So last night I was skimming through the official Church of Satan Info Pack, like you do, and I made an interesting discovery. Alongside such standard Satany things as, you know, eugenics, vengeance, naked-lady altars, it turns out that the official Church of Satan position on sex robots is: Yes, please!
In fact, they’re so into it that it’s point number four in their “five point plan to move society in directions that are considered to be beneficial to Satanists.”
Here’s their pitch:
Satanists advocate a new industry, the development and promotion of artificial human companions. These humanoids will be constructed to be as realistic as possible, and available to anyone who can afford one.
So poor people will have to make do with blow-up dolls, I guess.
Recognizing that the human animal often raises himself up through the denegration of another, this would provide a safe outlet for such behavior. Have the lover of your dreams, regardless of your own prowess; every man a king who can purchase his own subject; or contrarywise, buy the master you wish to serve.
That got a little bit dark, huh? Then again, this is the Church of, you know, SATAN.
Freedom of choice to satisfy your most secret desires with no-one to be bothered is now at hand. What could be better for blowing-off the tension that exists throughout our society, and promoting healthier interaction among true humans?
I can’t say I’m 100% with the Church of Satan on every issue, or even 1%, but I’m going to support them on this: Sex robots for Satanists — or anyone else who feels the need to “raise … himself up through the denegration of another.” Because it’s better to be horrible to inanimate objects than to human beings.
I was so hoping that Frigid Farrah was just a joke, but I had to research it for myself and yeah, she’s real. I desperately need some Brain Bleach. (trigger warning for link below)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140216215033/http://www.reportageonline.com/2010/05/frigid-farrah-sex-doll-danger-to-women/
“The problem with playing out sadism fantasies with sexbots …”
Is there also a problem playing out such fantases with humans? From all accounts I read, its highly problematic.
There’s definitely been lots of white supremacists and Nazis involved with the Church of Satan over the years. I think a few adopted Nazi imagery for shock value while others saw Nazism as consistent with Randroid social Darwinism. There have been tons of Nazi Satanist religious groups. Chapter 11 of Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s book The Black Sun goes into detail and I think handles sources reliably without sensationalizing.
VooT,
my complaints about the BDSM scene notwithstanding, yes, there’s a difference.
Playing a scene with a partner is a 2-way dynamic. You’re paying close attention to your partner’s reactions, and you’re making adjustments as you go based on those reactions. This tends to create a kind of emotional “chord” where seemingly-opposed dynamics overlap. You may be performing cruelty (and I’ll note here that BDSM does not necessarily involve cruelty or simulated cruelty, and only occasionally includes simulated nonconsent), but by adjusting that cruelty to suit your partner, you are also expressing compassion. A BDSM relationship is still a relationship, and is no more solipsistic than any other.
And don’t forget that BDSM encourages aftercare for your partner after a rough scene. Nothing says “I love you and care about you” like good aftercare after a rough night.
If your dom/me doesn’t do aftercare at all, they’re not really taking good care of you mentally, in my opinion.
I like cuddles, hot cocoa or tea, and binge watching my favorite shows as part of my aftercare routine. Sometimes I like some alone time in the shower or something too.
I figured that was another case of Virtually asking a seemingly obvious question and fishing for quotable replies. But my faith that they’re here in good faith is just about completely worn out.
But yeah, there’s a rather obvious difference between providing pain that your partner likes and the sadistic torture that I thought it obvious that we were discussing.
I’m an aftercare = cuddles sort, but I’m gonna bruise no matter what! (No, really, half my calf is currently a bruise cuz it was really itchy so I really scratched it — you should see me after trapeze!)
Eh, it’s not so much that you can do things to another player’s character without their consent (well, I suppose you CAN, but it can be a dick move is what I’m getting at.); it’s more that there’s a certain level of implied consent in tabletop games. It’s understood that, depending on the dynamics of the game and of the group, that you’re signing your character up to be potentially swindled, robbed, beaten, stabbed, betrayed, unethically magically/scientifically experimented upon, etc.
But it is a game, ultimately, and a very interactive one at that, it depends on the participation and, yes, consent, of all parties involved to function. If someone’s character is crossing a line and ruining the game for someone else, then they need to cut that shit out. And if the group is pressuring the uncomfortable party to just ‘go along with it’, that’s a unhealthy and gross dynamic.
It’s nothing on the scale of sexual coercion or assault, of course, but consent is still key to everyone having a good time.
Catalpa — mostly cuz you’re quoting me off the last page and such, the group I played with was quite the inverse. When we had one player, our storyteller’s brother, get out of hand with what he was allowed to do and was pissing everyone off, he wrote me in with the specific intent of giving his bro a good in game thrashing (damn was that fun! And the trial run of my build… he had to dues ex machina a way out of me nearly killing his Big Baddie, so yeah, that was an object lesson in why being an ass is a bad idea)
But anyways, my point there was mostly just that it isn’t a strict “you never do this” since it’s completely legal to randomly off your friend’s character… they just may never invite you back.
Of course, that whole line of Devil’s Advocate has proven more… ehh… words, I can use them! I wasn’t expecting people to have a personal investment in the topic? Still not quite the right words, but hopefully the point is there? In any case, this doesn’t seem like a good topic for me to play thought experiment, so I’ll happily drop it. I’m really only writing this comment cuz goddamned that was the best game I ever played.
Well, I’m not a member of the BDSM scene and cannot speak on it authoritatively. However, I would say that accepting simulated nonconsent and simulated cruelty implies considering nonconsent and cruelty acceptable sexual fantasies. Naturally they’re completely unacceptable to do to another sentient being that does not in reality consent. Sexbots will either not be sentient or will be sentients that do consent and have similar appropriate ethics to the BDSM scene. Not necessarily exactly the same ones, depending on how their minds are constructed, since they won’t necessarily have normal human emotions* and might immediately stop being upset the second the scene ends, but whatever is appropriate for how they think.
Of course, people are going to wonder -as they do with the BDSM scene- whether they’re doing it with sexbots because they know it wouldn’t be ethical to do it to someone who doesn’t consent or just because they couldn’t legally get away with what they really want to do. And sometimes they will be right and other times they will be wrong.
*Frankly I don’t see much point in having an AI exactly patterned off a human mind except as a brain upload. There’s already seven billion humans on this planet, after all.
So what you’re saying is: GLaDOS.
http://media4.giphy.com/media/VTboTAdsUjy3m/giphy.gif
GLaDOS is what you get when you make an AI want to do science and forget to make it want to not kill people. Second part is important. Don’t forget the second part.
Also technically an upload, but with considerable tampering.
I consider mainstream culture to be satanic anyhow. It’s based on material possessions, the material body, ego and money.
Most people today in the west outright reject religion and a large percentage are atheists.
Going by the traditional standards of what a satanist would be, I think most westerners and an increasing number or other parts of the globe would easily qualify. As far as I recall you don’t have to believe in a literal devil to be a satanists just basically adhere to a self serving set of principles ( not unlike feminism really). Again I don’t see much difference between this and “normal” western culture….
You know how serial killers often started out by experimenting on animals? In the Church of Satan’s ideal future they’ll now be able to start out by experimenting on realistic humanoid robots. And acquire a taste for sexualized killing into the bargain.
The scary part is that this actually could happen, it’s not just wacky scifi any more.