Sexbots: From Objectification to Therapeutic Surrogates

Sex between humans and machines is nothing new in the world of science fiction. Their forms range from angelic mechanoids to victimized humanoids, but the robotic lover is almost always an expression of purely human anxieties. Yet as real-world technology advances, we’re left to ponder the emerging form of the sex bot -- and the possibilities range from mere animate fetishes to therapeutic surrogates. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Christian consider arguments for and against the embrace of synthetic paramours.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop works
dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Christians Sager. So, hey,
if this is an episode that you are listening to,
maybe with your kids, or maybe you're concerned about the

(00:25):
company that you're listening to it, and we should just
let you know up front, this is gonna be a
little bit of a more graphic episode of Stuff to
Blow Your Mind. Be uh, based on the title. You
probably know that already, but we just wanted to give
you a heads up because we know that a lot
of families right into us and say, hey, I really
like listening to the show. I listened to it on
the way to school in the morning with my daughter. Um,

(00:45):
this might not be the episode to do that. Yeah,
you might give this one a skip in that case.
Now that being said, we're we're gonna tackle the topic
of sex spots in this episode, and we are, as usual,
we're going to do our best to to demystify the
topic of bit. We're gonna floor. Yes, we're gonna talk
about some of the in many cases trashy er um.
Examples of this show up in our science fiction. We're

(01:07):
going to talk about some definite opposition to the idea
of sex spots, but we're also going to explore some
territory that I was really fascinated with that where where
we see a more positive vision of what a sex
spot or sexual interaction between humans and machines might consist,
of visions of this that are beneficial, even therapeutic. Yeah, exactly.

(01:29):
I think that's the real hook here, and the thing
that I didn't know a lot about going into the research,
which is that there are a lot of uh of
these robots being built, and there's a lot of research
going into their construction that's healing basically for human beings
in a variety of ways. And we'll get into that now.
Before we get into the science, we should just take

(01:52):
a few moments to talk about some of the examples
that we've seen, and there are many different examples of
sex spots in science fiction. I mean, whenever we start
thinking thinking about artificial humans, and certainly we've dreamed about
artificial humans since ancient times and they factored into our
many of our myth cycles. We we inherently deal with

(02:12):
our anxiety about technology and our anxiety about human nature
in dreaming up these various examples. So a few that
come to mind. There's a wonderful novel titled The Wind
Up Girl. Uh, and this was by Paulo Bacadalupe. And
this is this coming concerned you know, sort of your
sort of your typical sex bot scenario. We have a

(02:33):
pleasure body of some kind, a feminine robot that is
made for male pleasure, that escapes, goes rogue, you know,
has a has a struggle for independence. It's a really
good book. Uh, but it does explore kind of a
classic trope here that is a very common trope in
sci fi now now that I think about it, and
especially looking at a lot of our examples here with

(02:56):
things that are really kind of popular right now, like
Humans or Westward Old, right, like the other shows that
are all exploring that same idea. Yeah, both great shows.
And you can and it's obvious why this is such
a powerful trope because you get to explore not only
are concerns about technology and the future of technology, but
also about about what it means to be to be

(03:16):
female in today's world and and uh and in various
feminine issues that you can explore through this, Uh, this
fantastic vision. Yeah. The other recent one that really gripped
a lot of people's attention. I thought it was maybe
the best movie that came out that year was XM
Gonna Yes. Alex Garland's XM Gonna Wow. Uh definitely Uh
talked about the issues surrounding sex spots, but was more

(03:40):
about I guess the like emotional availability of AI. And
this is something that like we've actually off air been
kind of talking about, like how it relates to this
topic is um For instance, that Spike Jones movie Her,
which I haven't seen but I don't think actually features
a robot in it, but it sort of the same idea.

(04:01):
It's like, can an artificial intelligence convince you that it's
real enough that you have you're an emotionally engaging relationship
with it. Yeah, this is, of course, is the whole
topic unto itself, Like to what degree we in do
you a non living thing with life, even if it's
not a robot, even if it is a doll or

(04:21):
a toy painting. I mean, we have this fabulous ability
to anthropomorphize just about anything. Yea to have it lead
you put a smiley face on something and it will
create we will instantly have this smidgeon at least a
smidgeon of investment in that thing as a person. Well,
and that goes way back. You've got notes here to
the Greek myth of Hefestus, right, or as I usually

(04:43):
call him, Vulcan, because I think that's Vulcans. What the
Roman version of that? Yeah, if you have Vulcans, the
Roman version and uh yeah, and if you've ever rolled
through Birmingham, Alabama, they have a big statue of Vulcan. Wait,
is that right? That's true? Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it
was like a steal working town. Okay, so, uh so

(05:04):
Vulcan plays a role in in my personal history as well.
But yeah, this in myth. He created a series of
life sized golden maids, among various other models. So he
was kind of mad scientist of Greek and Roman myth.
But you can see they're like going that far back
that we human beings were thinking about in our culture
and our storytelling, like how we were going to try

(05:26):
to replicate the human experience in machines or in I
believe the terminology that was used referring to Vulcan and
Hephestus was biotechnique. Yeah, yeah, that's right, And there's a
wonderful Ian magazine article on that, and I'll try to
include a link to that and some of the other
articles who were mentioning here in the landing page for
this episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. Also,

(05:48):
obviously many people out there probably thinking of Darryl Hannah's
character Priss from Blade Runner, which is referred to as
a basic pleasure model. Although so it's funny. I was
reading an Ionine article yesterday that's all about what what
we're talking about right now, the fictionalized versions of sex spots.
There's a lot of argumentation in the commentary about whether

