Obsession 2.0: MGTOW suggests making sexbots that look like ex-girlfriends

if no person, or even living creature is being harmed by it, surely it isn’t rape?

I’m also very interested in the answer to this question, and would like to learn from the people here who know more than I do about gender politics and consent issues.

Whether or not having sex with a sexbot is rape would depend on if the sexbot was sentient or not. If it’s just a mannequin with a fleshlight attached, it’s not rape. If the bot genuinely had artificial intelligence and autonomy, then having sex with it without obtaining consent (whether or not they would be considered capable of giving meaningful consent in the first place of another question), would indeed be rape.

I dunno about the “if no living being is harmed by it” deal. That would depend greatly on your definition of harm. (I’ve seen an article arguing that having sex with someone who is unconscious, assuming there are no harmful physical effects, and they never find out about it, would not be harmful. Yeck) I think a better definition would be “sexual activity with a sentient being that has not granted meaningful, informed consent.”

@ej it would all depend on the complexity of the robot. Since in philosophy there is no concensus that human cognition is anything other than a complex series of algorithms that respond to stimulus and can create more algorithms over time, any sufficiently advanced program running a sex bot could raped. Even reprogramming the robot to enjoy it would be no different than slipping someone a drug to remove resistance.

In this particular case, it is not rape per say, but a ritual fantast of rape with a very specific prop that cannot consent. If it is programmed to resist, then it gets even more squicky.

@EJ

Under the technical and legal definitions, it is definitely not rape.

Consent does not apply to the sexbot though if such a technology comes to fruition I am very sure that some legal guidelines may be created to protect real individuals from having their likeness manufactured. In the end the sexbot is an object that is being used by an individual that is not harming others (a much more sophisticated fleshlight as someone put it) so no, it is not rape. It can be downright creepy depending on how it is used and what it resembles though. This MAY change if sexbots become programmed with actual AI and the question of sentience comes up as now it could become capable of giving and withdrawing consent.

Gender politics is muddled enough as it is and a sexbot is very likely to be labelled an object instead of any gender (regardless of resemblance) so I don’t think we are going to extend it any such benefit. If anything, I would argue that all genders would discriminate (with varying degrees) against sexbots if they did become sentient or self-aware. Also remember that until sexbots gain the ability of self-replication or reproduction their ‘gender’ would be entirely reliant on their creators – leading to a whole other can of worms we have not dealt with at all. If it is that part of gender politics that you are referring to I would honestly say I don’t know how we would deal with it. I would say that everyone (including feminists) is most likely going to do it wrong and in the end it would be up to the sexbots to define for us what their ‘gender’ is going to be. Again, this all assumes that sexbots become sentient. As objects this discussion is irrelevant.

It’s not rape but I call it “fantasy rape” which he’s only thinking about it and places that onto something physical like drawing, writing, sexbots, etc. I would indeed get the police and a restraining order involved.

@Catalpa, 11:19am – Oh yeah I agree. Like I said, I think that something like this – if it happened in the real world – could realistically be termed as a sort of sexual abuse. My issue is specifically with referring to it as a type of “rape,” which I don’t think is accurate.

@Bina, 11:28am – Well, with that scenario, there are two things to consider: the effects that this guy’s act could have on the animal in question, and the effects that this act could have on the ex-girlfriend in the photo. One could argue that the animal is indeed being raped (though again, I think that the discursive language around this stuff is more limited than it should be, and that ideally we’d have a better and more-nuanced way to discuss ideas of consent and agency as they relate to non-human beings). But, while the ex-girlfriend in this scenario is possibly being harmed by this act (like, if she’s informed of it later), I don’t think it’s fair to say that she’s being “raped” as a result of this act.

To imagine an altered version of the same scenario: let’s say that instead of dressing up and pasting the photo on an animal, the guy did this to a toaster, then, um, ‘had sex with’ the toaster – saying that the toaster in this situation is being “raped” would be pretty silly, right? If the guy took photos of it while it happened and then sent them to his ex, well, that’s where it starts crossing into abusive behavior, but no one in this situation is being raped.

@brian, 11:45am & Catalpa, 12:07pm – I agree that the standard of “if no living being is harmed by it” doesn’t really cover it. Like, there are times when people are raped and, for whatever reason, they don’t feel too bad about it later; that after-the-fact emotional response doesn’t change the act of rape – in and of itself – from being an act of rape. Catalpa’s definition of rape, “sexual activity with a sentient being that has not granted meaningful, informed consent,” seems like a pretty good one to me, though even there I think it can be tricky to qualify what counts as “sexual activity.”

