The UK to open its first sex doll brothel
mic.com
mic.com
The arguments here that
> While certain sex doll manufacturers have argued that their products might act as an outlet for customers' aggression or criminal predilections, sparing potential human victims, experts worry that those behaviors could easily bleed into real life.
remind me strongly of the old, tired lines about how violent video games are "training our kids to be killers". And it sounds just as specious here.
> For sex workers, 45% to 75% of whom experience violence during their careers, the possibility that their customers' conduct with dolls might be transferable is very real.
Okay, but a) does any data show that that actually happens, or is this just the pearl-clutching it sounds like, and b) do we ban activities because they might cause our attitudes to change in a negative way? If a study showed that, say, eating Doritos made one more likely to rob a bank, would we then start banning different brands of tortilla chips?
> It's also real for any woman whose partner might be sneaking off for sex with dolls, which raises yet another pertinent question: Who asked for this?
Lonely dudes, presumably?
From the industry there was little opposition namely. The main argument was this: "The job of a sex worker is much more complicated than you think. It's not just sex. It's about human contact. It's about communication. It's so much more that to confuse a human sex worker with a robot doll is demeaning to what it constitutes to be a sex worker."
It's still a taboo. That's what's the issue here. That on itself means human trafficking, no pension, no support from police, etc.
Of course, when robots can sentient, we have an interesting situation. It is rather weird that people quick to pinpoint discrimination issues between male and female (which seems irrelevant) are so slow in pinpointing discrimination issues between human and artificial beings. If anything, it is important not to wait to long with establishing the rights of the latter.
But what sort of proclivities would go with the sentience? Not necessarily the sorts of things we'd expect in an evolved animal. I'm reminded of a scene from Douglas Adams' "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe".
Excerpt from Chapter 17:
A large dairy animal approached Zaphod Beeblebrox's table, a large fat meaty quadruped of the bovine type with large watery eyes, small horns and what might almost have been an ingratiating smile on its lips.
"Good evening," it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, "I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my body?"
It harrumphed and gurgled a bit, wriggled its hind quarters into a more comfortable position and gazed peacefully at them. Its gaze was met by looks of startled bewilderment from Arthur and Trillian, a resigned shrug from Ford Prefect and naked hunger from Zaphod Beeblebrox.
"Something off the shoulder perhaps?" suggested the animal, "Braised in a white wine sauce?"
"Er, your shoulder?" said Arthur in a horrified whisper.
"But naturally my shoulder, sir," mooed the animal contentedly, "nobody else's is mine to offer."
Zaphod leapt to his feet and started prodding and feeling the animal's shoulder appreciatively.
"Or the rump is very good," murmured the animal. "I've been exercising it and eating plenty of grain, so there's a lot of good meat there." It gave a mellow grunt, gurgled again and started to chew the cud. It swallowed the cud again. "Or a casserole of me perhaps?" it added.
"You mean this animal actually wants us to eat it?" whispered Trillian to Ford.
"Me?" said Ford, with a glazed look in his eyes, "I don't mean anything."
"That's absolutely horrible," exclaimed Arthur, "the most revolting thing I've ever heard."
"What's the problem Earthman?" said Zaphod, now transferring his attention to the animal's enormous rump.
"I just don't want to eat an animal that's standing here inviting me to," said Arthur, "it's heartless."
"Better than eating an animal that doesn't want to be eaten," said Zaphod.
"That's not the point," Arthur protested. Then he thought about it for a moment. "Alright," he said, "maybe it is the point. I don't care, I'm not going to think about it now. I'll just ... er ..."
The Universe raged about him in its death throes. "I think I'll just have a green salad," he muttered.
"May I urge you to consider my liver?" asked the animal, "it must be very rich and tender by now, I've been force-feeding myself for months."
"A green salad," said Arthur emphatically.
"A green salad?" said the animal, rolling his eyes disapprovingly at Arthur.
"Are you going to tell me," said Arthur, "that I shouldn't have green salad?"
"Well," said the animal, "I know many vegetables that are very clear onthat point. Which is why it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am." It managed a very slight bow.
"Glass of water please," said Arthur.
"Look," said Zaphod, "we want to eat, we don't want to make a meal of the issues. Four rare steaks please, and hurry. We haven't eaten in five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years."
The animal staggered to its feet. It gave a mellow gurgle. "A very wise choice, sir, if I may say so. Very good," it said, "I'll just nip off and shoot myself." He turned and gave a friendly wink to Arthur. "Don't worry, sir," he said, "I'll be very humane." It waddled unhurriedly off into the kitchen.
Someone ordered a hotdog?
If fake sex objects are fine for one, they are fine for another.
It seems like these sex dolls are basically the (extremely primitive) precursor to the sex robots that are likely in the future.
...instantly close.
The usual attempts of the well meaning, to prevent what they presume as self-destructive behaviors.
Nothing in this brothel, which doesn't happen every day in a thousand homes anyway.
So carry on while the caravan wails?
It's clear that the journalist started with a narrative in their head - the second sentence is "It's a creepy concept that cues an avalanche of questions". I don't think pursuing an agenda is bad per se, but it's not really reporting work, and I think it must follow different rules - specifically, it needs to have argumentation for its assertions, provide evidence for factual claims, and analyze alternate explanations.
> "I think we know enough about human psychology that if you can get yourself to mistreat a very lifelike, human-like thing, then it's probably just good rehearsal to doing that to a real human," Pizarro added.
The quote from the "expert" is illustrative - it is an appeal to authority with no further investigation, no sources to back it up, etc. While that might be the standard formula for a news report, it's not enough for an argumentative article. Is David Pizarro a leading scientist on this subject, does he have publications and research to link to? Who knows, it's not presented in the article.
There's a pathetic attempt at presenting the "counter-argument" but the link is to a site that is debunking it(and also advancing the same narrative) - this doesn't give me much confidence that the counter-argument was presented fairly and not just straw-manned.
The proliferation of sex dolls and sex dolls brothels may be an interesting topic worthy of a discussion. "The previous Mic article" hints to one interesting issue: "When I tried to find a sex robot for straight women online, options were scarce." However, it then immediately tries to shoehorn the discussion into the narrative with an 'explanation': "That is likely because not only is the tech industry dominated by men, but also because companies founded by men are more likely to get funding. " (How about the 'likely' explanation that women aren't looking for sex dolls? How would that not possibly cross your mind?)
This article and the ones it links to are just poorly written agenda pushing. They are what you would look for in an evangelism blog, a strongly opinionated presentation with very little research and argumentation, no thought put into alternate possibilities.
The big question that pops up in my mind is, "of what use is this to me"? I don't know who Claire Lampen is, why I should respect and value her opinions. She doesn't really present any serious argumentation for her position. She doesn't even seem to be concerned with the actual consumers who are seeking out this product, just how this will "negatively affect women"...which reminds me of this quote from Hillary Clinton:
"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat..."
It's hard to take the pleas for subscriptions from magazines and "newspapers" such as this one seriously. With this kind of low-effort advocacy journalism, Mic competes with every opinionated blog on the subject, and it will always come short - I can at least develop some kind of emotional connection and relationship with a blog writer by following their writings; the online "news media" still treats them mostly as replaceable cogs.
> There's no lack of male disrespect toward women already, and those might be the men who are most drawn to sex robots.
He's suggesting that men may be drawn to robots in order to abuse them, like a kind of self-initiated sexual abuse training. Here's a thought: most most that use the brothels will just have sex with the things!
isn't it better if women are not put at risk of stds, no human trafficking et cetera? i could buy a sex doll or even go to such a place but i would never go to a whore.