(06:08):
Priss counted because replicants are technically organic individuals. I think
she counts. Yeah, yeah, there there's that whole Once you
get into the whole android replicate thing, it gets a
little a little hazy. Now that anybody out there is
a fan of Rick and Morty, there was an episode
titled Raising gas Orpazorp that included a sex spot that
I haven't seen that one. Yeah, that that Morty ends

(06:29):
up acquiring and has a brief addiction to. So we
might come back to to that vision of a sex
spot here in the future. But that kind of leads
us into some of the more exploitive visions. I guess
you can say, the sort of heavy metal visions of
the sex spot. Um, what what was the name of
the artist that you, uh, you sent me yesterday? There's

(06:50):
this guy. So heavy Metal Magazine is what we're referring to,
which is if if you're unfamiliar with it, it is
an American magazine that specializes in comics that are sort
of like R rated fantasy sci fi comics. Uh. And
the cover art is usually pretty salacious. And Robert found
this one artist who has done quite a number of

(07:11):
covers for them that specializes in sexualized female robots. Oh yeah,
this would be, of course, be a Japanese artist, Hajimie
sore Yama. Okay, yeah, and this is this is one
of the Remember when I first got online, really the
first year of college, last year of high school, I
ended up introducing myself to a number of fantasy artists

(07:33):
that that I was instantly taken with. And uh and
I remember encountering this guy's work and it's it's eye catching,
but it's all of like sexy robot pin up dolls,
like that's his his thing, and that's certainly a vision
of the sex spot, the fimbot that you know, whatever
you want to call them, whatever they're calling your particular
uh sci fi property that we see time and time again. Um,

(07:54):
like a property that I think back to is NS
Cherry two thousand starring Melanie Griffith. I have never seen that,
and I, uh, you know, I've always kind of heard
about it on the fringe of things, but yeah, it
really hit my radar doing the research for this episode. Yeah,
it's it's definitely one that falls more into the you know,
exactly what you'd expect from a ninety eighties film, So

(08:14):
it has a sex about it. I suppose like she
can't complain too much about her daughter doing these fifty
shades of Gray movies. Then if like her daughter can
just be like, well you were in Cherry two thousands, Yes,
but she was not Cherry two thousand. She was she
was just she was like a human bounty hunt. Okay,
I didn't know that, all right, Um, you know what
is not on the list that it just like popped
in my head. I can't believe we forgot about this.
The Stepford Wives. Yeah, the Stepford Wives a big one

(08:36):
that and it ties in directly with some of the
fears and anxieties they were going to discuss here, because
it's men making robot women to be their perfect wives. Yeah. Uh,
there's Jude Law as Jiggalo Joe in the movie AI. Uh,
one of the rare examples of a male sex spot
in popular culture. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they made

(08:59):
several sexpot including one of Buffy for Spike, which really
there's some really dicey sexual relationship stuff that goes on
in that show towards the end of the later seasons,
and that's one of them. Um. And then the comics, Uh,
there's this comic called Autumn Lends that's coming out right
now that I really enjoy. It's by Kurt Busick and

(09:21):
Benjamin Dewey and uh. In the second arc, the characters
encounter these statue esque naked robot women who once served
this like long forgotten civilization as sex slaves, and when
one of the characters tries to force himself upon them,
they rebel and it's it's really it's a really interesting
take on this whole thing that we're gonna be talking

(09:43):
about today. But um, I highly recommended if you're into comics,
check that out. So obviously, some of these visions of
the sex spot are are more fantastic than others, and
some are more serious than others in their commentary, But
ultimately it's all sort of circling around our our legitimate
concerns about ourselves and technology. So what are we afraid of? What?
What indeed are we very right to be concerned about? Uh?

(10:05):
You know, we see this continuing trope of the human
abuse of robots mirroring our own abuse of each other.
If we create robots in our image, then are we
destined to exploit them, to abuse them, and even further
objectify and to humanize each other based on this model?
And I also can't help but feel that female sex
spots and fiction especially tend to serve, as you know,

(10:27):
as commentaries on product femininity. Uh the the all too
you know, frequent portrayal of human females as mere sex objects,
devoid of nuanced personality or identity. And we didn't plan
it out this way, but actually so coming out this
week along with this episode, we're doing an episode on
the science of ovulation and how that plays into marketing. Femininity.

(10:51):
Uh and and so it's it's interesting to do these
two episodes side by side and sort of see the parallels. Yeah,
there's always this weird synchronicity between episodes, it seems. So
why don't we get into the current state of you
know what. Some of you out there are probably like, well, wait, what,
Like there's all these pop culture versions that you just mentioned,
but where are these sex spots you speak of now? Right? Um,

(11:15):
I would just first like to very quickly go over
a short history of sex toys in terms of you
know where we're at with that. These are tens of
thousands of years old. You know, most people don't know that.
They probably think it's relatively recent invention. The oldest dil though,
is more than twenty thousand years old. And vibrators began

(11:36):
as medical devices that midwives and physicians used to treat
illnesses such as hysteria through what they referred to as
pelvic massage or manual stimulation. The first one of these
was introduced in seventeen thirty four. That's that goes far back. Uh.
And it wasn't into the late eighteen hundreds when powered
vibrators were available to doctors and then by they were

(11:58):
available directly to consumers, and then you know, nowadays people
think about computer driven sex toys. That goes back to
the mid nineteen seventies. Yes, I mean, certainly, sexuality is
always a huge aspect of human behavior, even if we
want to push it through the background. So it has
a tendency to be at the forefront of any technological

(12:20):
advancement or any kind of new enterprise. I think it's
just yeah, worth like reminding ourselves like, hey, this isn't new,
this isnt been around for a long time. What we're
discussing here is really just like the latest iteration of
this and what does that say about us? Yeah, and
it's not a situation where suddenly sexually minded individuals are
at the forefront, uh, you know, pushing and meddling with

(12:43):
the technology. They've always been there. Uh So, just to
give a brief idea of the future so that we
can we can backtrack and discuss the present. There was
an interesting Pew Research Center paper that came out in
two thousand fourteen titled Digital Life in five AI Robotics
in the Future of Jobs. Now. For the most part,

(13:03):
this article did not go into the use of sexual robots.
But there is one part where this guy by the
name of Stowboyd, whose lead researcher for Giga o M
Research a futurist, he predicted quote, Pizzas will not be
delivered by teenagers hoping for a tip. Food will be
raised by robotic vehicles, even in small plot urban farms.

