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.
Well, we won’t have sex-bots that are anywhere near realistic within any of our lifetimes. The fact that they simply aren’t going to exist anytime soon seems like a fine counter-argument to me. How can feminism be threatened by something that doesn’t even exist?
But I can give you more counter-arguments. Here are some other reasons why your belief that sexbots pose a threat to feminism are wrong:
1.) People don’t have romantic relationships simply because they want sexual satisfaction. Masturbation can provide that without all the time, effort, and investment that a relationship with another human being requires. Yet the existence of sex toys and masturbation haven’t stopped people from seeking out romantic relationships with other human beings, People have romantic relationships because they want to be with another human being. The only way that any sexbots could replace romantic relationships between human beings is if they managed to act like human beings to the point that a relationship with a sexbot would require just as much time, effort, and investment as a relationship with a human being. And at that point, the sex bot is a conscious being in its own right, not a mere sexual object, which seems to rather undermine the entire point of creating sex bots in the first place.
2.) If sexbots existed, then women would use them too. If men would no longer want wives and girlfriends because of sexbots, then women wouldn’t want husbands and boyfriends either. There wouldn’t be some sort of mass female panic about how women couldn’t get boyfriends anymore because sexbots had stolen all the men away. I’m not quite clear as to why you think that women being able to achieve sexual satisfaction without men is somehow a threat to feminism. Do you think that vibrators and dildoes threaten feminism too?
3.) Sperm banks and adoption agencies already exist. Sexbots would not prevent women from having children, even if the existence of sexbots somehow magically stopped men from wanting to have kids. You keep on babbling on about temporary vasectomies as well. I’m pretty sure that most feminists think that people being in control of their own reproduction is a good thing. I’d be glad to see an end to accidental pregnancies.
4.) Sexbots wouldn’t make either women obsolete because women do not exist solely for the purpose of providing men with sexy funtimes. Feminists are well aware of this, so we would be the last people to panic about sexbots making women obsolete.
To get your MRA name, combine the first name of the last actor you saw shoot someone, the electrical appliance or power tool you last used, and the material your kitchen worktop is made out of.
Mine is ANDREW BLENDERMARBLE
And if the sexbots were sentient, what makes the MRAs think they’d give them a second glance? For that matter, why assume sentient robots would necessarily bother with humans? They might well prefer each other’s company.
My MRA name is Robert DishwasherQuartz.
Let’s see … David Microwavelaminate.
Sounds more Python than anything else. “It’s spelled Microwavelaminate but it’s pronounced Throat-Warbler Mangrove.”
My MRA name is DANIEL TOASTERQUARTZ. Awesome.
There’s also the subset that specifically want a sentient creature to bully, which is probably why they keep freaking out about non-existent feminist laws against sexbots. They’re worried that if sentient robots were a thing then feminists would be right at the top of the list of people campaigning for the bots to have civil rights.
(For once they are correct, or they would be if the whole thing wasn’t imaginary.)
Hahah MissPrism!! Mine is
Denzel Drillsteel
(So happy I put up a shelf yesterday!)
I feel like “dishwasher” kind of lacks that hint-of-violence MRA vibe. Unfortunately the other options are “computer”, “kettle”, and “electric toothbrush”.
Such a good point Cassandra. There’s a lot of rage flying around out there, and exerting it on a glazed eyed sexbot probably won’t give much relief. It’s all back to power, humiliation and control.
As Kitteh said, the fantasising over the sexbot doing stuff that women would never consent to is creepy – but if it’s there on tap, vibrating and making dinner at the same time, I think the novelty might wear off pretty fast
JAMES CUISINARTWOOD.
Arnold DrillFormica
That is so not sexy. I think I’ll stick to being a very large ginger tom in a WWI aviator’s outfit. At least that way I’d still be a cat and not a douchenozzle.
deezers – exactly, the novelty would wear off because if it’s unconsenting sex or other abuse you want to inflict on someone, there’s no fun if you’re doing it to something that can’t feel pain or distress.
I just like the idea of the robots either rebelling or malfunctioning, preferably at a crucial moment. Instant Karma (the Discworld variety). Or like Westworld but with a happy ending for the robots, ’cause they’d probably be better people than the MRM. Low bar, I know.
My MRA name is Harrison HotGlueGunFormica!
Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?
freitag – wouldn’t a sexy name for an MRA be a brain-breaking oxymoron anyway?
And of COURSE they would rebel Kitteh – they always rebel.
I wonder if the crucial moment you were thinking of is the same as the crucial moment I am thinking of.
In other news, if it were possible for me to be modified with alien heads and giant glass spheres, I would be SO on that.
Nathan Blenderformica
Ian, the reason no one’s run with your vasectomy theory is that feminists generally are pro-contraception. No one here’s put out by that suggestion.
Temporary vasectomy sounds awesome. While I enjoy that my hormonal birth control has made me functionally asexual, I imagine that this sort of thing is not generally popular.
Of course the douchebags will whine about still having to use condoms (hey, I’m probably not going to experience burning genitals or sterility, why should I give a shit about you), but in my experience such men just shove it in anyway when you’re not paying attention. *shudder*
Re: sexbots looking like celebrities.
Even now you can’t use someone’s name/likeness to endorse a product, so even if you made a sexbot that looked like a real person, you wouldn’t be allowed to advertise it as such. Not that that ever stops the Chinese. BUT it could be very lucrative for celebrities who had officially licensed bots. And just imagine how many two-bit reality tv stars would be just dying to have a sexbot made that looked like them.
deezers –
heheheheh
…
heheheheh
😉
I’m Billie Vaccumspackle apparently.
I do that now and I have no problem with it. Why would I? If someone wants to have a kid-regardless of how thoughtless I may think the person is being privately-that kid needs to have good food, a safe home and lots and lots of love. If that means I have to pay more in taxes, so be it. Healthy, happy safe kids are worth it.
There would be a definite market for mythical-creature-bots too. Centaurs, fauns, fairies etc.
That question was telling, though. He’s expecting us to go all RAGEARGLEBARGLEMYMONEY, because that’s what he and his buddies would do, but since we’re a. reasonable adults and b. mostly left-leaning we don’t have a problem with that scenario.
I’d far rather subsidize childcare than military drones that kill children, if I was allowed to choose where my taxed go.