http://campaignagainstsexrobots.org/2016/02/10/challenging-sex-robots-and-the-brutal-dehumanisation-of-women/
Robot 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 trade and the porn industry. The creation of sex robots imitates and reproduces the value system of these corrupt and brutal industries that capitalise on the exchange and dehumanisation of women.
Except women can and do voluntarily enter into professions such as exotic dancing or pornographic modeling/acting, and ripping away the right to decide to do this is decidedly against women's liberation since it necessarily entails removal of part of women's agency.
There is of course another very important side to this argument that concerns the creation of male sex robots for the use of women, and the homosexual use of sex robots, which are essential layers to this debate to be discussed. Men, women and children all have a right to have their subjectivity recognised and should not be presented as a ‘thing’ to be used, discriminated against, or coerced.
So don't allow manufacturers to model sex bots after real people without their expressed written consent. That's a given.
However, what cannot be denied is that sex robots, like most of the technology we use today, have predominantly been designed and created by men and with male users in mind. At present the technology industry is undeniably male dominated. This is a fact visible from the top down, from workers and investors, to owners and creators.
Men are also the main users and buyers of pornography and prostituted persons.
This has resulted in sex robots being modelled on the appearance of porn stars and prostitutes and consequently inheriting the same roles.
Yes, it's important to protect a woman's right to control the use of her likeness. This is part and parcel of ensuring that participation in pornographic modeling is voluntary, and it cannot be eschewed. It's why people shouldn't be allowed to design sex bots that resemble real people without consent from those people. Nevertheless, there are women who would be willing to give such consent, and it is an inextricable part of women's agency that voluntary participation in relationships with pornographic studios and toy manufacturers be on the table for women. Improvement of those relationships, particularly with regard to factors such as working hours, safety conditions, contract negotiation, and so on should be the area of focus for feminists.
It may seem obvious to those in their mid twenties and older that porn is not representative of real life, real sex or real relationships between men and women. But due to a widespread lack of sex education and the ubiquity of porn on the internet, many young people today confess to learning a great deal about sex from adult entertainment.
Anti-pornography scholar Gail Dines argues that the dominant images and stories distributed by the porn industry promote and legitimise a gender system that undermines equality and encourages violence against women. Pornographers exploit the degradation of the female body. These often extreme and violent images lead to distorted notions of sex and relationships.
The creation of sex robots would make these images and relations viewed in porn tangible to the viewer by putting a faux female sex worker in front of them. The sex robot will be used by its owner in the same way women are used in pornography. Due to the humanlike appearance of the sex robot, the concern is that the user will begin to see sex with robots and sex with humans as an interchangeable physical act. This would result in the same sexual objectification present in porn and sex work ultimately penetrating human relationships and human sex. Sex robots will create another means through which women will be presented as objects to be used for sexual gratification and mistreatment. They will also desensitise humans to intimacy and empathy, which can only be developed through experiencing human interaction and mutual consenting relationships.
First of all, if the root of the problem lies in children's access to quality sex education maybe that should be the focus instead of sex bots? Secondly, I can't help but notice the casual disregard for adolescents' access to pornographic works in periodical and video form and use of various sex toys in the time period predating the commercial internet, which is important because there is an acknowledgement that people having been adolescents in the mid-1990s or earlier are able to functionally distinguish between pornography's fictional scenarios and actual human sexual relationships. This would imply that consumption of pornographic works and use of sex toys does not turn people into women hating sex maniacs after all, which is purported to be the reason sex bots should never, ever exist.
In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, cultural critic Walter Benjamin points out that we can now mass-produce art in a way that was never possible before technology. But he emphasises that when a work of art becomes mass-produced, the original piece loses its significance. It becomes obsolete and is no longer valued in the same way. The ‘aura’, or authenticity, of the original is lost.
With the introduction of sex robots into society – with the very real potential for them to be mass-produced – the original is lost. That is, the original human, consenting relationship which is based on freedom rather than control and coercion.
Human relationships, as the author has already yielded in the previous segment, do not lose their "aura of authenticity" because of the availability and consumption of pornographic works and sex toys. People can clearly distinguish the two, and if the author is to be believed with sex education of sufficient quality this distinction could be maintained in youths growing up in the age of the internet. That is the specific problem that is pointed to as the key distinction between yesteryear's crop of people who are able to make that distinction and today's crop of people who purportedly cannot. So why isn't it the focus of the article?
In order to protect basic human rights and discourage the brutal objectification of humankind, it’s time to examine the human ethics of freedom in relation to sex robots. We must address the ways in which advancing technology should be used as a force for good and could reflect what is best for humankind. We – as humans – have a voice, and we must use it.
We cannot let our humanity and our dignity slip away into a world of technology.
Sure, but outright banning sex bots is off the table for me. Regulation of use of peoples' images, ensuring contracts concerning such are negotiated on even terms and are properly enforced, addressing manipulative recruiting practices, these are all areas I'm perfectly fine with examining.