(13:25):
That will become the norm since so many people will
have lost their jobs to bots. Your X rays will
be reviewed by a battery of Watson grade aiyes, and
humans will only be pulled in when the machines disagree.
Robotics sex partners will be commonplace. Although the source of
scorn and division the way that critics today bemoans selfies
as an indicator of all that's wrong with the world.

(13:48):
So I think that's an interesting take on it. I
definitely agree with him that on the scorn and division,
and that is going to be a you know, really
the big divide that we're going to speak about today
in terms of what's going on with this technology. I
don't I don't see it as being analogous to selfies,
though I think it's a little more extreme than that. Yeah,

(14:10):
I think time and time again we have to come
back to examples of what the what the current technology is.
So today we have a number of different sexual devices,
sexual toys of your will that are on the market,
and many of them are very high selling. That being said,
sex toys continue and perhaps will always be. Uh that
the punch line of many a joke. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah,

(14:31):
we were talking about this earlier that it's like, uh,
you know, this is the stuff of like late night
talk show hosts, like making a throwaway joke here there.
It's something everybody can kind of relate to and laugh
at and laugh at themselves about. Right, And then at
the same time, many of the people who are laughing
and some that are not laughing are still going to
perhaps go online and order one of these devices for

(14:51):
their personal use. Yeah. So we're a far cry, though,
from having a robotic humanoid body that that moves like
we do. But Roby Boss continue to make strides in
this area. So everyone's seeing videos of the various of
Boston Dynamics robots, you know, and they're often kind of
fear something like mechanical jumping horses. I guess, so we
should probably clarify what this is. Maybe not everybody out

(15:13):
there is familiar with this. So this is what last
year and a half, Boston Dynamics is like continually releasing
these kind of like press release videos of these robots
that they're working on that basically look like robot pack mules. Yeah,
and that's kind of the cell, right that their robotic
pack mules that can that would have a military application,
that can go over diverse terrain. So we can look

(15:34):
to those and obviously these are not sexy, these are
not these are not devices where you say, hey, that's
the future of sexual robotics right there, but they do
demonstrate the strides that we're making and creating robots that
can move in reality, that can that can that can
actually interact with the world physically and an you know,

(15:56):
there are other areas where the technology continues to impress.
So we know robotis listed surgery, VR, haptic feedback, and
there is this, uh, this field of that's sometimes referred
to as tele del donis uh where they're utilizing all
this technology for more advanced sexual devices and sex toys. Yeah.
This is basically across long distances right right. Like one

(16:20):
example of this is uh uh Frison I believe is
the name of how you pronounced the product, and they
use haptic sensors and robotic accessories to enable remote control sex. Okay,
so let's take a quick break and when we get back,
now that we've covered sort of, you know, up to
the current state of affairs with sex spots, we're going
to talk about the off the shelf on the market

(16:43):
robot Roxy. Alright, we're back. So yeah, let's talk about
Roxy a little bit. Roxy is I think a it's
an important example to hit, but it's also such a
uh problematic example because it it represents some of the

(17:04):
more notorious aspects of sexual robots. So we learned about
Roxy from Eon magazine, which if you're a listen long
time listener, you know that we read quite a bit
of it. Uh. It's a robot companion. Uh. It doesn't
quite produce the Uncanny Valley effect, you know, unlike um,
those actroids that you sometimes see that are created in

(17:25):
like Japanese commercials or something like that, but they come
Roxy comes in a variety of models and some of
them actually have personalities. So there's a little bit of
programming that goes into this. Uh. It includes the regular Roxy.
There is also mature Martha Young Yoko and Frigid Farrah.
And that's where I got a little I got a

(17:47):
little creeped out personally, because the idea of frigid fare
is it's like she plays hard to get, she's you know,
not necessarily interested in having sex with you. And that's
a little that's where they're some weird lines. I think, Yeah,
this this is, you know, an obvious example of something
will come back to the idea that you have men
creating female robots for a male audience, and they've got

(18:11):
very specific fetish aia, very stereotypical betrayals and um and
sort of male approved models of what a female is,
very simplistic models. Yeah. Oh, and I should clarify to
young Yoko is not although we are going to talk
about pedophile sex spots, Young Yoko is supposed to be
over the age of eighteen personality wise. But basically, this

(18:34):
roxy robot sounds kind of like Sirian the way that
it talks back to you. Their purpose is to pride
more than sex. The idea is that they're your true
companion and you can talk to them before and after sex. Uh.
And and given that you've got all the personalities chosen here,
you know what, what does this tell us about the
future proliferation of these sex spots? Uh? And here's where

(18:57):
it gets real weird. Aon says that the person who
created roxy it was originally created as the recreation of
a friend that was lost in nine eleven, and then
that developed into this consumer oriented sex spot. Well, and
then I've also read that that the the technology behind

(19:18):
rocks he started out as a as an inquiry into
creation of a robot home care nurse. So now I'm
wondering if there's just like these different urban myths about Roxy. Well, now,
I I I wrote a little bit years ago where
I ended up touching on Roxy and uh, and I
believe the home care nurse thing is is legit. But