Oh, yeah, I’m am definitely not saying that I don’t think it’s wrong or problematic (though I’m actually uncertain there as well), and it’s definitely “gross.” It’s certainly sounds like acting out a rape fantasy, which is “rape-y” but again not necessarily something I think is *inherently* “wrong” (but the idea of repeatedly acting out that fantasy with a semi-realistic replica of a real human that was personally known to you is suuuuper fucked up for sure).

oh, and all my speculation/questions/arguments in this thread have been based on what I think is the realistic expectation of “sexbots” within the next 10-20 years (e.g. animatronic realdolls with Hatsune Miku-esque voices and bare bones personalities), i’m definitely not thinking of what the guys on that subreddit presumably are, of BSG Cylons, or Ava from Ex Machina. If they were like that, fucking them without consent would definitely be rape. Cuz those are people.

@Catalpa
Yeah, I wasn’t trying to define rape there, though you’re right about the wiggly-ness of the word “harm” in what I did say. In the hypothetical you mentioned, even if it doesn’t include “harm” it includes “violation” which in my mind would make it rape. I guess harm is a bad word to use because you can have consensual sex that includes acts that would be considered by many to be “harmful.”

(side note: does anyone know why sometimes when I leave a comment, it remembers me and I don’t have to sign in again, and sometimes it doesn’t?)

The sc-fi geek in me recommends a couple of media for reflection:

1. Blade Runner – major duh, but an awesome movie to watch if any of you haven’t yet. A good exploration on what defines our humanity and there is a relationship between a man and a replicant. Worth pondering about 8p

2. Off on a Starship (by William Barton) – Unfortunately this is no longer free online, but you should be able to track down a copy of a sci-fi anthology that has this story in it from your local library. It’s a fun romp through sci-fi nostalgia but one of the main themes in the story is the relationship the protagonist develops with an artificial sentient being. This being, which is trying to understand the protagonist better, actually chooses to become a physical copy of a girl he had a crush on – when he was a kid! (now he is a teenager) Now, now, I know that this sounds downright creepy on paper, but trust me, the writer (thankfully) did not go down THAT road. I won’t spoil it any further, but of interest to think about is that in this particular yarn the artificial being is the one making its own choices with its own agency.

Mike: In this case, I think we should transpose the wording. It’s not a ‘ritual rape’, it’s a ‘rape ritual’. That is, it’s not actual rape, but it’s a ritual meant to both evoke and satisfy the same twisted desires that actually raping their ex would.

People have talked about differing reactions to discovering their ex had a sexbot crafted to look like them; I suspect the ex’s reaction to this scenario would be based heavily on the perpetrator’s ability to move it up the scale. If she’s in a position of relative safety, ‘disgusted, pitying amusement’ might be more likely; if she feels more vulnerable, then it would definitely trigger a threat-response.

The legal issues folks have mentioned are likely interesting. Here’s a quick primer on ‘misappropriation of identity’ under U.S. law:

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/using-name-or-likeness-another

For the tl;dr:

Celebrities would be best served suing under the Right of Publicity–basically, by using their likeness, the sexbot manufacturer is selling their image, which is considered the celebrity’s property. The law would likely take a dim view of that sort of thing (though it could be harder to enforce against a manufacturer set up in, say, Taiwan or Hong Kong, who only used American/European celebrities as models). An importer or shop owner could be sued, but direct mail would be a lot trickier.

This is a lot more difficult for, say, a sexbot made with a 3D printer using a photograph of an ex. That would fall under “Misappropriation of Name or Likeness for an Exploitative Purpose”. The case law it talks about doesn’t look good for stopping someone from using a sexbot made to look like an ex for their own personal pleasure.

Now, some folks speculated about using a sufficiently lifelike sexbot to make revenge porn (which would then be released in some fashion, presumably). At that point, it’s very clearly a case of libel/slander, especially if the sex portrayed is exceptionally demeaning (as seems likely). It would also be a more solid misappropriation for personal benefit.

@ reallyfriendly

The idea of extending rights to non humans is something my animal rights friends are heavily involved with.

There’s also some activity in the environmentalist movement to argue that non sentient lifeforms, trees particularly, should have rights.

The latter is perhaps a bit left field, but the idea that great apes should have at least some rights is gaining ground. Especially as we learn more about consciousness and intelligence.

Of course, the concept is in the phrase animal rights, but as you say, we currently don’t grant animals rights as such, it all comes from an outside i.e. human perspective.

@Alan

Its all very grey. We tend to extend rights and create laws based on our internal perceptions of the world so it is no surprise that many things (living/non-living) were not even brought up for consideration.

I have heard of environmentalists trying to sidestep the ‘sentience’ issue by focusing on ‘life’ itself, or broadening the description of ‘sentience’. There is also the inherent difficulty of creating rights for living beings that are not speaking for themselves directly.

For humans, we typically listen to the discriminated groups and from their input we extend rights or create laws to help with their needs. When the group you are fighting on behalf off can’t provide you with any direct input the understanding is based very strongly on our own perceptions.

Before we go way off-topic here, I think one of the key reasons why we focus on sentience here is due to consent being a way to define what constitutes an actual rape – and consent is typically only given/withdrawn with a person’s sentience (or possibility of it).

@Alan Robertshaw:

…So unreasonable beings are acceptable to murder? 😉

There would undoubtedly be much debate over the standards qualifying “unreasonable”.