation by comparison with other people (then again, according to an international study done half a dozen years ago, we have the vainest male racial group in the world). They would much rather have the security (insecurity, ok, but not of the ego) of knowing that their mate has never/will never fucked/loved anyone else. That way, there’s no risk you’re sharing your mate’s affections/memories with any other male (in worst case scenario, that other male(s) may even surpass you and you’re secretly being used as a tool by your mate who’s actually devoted herself inwardley to someone else, even if outwardley she’s ostensibly devoted to you).
“Their rights” suffers from ambiguous pronoun syndrome. Are we talking of women rights or android rights here? Because let me tell you, as one dude who is just waiting for someone to start PETAI (People for the Ethical Treatment of Artificial Intelligences) to become a card-carrying member, yeah, I’m pretty sure that any human-level intelligence that is programmed as a sex slave is being deprived of their basic rights. And I would say that since technically androids would be agender, that’s not exactly a Women’s Rights issue. That’s a Sentient Beings’ Rights issue.
LBT, lumi, Starla – your conversation upthread sums up what creeps me out with these guys. It’s their seeming inability to love anyone or anything; they’re not like the guy who gives his car flowers (that is kinda out-there but sweet), they just want their egos, among other things, stroked by a slave creature.
But as we all said … they’d be disappointed because they couldn’t exert domination over a thing that has no will or volition of its own, and their whole wish is to abuse. So sucks to be them. The catbots will get them anyway.
I wonder about the not being able to live without giving love idea, though. This lot seem to be proof that it’s possible.
Goddamnit, one last check before bed and *poof* ABNOY!
“…yeah, I’m pretty sure that any human-level intelligence that is programmed as a sex slave is being deprived of their basic rights…”
Deal with it ABNOY — if your bot has sapience (or even sentience) it isn’t a glorified toy anymore, it’s become a person, ze/he/she, not it, with rights, and quite possibly opinions. In other words, she might decide she likes someone else better.
“They would much rather have the security (insecurity, ok, but not of the ego) of knowing that their mate has never/will never fucked/loved anyone else. ”
Abnoy, that is entirely about his insecure little ego. Someone like that is shit-scared of his own inadequacies. It’s also a charming little piece of double-standards, since I presume none of these special snowflakes would have denied themselves relationships with other women in the present circumstances.
No, it’s all about men who can’t cope with other human beings having their own lives and agency. Not just women, either – creeps like this resent other men, too.
I don’t believe any of your projection onto your countrymen, btw, any more than your feeble attempts to pretend all the men in the world are as unappealing and insecure as you. Humans are individuals, a concept that seems to elude you.
“In other words, she
mightwould almost certainly decide she likes someone else better.”FTFY
Kitteh — I was seriously considering noting that any sapient bot would leave him, but decided to go more general with the statement. So yes, you fixed that, and well.
And now I am going to bed, before I cease making any sense at all!
It was too good a snark opportunity to miss. 😉 Niters!
And jumping on the bandwagon here: my MRA name would be Bender Oventiles.
My porn name was just plain weird and made me sound like I was from another planet.
And I too wouldn’t object to male reversible vasectomies or sexbots for any sexual preference that didn’t transfer over into hurting actual people. Unfortunately, the technology I’ve seen available so far…well, there’s a long way to go for something as elaborate as Mr. Ironwood projects. Current models either look like little toys or just freak me the hell out.
Okay, I admit, once a robot reaches sentience, I’d be concerned for their rights, because that is a whole new kettle of fish. And then there’s the issue of child-looking sexbots…and that just brings me to a place of rage, so I won’t continue any more on this line at the moment.