(19:38):
I guess it comes down to like the evolution of
an idea, the evolution of of figuring out how to
commercially apply your technology. So what starts is an is
an intention to create a robotic nurse. Uh, may end
up going through some changes until suddenly you're producing a
sex doll. Well, like you said, with all technological developments,

(19:58):
that kind of the pioneer end of it is sexual
in nature. I mean, look at the Internet. Yeah, exactly
now we mentioned sex dolls. Of course, sex dolls have
been around for some time, and it's been proven that
individuals can at least find some sort of detached pleasure
or even an imaginative bond with even just a non
robotic semblance of a human. I always think back to

(20:22):
a wonderful BBC documentary titled Guys and Dolls that came out. God,
it must have been this. I think it maybe ten
years old. Now you can find I think you can
find most of it on YouTube and other such websites.
But they profiled a handful of real doll owners. These are,
of course anatomically correct life size human replicants. So are

(20:42):
they built for the purpose of sexes. They're built with
that purpose exclusively in mind. But is this documentary explored
the individuals in their bond with these things ranged immensely,
so there was there's like a there's one guy in
it that's hanging them up on hooks, and another that
just seems to obsessively collect him and has some stack

(21:03):
like kindling and his crawl space. And those are some
examples that you know, maybe hit the creep level of
for a lot of people. But then there's this one
guy who seems to have a largely, if not exclusively,
emotional relationship with his doll, and he's going through like separation,
anxiety over having he's having to move, and he's having

(21:23):
to ship it. Okay, so it's it. It doesn't. It
does a good job of just showing you, all right, yeah,
you can have something like a real doll, but then
the varying levels of engagement with it, the way people
anthropomorphize it is going to vary from person to person. Yeah, so,
I mean, I guess like if you want to step
back at it and look at it like a very

(21:43):
simple sense here and and pardon me if this is
a little vulgar, but uh, it sounds like we're somewhere
between that movie her I referred to earlier, where like
nobody is needed. It's just an emotional relationship with an
artificial consciousness and like a fleshlight, right, um, a flashlight.
Just to explain, because this will come up again, is

(22:04):
a popular sex toy with a male market, Yeah, exactly,
um so, And that's kind of where we're going to
find criticism on both sides about this. Is like arguments
about why we shouldn't make sex spots and arguments about
why we should because there's this broad spectrum, right, um speaking,

(22:25):
which have you seen the movie Dead Girl before? I
have not. I'm familiar with it. I think is one
that would always show up on Netflix formula. Yeah, it's that,
I saw it on Netflix. It's not about sex spots,
but it's, um, it's related to this. I don't want
to give too much away, but essentially, these guys find
a woman's dead body, but the body doesn't rot at all,

(22:45):
like she's inanimate, but she's not dead. So it's a
zombie film kind of yeah. Uh, and it goes where
you would expect it to go based on what we're
talking about. A right, Anyways, it seemed related to this,
all right, Well, and no, let's get into the case
against sex spots. I feel like this is a good
place to start because it's going to tie in more

(23:06):
directly with some of those sci fi ideas that we
explored already. So you have one individual in particular with
it's worth mentioning here, and that's Dr Kathleen Richardson. She's
a robot ethicist at de Montfort University in Leicester, and
she heads the campaign against sex Robots. Or c A
s R. And she makes a number of arguments. She

(23:28):
basically has a manifesto. Yeah, and so look, we should
clarify like like this appeared to me to start off
as a long academic paper which is you know, well written,
but now it's like it's this whole web presence with
sort of action items to it um. And she calls
basically for an organized approach against the development of sex

(23:51):
robots as a necessary response for humanity. And she says
the reason why is that sex robots, in her mind,
reflect human principles of dignity, mutuality, and freedom, and that
by creating these bots, it's a representation of violence, discrimination
and coercion. So we are manifesting kind of like the

(24:12):
worst parts of ourselves in making these sex spots. And
she also argues that the development of sex spots further
sexually objectifies women and children. She says the vision for
sex spots is underscored by reference to the prostitute John Exchange,
which relies on recognizing only the needs and wants of

(24:32):
the buyers of sex, while the sellers of sex are
not attributed subjectively, and they're reduced to you know, a thing,
an object like a robot. She argues that the development
of sex robots and the ideas to support their production
show the immense horrors still present in the world of prostitution,
which is built on the perceived inferiority of women and children,

(24:52):
and therefore justifies their use of sex objects. Also that
the development of sex robots will further reduce human empathy
and that can only be developed by an experience of
a mutual relationship. And that's a that one ties in
nicely to You and Joe's recent episodes on animal empathy
and the absolutely Yeah. She goes on to challenge the
view that the development of adult and child sex robot

(25:15):
robots will have a positive benefit to society but instead
further reinforced power relations of inequality and violence. Will get
into what she's arguing about in a little bit, yeah,
and then finally she says, you know, they take issue
with arguments that propose that sex robots could help reduce
sexual exploitation and violence toward prostituted persons. Uh. This is

(25:38):
pointing to all the evidence that shows how technology and
the sex trade co exists and reinforce each other, creating
more demands subsequently for human bodies and we're gonna talk
about that a little bit too, especially in the case
of pedophilia. Now. Dr Kate Devlin, who's a researcher at
Goldsmith University of London, UH, their Department of Computing, she
took some issue with this in a September two thousand

(26:00):
sixteen interview with The Guardian. So she countered that that
this argument as the whole dismisses the fact that women,
not men, are quote more likely to purchase artificial non
human substitutes such as vibrators. Yeah. She also says that
the campaign against sex robots this is to distinguish, this
is Kate Devlin talking against Kathleen Richardson. UH. She says

(26:24):
that it rests on a parallel parallel that's drawn between
sex robots and female sex workers. And Devlin sees sex
robots as being potentially useful, especially if they're using machine
learning and biofeedback, in the sense that they can quote
provide adaptive, personal, fulfilling sexual experiences and in that way

(26:45):
they could be used for therapeutic reasons. She also says
sex look, sex is part of humanity's mental processes and
it's fundamental to our human conditions. So it's worth considering
how are bodily interactions like this make changes to our
brain and how that has bearing on our cognitive processes.

