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This month a conference on sex and love with robots in Malaysia was cancelled by authorities, something the Campaign Against Sex Robots labeled as ‘welcome news’. New Mandala invited the campaign’s director, Kathleen Richardson, to outline why.
There was some good news in October that gives me hope.
The Second International Conference on Sex and Love with robots was cancelled by Malaysian authorities because the country didn’t want to encourage ‘sex with robots’.
Advocates of sex (and love) with robots are really advocates of the sex trade.
Those who claim that the science fiction of sex with robots will soon be fact, get their inspiration from the sex trade in many ways: the legitimate use of human bodies for sexual pleasure at any cost, the profound loss of connection caused by depersonalised sex, violence and technology, and the neoliberal dream that there is no difference between a person and a thing.
These are the reasons I felt the need to establish the ‘Campaign Against Sex Robots’, which offers an alternative to the dehumanisation of humanity at the hands of a few that profit from the misery of others.
Let’s take Malaysia, the country where the conference was due to be held.
According to NGO organisations, the sex trade is a critical problem in the country, and across Southeast Asia in general. While prostitution is officially illegal, the country has an estimated 150,000 prostitutes, and is notorious for human trafficking.
But the buying of sex doesn’t just affect adults. According to the Child Rights International Network, the child sex trade is a lucrative market as clients pay double the amount paid to an adult. There is so much sex tourism that a market in children is nearly as large as the selling of women. Who are the buyers? Many of them are wealthy men from Europe and North America.
The connections between robots and prostitution are more disturbing, and more obvious, than you think.
In his book, Love and Sex and Robots, David Levy, who claims we will be having sex with robots by 2050, proposes that relations between prostitutes and ‘Johns’ are what makes it possible for his envisioned utopia. There’s no feeling between persons when someone buys sex or someone sells it. It’s reduced to a mechanical exchange of services.
Levy explicitly highlights the ‘parallels between paying human prostitutes and purchasing robot sex’. If there was no prostitution and no sex trade, no one would have thought of a sex robot.
Advocates are trying to make ‘sex and love robots’ a more mainstream area of academic research; it’s a disturbing area of inquiry that should be appropriately linked to the sex trade. It’s no surprise then that a recent report on human-robot sex was also sponsored by a sex toy company that profits from the sex trade.
At a conference recently, I heard a survivor of prostitution described herself as a ‘robot’. She had not heard about my campaign, but it’s no surprise she used the term.
Robot doesn’t only describe mechanical machines, it is also used to describe feelings of alienation, depersonalisation and dehumanisation, as if your humanness did not matter. The sellers of sex and child abuse victims can only survive by switching off their humanity too. Anyone who supports the sex trade is also supporting dehumanisation. This is precisely what women and children have to become to survive the sex trade.
Sex robots represent the logical conclusion of neoliberal social relations. If someone can profit from convincing someone that they can legitimately find happiness with a robot, is both a lie, and a way for someone to make new forms of money.
Humans in the main, can speak, hear, sense, move, and taste but those qualities are being transferred into machines, and new narratives are being created that we don’t need another person in our lives. We can buy the perfect partner – one that will never answer back or say no to sex. Except this new partners is engineered, every part of them a commodity. The capitalist dream of every aspect of lived life turned commodified. You can see why the sex trade and sex robots map onto each other so easily.
Abolishing the use of human bodies (and robotic ones) for sex is as important today as abolishing colonial slavery was to the 1800s. Any person who is interested in freedom, humanity and against coercion and the neoliberal trade in human bodies will join in campaigns to abolish the sex trade.
As males are the chief buyers of sex, it is not enough for men to sit on the fence. Some men think they’re giving up something if prostitution was ended, but prostitution can only thrive as distorted relations between men and women, adults and children continue.
We are not just fighting against sex robots, but for a new kind of humanity based on empathy, compassion and freedom.
Kathleen Richardson is Director of the Campaign Against Sex Robots.
Sex on camels (one and two humps) was recently approved by the Mufti of Perak, Malaysia, so I don’t see why sex with robots should be an issue, though I note the Woodman’s old classic, “Sleeper”, has been banned in Malaysia for years. I guess the Orgasmatron…..
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgasmatron)
was simply too much for Prime Minister Mahathir’s profound ethical sensibilities. The Quran and the Hadith do not speak of robots, though men are instructed to save their “seed” for ensuring their lineage. That seems not have worked out that way, in Islam, for 1400 years, but the Hindus and Jews and Roman Catholics have the same general idea. I am afraid Mr. Levy who seems to know as much about robots as he does the Talmud, is in error..error…error…error.
Having recently watched “Ex-Machina”, which is a very well-made film and thought-provoking, as well as “Under the Skin’, an equally well-made and captivating film, I doubt we will be having sex with robots (or aliens) anymore than we would observe (as the Woodman would say) “that primate hand tactility does offer advantages over the fin or flipper”….the obvious answer is to abolish Shari’a Law, abolish the tudung, abolish archaic misogynistic practices, bring Orgasmatron factories to Malaysia, and play (just play) with your cats and dogs. Anal retentiveness and autocracy have done Malaysia no good; I am quite confident robots will not improve upon that. However, my tribe will still be around to blame, if the Orgasmatron breaks down, the robots start davening and putting on little black caps, or they start filching their owner’s pockets.