(27:07):
So there's a lot here that she's arguing that says like, yeah, like,
I understand your argument, Kathleen Richardson about you know, a
campaign against sexual robots. But there's some potential benefits here
too that you seem to be ignoring. Yeah, yeah, she
I think she makes a strong counter argument here, you know, saying, hey,
would a woman be disinterested in buying a human replica

(27:29):
or just a robotic sexual stimulations system because the the
market information would tend to say no, that women already
buy uh sexual technology, so why not the next generation
of sexual technology? Yeah? Absolutely, Now, indeed, there is this
problem that technology in general is often made buying men

(27:49):
four men uh. And we can see examples of this
well beyond the scope of of sexual devices. The artificial heart,
for example, Uh, it's it's sizing has long best fit
the dimensions of an adult human males chest. It wasn't
until later that companies like Sincardia eventually rolled out a

(28:10):
size more suitable for a for adult females and children.
Another thing worth noting here too, is that newer forms
of sex toys are created specifically for sharing between couples,
so it's not necessarily male oriented. But here's the thing.
They're either marketed to couples or two men, not directly

(28:30):
to women, even though, as Devlin says, women are the
ones primarily using sex toys. So sex technology is definitely
being created from a dominant heterosexual male perspective here. And
even if sex spots aren't conscious, they're externally made to
look like people, right uh, specifically women who are owned

(28:51):
by heterosexual men. So maybe if we thought broader about
our sex spots, we could alleviate these long running human
problems the same way I like to think of it,
looking back to the vibrator and how it basically changed
completely like the way that medicine was approaching things like hysteria. Yeah,
I mean it comes down to the fact that you

(29:12):
can you can go out to buy a sex um
toy and you can get something, Yes, it definitely looks
like a replica of a human body part, but you
can also get things that can easily be mistaken for
other household gadgets totally um. For instance, I U I
travel with an arrow press, which is a coffee making device,
but it is a cylindrical gadget. It's like a like

(29:34):
a a French press that like is uh compartmentalized. Yeah,
It's basically like a plastic cylinder with a plunger that
goes in it and to press the coffee out the
other side. And I travel with it because it's a
great way to ensure good coffee on the go. But
it inevitably looks like something like it could be some
sort of sexual when it's getting scanned through t s. A. Yeah,

(29:55):
our dogs have these toys called go Nut. The company
is called go Nuts, uh, and they make these like
really sturdy rubbery dog chew toys. Because I've got two
pit bull mixes, so they just like destroy anything I
give them. And one of them is like a long
shaft like looking thing and the other one looks like

(30:18):
a doughnut. And the day that they got sent to
my wife's office, you know, she she works for a
big company security screens all the mail that goes through,
and she's just laughing. She's like, can you imagine with
the security people downstairs think as this stuff is going
through their X ray machine. The good news here though,
is that this all means plausible deniability for any actual

(30:38):
sex device that has some degree of of of design
ambiguity about it. Now, in two thousand and ten, there
was a Dutch paper that came out and this was
written for the United Nations, and it was titled gender
Dimensions of Product Design and that it highlighted a quote
male gender bias in mini tech products and as well
as just a disconnect from the view of gender as

(30:59):
a spectrum. Uh, and that observationally, um, all of this
is influenced by biology, culture, and situation. So even I
guess the idea here is that even if you get
beyond the fact that it's it's largely men designing technology
for men or men designing technology for women, there's also
not necessarily that nuanced an idea of what what constitutes

(31:22):
gender in the human reality. Yeah, and you know, male
thinking has dominated the development of TVs and GPS devices,
so can we really expect anything better from physical and
conceptual design for sexual robotic systems? And then we've got
David Levy here, uh, and he I'm gonna let you

(31:43):
introduce this, but man, he wrote this really fascinating pieces.
It seems like He's written multiple pieces specifically about ethics
and robots. Yeah, this guy, this would be a good
place if you want to do a deeper dive into
some of these topics. That he's a British author, chess
master and CEO of Intelligent Toys Limited, uh and he
wrote about much of these issues in the Ethics of

(32:03):
Robot Prostitutes from his UH that's a featured in the
book Robot Ethics, published in two thousand eleven, and he
argued that sex spots only really become a problem when
they're bestowed with artificial consciousness, thus elevating them from mere
artifact to something more something at least mimicking personhood. Yeah.
So the gist here of Levy's argument is that as

(32:25):
long as sex spots are artifacts without any artificial consciousness,
there's no ethical implications and having sex with them or
using them for prostitution. Now, if we go back, I
would imagine Dr Kathleen Richardson would take umbradge with that.
But he says, you know, as long as there's no
artificial consciousness, we're okay. But if they do have a consciousness,

(32:46):
then that's when we get into llegal and ethical implications.
And not just for ourselves. But then we've got to
think about the robots. Do they get rights? Do they
have legal and ethical rights that are implied by their consciousness? Yeah,
this isn't in This is a whole can of worms
here because on one hand, it gets into the whole
question of what is consciousness? We can't even define what

(33:08):
it is for humans, how do we define it in robots?
And then it makes you ask questions about any and
everything where there's a potential like faking of consciousness, Like
when do I start have when I have to start
becoming concerned about MPC characters and video games virtual individuals,
Like if you have if you have an MPC in

(33:28):
a video game that like it has a very realistic
betrayal to your your violence and you're you know, running
around gun toting whatever the behaviors in the video game.
Like at what point does it become kind of creepy?
That's essentially I think the argument that West World tries
to make a season right, Yeah, like insert Westworld is
as potential commentary on that question. One one more thought

(33:50):
on this, UH was reading an article Indian magazine and
this is a sex spot slaves sociologist Lee Reich has
this excellent quote. But and if sex spots are not
currently conscious, they do have the external markings of personhood,
and we are programming them to be person alike. Indeed,
we are programming them to be like a specific type

(34:11):
of person, the type of woman who can be owned
by a heterosexual man. So now we've heard many of
the arguments against sex spots. When we've set up kind
of where we're at with the technology, let's take a
quick break, and when we get back, we're gonna come
back in on this and we're gonna talk about the
argument for sex spots and how they could be beneficial

(34:32):
to humanity. All Right, we're back, so uh, in this
next little bit, we're going to talk about the victimization
reduction argument for sex spots, And just a quick warning,
we're going to briefly discuss pedophilia here, So if you
really don't want to hear that, you know, skip ahead

(34:53):
a little bit on your device. We're we're gonna discuss
it with decorum here. But it does play a role
in this discussion. So a point of contentions, as referenced already,
is the argument that a robotic sex spot would absorb
the violence and abuse that a human would otherwise suffer,
and this would apply to both will really to to

(35:14):
all individuals male, female, or a child or I've also
seen the argument, uh for animals as well. So if
you could have a robot stand in and absorb that abuse,
like better a robot than an actual human like that,
that's a problematic argument. Yeah, but that is an argument
that some people make, right. I don't think there are

(35:34):
many people out there who would who would argue with
the statement that if a robot could suffer something rather
than a human that would be preferable. Well, depending on
whether or not it has consciousness. Yeah, well then then
we get into that whole can of worms. But there's
a as I say, it's it's a problematic argument, but
it's it's one worth discussing, especially as it relates to

(35:55):
people with pedophilic impulses. Um. There's a great deal of
work that is on into this topic over the years,
and we could easily do a whole episode on it,
though it would be rather down or of an episode.
There's no known medical or psychiatric cure for pedophilia, and
our methods of dealing with such individuals as often crude,

(36:16):
but we do have men such as Shin Takaji, who's
abuse a Japanese man profiled in the in the Atlantic
in two thousand sixteen. And this is a guy who
struggles with an attraction to children as well as the
knowledge the resolve that his attraction is just incompatible with reality.
And that's the ultimate tragedy here, right, is that these

(36:37):
are individuals who are born with this this drive, this inclination,
and it's completely incompatible with our world is it's completely reprehensible.
And some of these individuals realize this enter and do
not act on their impulses. So what um, what this

(36:58):
man know what to to is has been working on
is creating sex dolls look like children, shifting them out
around the world to individuals who claim to need them.
But because what are the other options. There's cognitive behavioral therapy,
there's chemical castration, but a two thousand seven meta analysis

(37:19):
from the Mayo Clinic found that no current method can
actually quote alter the pedophiles basic sexual orientation toward children. Right,
So you end up with this argument, which is sort
of like, if you have these child sex spots, is
that a safer outlet for pedophiles or the the sort

(37:39):
of flip side to that, is, is that going to
aggravate their sense of frustration so that they act out
on real human beings even more right, And there's no
evidence to show that his approach works, but it is
difficult to gauge because things I already mentioned. There's a
lot of research, but a lot of the research is
based on actual offenders, not people who managed to stay

(37:59):
off impulse is. But what research there is tends to
imply that such a doll might have really a reinforcing effect. Now,
of course, there are several different categories for pedophiles, but
a University of Toronto forensic psychologist and sexologist Michael Setto,
speculates that there might be two broader distinctions among pedophiles.
So for one group, a doll or robot might serve

(38:21):
to keep them from seeking out shop pornography or become
abusers themselves. For others, though, it just might aggravate their impulses. Yeah,
so this this is very problematic. Uh, and I think
to like, I'm imagining you, the listener, are probably struggling
with one concept here that that we're sort of it's
sort of like the unspoken thing in the room, right,

(38:42):
which is the idea that pedophilia is inherent. It's not.
It's natural and it's part of this person's you know, biology,
and not something that's learned. And uh, you know, either way, though,
the research shows that it is different extremely difficult or

(39:02):
if not impossible to cure in the individuals. So so
what do you do. We're left without the technology of
the medical expertise to quote unquote fix someone like this.
Then does that mean that a robotic doll would have
a place? And I have to say, you know, like
as sort of creepy as it is to read about

(39:23):
two Kagi, at least seems to be taking his impulses
and doing something productive with them, right, at least he's
trying to like turn it around, uh, into something that
has a benefit I guess to society, or at least
reduces danger to society. Um. But when you, like you
read about in this Atlantic article his workshop. He's got

(39:46):
this mountain workshop that's up in the woods, and all
of his employees have to be former military, specifically because
of the kind of chemicals that he's using in order
to create like, um, like more realistic skin. Uh. And
we should talk about this ceremony. So apparently because they're Japanese. Uh,
there's the special ceremony that sort of along the lines

(40:08):
of Shinto animism that's performed for the dolls, specifically at
a shrine when their owners don't want them anymore because
they think of them as having I don't know if
soul isn't the right word, but but that there is
some kind of essence to them that you don't just
take this thing and throw it in the trash. Yeah,
he says in the article quote it's a common belief
in Japan that dolls are mirrors, that dolls show their

(40:31):
owners true self. So, again, a problematic scenario to look at,
but one that that is core to both the arguments
for and against uh sex robots. Right, and then this
leads us right back to Dr Kate Devlin, who was,
you know, the person who originally argued against the case
against sex robots. Yeah, and this brings us into what