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“Ex-Machina” leads us by the hand into the wilderness. “Under the Skin” is offensive and patronising to Scotland. If you want something more thought provoking on the subject read “The Windup Girl” by Paolo Bacigalupi.
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I find no concurrence with your opinion, but that’s why it’s an opinion. “Under the Skin” was very popular in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The film probably is most offensive to men………..of any cultural background, but especially misogynists, but not at all to Scotland. Director Jonathan Glazer is an Englishman, so it is hardly surprising he filmed in Scotland. He has before. Sexy Beast and Under the Skin were both correctly lauded by film critics…in my opinion.
Yes, I am not here write a movie review for The Guardian or The Observer, but to comment on the stupidity of Malaysia and the wishful thinking regarding artificial intelligence, as most of the world has enough of that already. Yes, I have read Bacigalupi’s book. I did not care for it; it is eco-punk Sci Fi, not my particular thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl
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What an absolutely stupid cause and waste of time. And to think the campaigner could be helping real victims of underage prostitution or some form of sex trafficking.
“Advocates of sex (and love) with robots are really advocates of the sex trade.”
No, they are alternatives. It is a failure of morality/ethics on the campaigner’s part to not realize this.
Blowup dolls, mechanical dildos, and other anthropomorphic toys are not people–people are people!
In this article, the cultural cleavage here is not between advocates of an adult sex trade and that against the sex trade because of some religiously-derived morality. The cultural cleavage is between, instead, those like the campaigner who wish to assert authority over other people’s lives (male or female or both) and those who wish to allow people their liberty.
Let’s get this straight: this is about authoritarianism vs liberty. The campaigner wishes to control the action of others so that she can sleep better at night? Seriously, wtf?
We are NOT talking about sex workers and the ethics behind that–which is a different discussion. We are talking about anthropomorphic toys.
The campaigner needs to feel some embarrassment for eliding the difference between real goddamn humans and a mechanical linga and/or electric yoni. It is our job to ostracize such a campaign.
This boils down to only one thing, which is essentially ad homenim: one prude, morally over-righteousness, ethically confused, sex-starved fascist who wants to control the private actions of other adult females, males, or both.
And to think that the campaigner could contribute to a REAL campaign within the topic area of the sex industry like underage trafficking.
As a community of independent scholars and need not be afraid to call out the campaigner on this issue.
Of all the problems/challenges facing our species, this has got to be the most trite issue possible.
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I can think of at least 200 “exciting” issues in Malaysia far more trite than this. One would be the percent by weight of porcine DNA in Cadbury chocolates. Another would be: Does being sprayed with Holy Water turn Malays into Roman Catholics (my response would be: One could only hope so) and cause your hands to become excessively pubescent. I think the article above is far more relevant (and interesting).
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I stop reading after “Advocates of sex (and love) with robots are really advocates of the sex trade.”
There isn’t a need to read further after that line..
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[…] An article in the New Mandala on Sex Robots and the Sex Trade – read it here […]
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I find it concerning that these issues are discussed without any reference to the people involved in the sex trade, and what outcomes would be best for them? Being based in the UK is probably not the best position to make an opinion on Malaysian issues.
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Speaking of pleasure and pain, the sex toy industry is penetrating further into Chinese markets. On 11 November, Taobao did well in sex toy sales for ‘Singles Day’. Plenty of inflatable sex dolls were up for grabs.
But users of Taobao sex toys have complained that inflatable lovers exploded during sex. No wonder Chinese sexologists have been calling for the industry to be standardised.
See: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1859315/how-china-successfully-redrew-global-financial-map-aiib
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Olivia,
“Penetrating” further into markets ? Please tell me that really was a Sleudian Frip ? Chinese sex toy market ? Where do you think American and European ones are made ? “Inflatable lovers” Don’t you mean indefatigable lovers ? Enough…Basta ! You are really beginning to push it, you know.
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“We hate most in others what we dislike in ourselves”
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Humanity is poised at a crucial fork in the road. While we are racing toward a virtual future, our maturity lags woefully behind. I’m a great advocate of sexbots, but only to the point where they undercut human sex workers, at which point the REAL problem becomes clear: just like the rest of nature, we are draining our own living bodies of all energy. A sexbot future replaces imperfect human partners with mechanical slaves who will never say no, promising endless delight, but at the cost of reducing each (participating) person to a toddler insisting on his own way in his own tiny universe. Yes, there will be a market for that, but it will not exist in the human (biological) world. Thus, the “Erotic Crisis” we face as a species (alturl.com/m6qph). I hope we survive it!
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[…] ethicist and director of the Campaign Against Sex Robots, Dr. Kathleen Richardson, stated that the very business idea of sex robots is modelled on the already existing businesses of the sex […]
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[…] ethicist and director of the Campaign Against Sex Robots, Dr. Kathleen Richardson, stated that the very business idea of sex robots is modelled on the already existing businesses of the sex […]
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