(40:54):
I think is the most the most fascinating area, uh,
that we're going to talk about here today, and that's
the theory of the ankle. So she argues that sex
spots would essentially be sex toys that benefit from machine
learning and bio feedback and She also points out that
despite all of our sci fi visions of humanoid sex robots,
there's no reason they these things would need to have

(41:14):
a human form or a human face. Again, we've already
as we've already said, a great many sex toys do
not even look like parts of a human, much less
a human being. Um. She She points out specifically that
for female females, there is I think it's called the
rabbit is is a vibrator device that does not look
like a part of the male or female anatomy. And

(41:36):
then the flesh light, which we already mentioned. There apparently
some models that do look like replicas of human of
human anatomy, but others that don't, others that have more
fantastic or abstract appearances. So you could put these together,
and you could easily imagine a sexual robot that either
does not look like a gendered human or even like

(41:56):
maybe looks like a spider or something. You know, yeah, yeah,
like it could it could sort of be anything that
could be like a rumba. Yeah, rumba might be something.
I don't know why I was going this way, but
like somebody might particularly want like a kind of whale,
like a like a smallish whale. Yeah, And I mean
the thing is we can say, oh that's propellant. Who

(42:17):
would want to have, you know, sexual contact with an
inhuman machine. But again, we are already doing it. The
market research shows that the individuals have been using non
human sexual machines for some time now, so it's not
out of keeping with human behavior. And so there's a
lot of applications here that Devil is saying, right, like,

(42:38):
we could use this to treat a lot of different
ailments that humans are suffering from. That's right. So there's
the treatment of sex offenders, which we've already touched on, UH,
couples therapy, which I think is interesting. You made a
point earlier about so many of the current devices are
made for for a couple to uh to use together,
sometimes across fast distances. Yeah. Then this is a big one.

(43:02):
The restoration of sexual confidence following trauma and or injury. Now,
this is a topic we touched on some in our
our episode that we did where we interviewed Mary Roach
about about the surgical repair of genitalia, specifically soldiers who
have suffered, you know, grievous wounds to that area of
the academy that's an episode we should definitely put in

(43:22):
the links on the landing page because it's related. Yeah,
and uh and and indeed, I believe Walter Reed Hospital
came up in that episode as well. They have a
sexual health and intimacy service that focuses on education and therapy. Uh.
And there's a great Atlantic article about this from last
year that focuses on the broader topic. But but the
author points out that the department in question features quote

(43:45):
de facto sex classes that include sex toys aimed at
stimulating different parts of the body. So the main aim
here is individuals who have experienced genital or spinal cord injuries. Uh.
They may have lost their ability to have an orgasm themselves,
and they have to adapt to their new bodies and
a new approach to physical intimacy with with their spouse

(44:06):
or with you know, with with new relationships in their lives. Now,
in this case, we're talking specifically about veterans who are
maybe lost a limb or something like that, or or
but there's there's some cases where sex therapy like this
is needed for other people as well. Yeah. And indeed,
also memory impairing injuries and just basic trauma that stems

(44:27):
from combat can disrupt an individual sex lift. So you
need not even have a physical injury for this kind
of therapy to be necessary. And so the question is
could a sex robot aid in this kind of of
work as well. Now, Delvin also hits on general sex
therapy and says that, you know, VR therapy is already
a big deal. And she also mentions that VR therapy

(44:50):
is already already a thing and it's only going to
become more of a of a big deal in the future.
And uh. And then there's this idea of the use
of of sex spots to potentially a allow individuals to
explore gender or sexual orientation or just sexuality um as
a whole. And in this the role of the sex
spot would very closely mimic the role of a sex surrogate.

(45:13):
So this is a thing that already exists. Uh, and
you can look this up. Uh, this is not prostitution.
Surrogates are members of the International Professional Surrogates Association, and
they only work with people who have been referred to
them by psychotherapist. According to an interview in the two
thousand three Salon article, I was a middle aged version

(45:34):
Los Angeles surrogate partner Dr Vina Blanchard. Uh. She works
generally works with older versions. They account for fifty of
her practice. And these patients are, you know, are men
who have encountered limiting obstacles to experiencing sex. They didn't
develop the interpersonal skills necessary, etcetera. And the exact reasons,

(45:55):
you know, very quite a bit, encompassing everything from extreme
shyness to history of sexual abuse. They're often plagued by
feelings of shame and that they need someone to help
them break through it all. All right, So I've got
a personal story here that I can absolutely see applications focus. Okay, Uh,

(46:15):
I had a nightmarish temp job in my early twenties.
I don't think I've told you about this before. Um So,
I was tempting in my early twenties. This was when
I was living in Boston, and one of my assignments
was to work for a week for a psychotherapist whose
job it was to basically review and interview sex offenders

(46:39):
and decide whether or not they should be released from
prison into the general population, like whether or not their
sentence was was up they had been quote unquote reformed,
and the job that was assigned to me, was to
literally this was a while ago. I literally listened to
cassette tapes that they would record of their sessions and

(47:00):
inscribe everything. And so I did this for a week
straight in the middle of a very cold winter in Boston.
It's a long commute. It was in Quincy, and uh wow,
like it was just like getting like this toxic sludge
dumped into your head, you know. And I remember that
last day, like knowing it was over, just standing there

(47:20):
at the end of the day, waiting for the shuttle
to pick me up to take me to the train
and just crying. Uh. And so I think about you know,
not not just virgins or or maybe pedophiles or even
veterans who need some help with you know, these potentially
debilitating sexual I don't know issues that they're having, but

(47:42):
but all of this stuff is it's very real in
my head based on that one week experience. Yeah, yeah,
I mean that sounds like it definitely definitely, I mean
I had an impact on your psyche to have to
absorb all that. Yeah, yeah, but it Yeah, I can
see that the definitely applications here as well. Now surrogates,

(48:03):
as we've been talking about their their intimacy coaches and therapists,
and they don't always have sex with clients. So there
is much about imparting relationship skills, providing human combassion, and
also just creating an open, honest line of communication, breaking
through in the case of especially in the case of
the visions, breaking through the shame. And I can see

(48:25):
where this could this could definitely be an area for
sex robots in the future. You know, So sexual abuse
or any kind of sort of sexual dysfunction as we
see it, especially in sort of psychoanalytical terms, right are,
seems to be something that sort of breeds a vicious cycle. Uh,

(48:47):
you know, like the people who are hurt or tend
to then go on to hurt others. So in this instance,
like I'm I'm seeing, like the surrogates, we wouldn't want
to be in that situation. But the sex robots, again,
as long as they're not artificially conscious, they could serve
a role to sort of put a halt to that

(49:09):
vicious circle. Yeah. Yeah. And and also just the idea
you think about this idea that there are people out
there who have trouble developing relationships that they don't have
the social tools perhaps, or there there's some sort of
trauma holding them back from having the kind of interpersonal
relationships that can lead to sexual contact when they are
their individual Like should they should they just live out

(49:30):
their lives without sexual contact? Are they aren't? Do they
have like on some level, do they have a right
to have sex with a robotic device or machine or
robotic humanoid if such a thing can be made available
and within an ethical framework that works well. And let's remember,
let's go back to what we said earlier, which is

(49:50):
that sexuality and sex are part of the human condition
and our brains are absolutely affected by them. So why
I not have this technology that would allow those people
to experience the human condition like the rest of us. Yeah,
and this this all forces me to sort of try
to imagine this future sex spot. Like on one hand,

(50:13):
imagine like a purely the therapeutic one. So you have
to go to a therapist, to human therapist to be
you know, prescribed your sex spot and they come to
you and it's not about just simply fulfilling some physical
need or even an emotional need, but allowing a transformation,
like getting you to a point to where you are

(50:34):
comfortable with your own sexuality, comfortable, comfortable to human sexuality
in general, that you are more capable of of healthy
human sexual relationships. And on the other hand, like a
purely hedonistic level, a mechanical room. But or spider that
just when when called, you know, crawls out of a

(50:54):
box in your closet and does what needs to be
done and sleep at night. Right, that's very trans metropolitan,
and I'm imaginating expider Jerusalem has something like that and
as closet. Yeah, yeah, but not too far from you know,
other topics that we've talked about in the past, especially
when you add in sort of like a bioengineering into
the mix. All right, So there you have it. Sex

(51:16):
spots again, something we just see time and time again
in sci fi. That's really become part of our pop culture.
But I don't think most of us take time to
really break it down and think about the components, think
about the pros and the cons. Certainly some of these
I thought about before, but other aspects, especially the whole
therapeutic aspect, I'd never really given any consideration. I think
with the surge of Westworld last year that like this

(51:40):
kind of thing has become maybe water cooler talk but
not to the extent of like the research that we
did here really looking at like the pros and cons
and how it's beneficial or how the theory, the philosophical
approach to it, of how it could potentially sort of
show the worst of humanity as well. That's the part
I think that like West World's really honing in on.

(52:01):
But I don't know, like has West World I can't
really remember, and I don't think this is spoilers, but like,
was there an instance of somebody who visited the park
who needed that kind of therapeutic help and going to
one of the brothels. I feel like it might have
come up just um, you know, in the margins, but
I don't remember it being a major character of all
it because because ultimately, like how how dramatic is that? Right? Right?

(52:26):
You want you wanted to explore the cases of abuse
or the cases of love, because that those are the
two big trance we see either someone either is abusive
to a feminine sexual robot or they fall in love
with it. There's not a lot of in obviously, there's
a lot more space in the human condition for sexual

(52:47):
conduct to take place as a broader spectrum, So it
seems like it should be present as well in our
consideration of sex button. Maybe that's something Season two will
get into. I mean, I'm not sure. All right, Well,
everyone listening to this episode is a human being, so
I'm sure everyone has thoughts on the current technology, uh

(53:07):
where we're headed with it, as well as all the
various fantastic and and maybe even more hard boiled sci
fi visions of what sex spots might consist of. Yeah,
and we hope we didn't, you know, disturb you too
much with getting into some graphic territory here, but this
seemed like a topic that was worth really diving into
and relevant to not only popular culture but modern technology.

(53:29):
All right. Now, as we close out here, we've been
we we like to highlight various nonprofits and uh and
and helpful organizations. Given the some of the subject matter
we've talked about here, we just wanted to mention rain
as are ai n N there, the Rate Abuse and
Incest National Network. You can find them online, but you
can also call them two seven on your phone at
one eight hundred six five six hope or one eight

(53:52):
hundred six five six four six seven three. And also
we're still celebrating tripod month. Here at how stuff We're works.
If you're not familiar with what that is. Podcasts around
the world are sharing one another's feeds, and the way
that they're doing that is on social media, letting everybody
know what they're listening to using the hashtag tripod. That's
t r y pod uh. And the one that I'd

(54:15):
like to include here is I just got back from
south By Southwest and I saw a couple of live
performances of the podcast Recode Decode uh, and they did
some pretty cool stuff that I think if you're a
fan of stuff to blow your mind, you might be
interested in. Yeah, and hey, you get on social media
everyone out there and use the the hashtag tripod with
a Y to just list some of your favorite podcast

(54:37):
I'm not saying list us you can you want, but
also listed the other things that you listen to, the
other shows that get you through the day. We've had
a couple of people who have who have done some
really nice hashtag tripods for us. Specifically, I've seen some
really cool stuff on Instagram where they take pictures of
hell they listen to us. Yeah cool, that's a that's
a clever idea. All right, In the meantime, head on
over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's

(54:59):
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(55:27):
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