Love and intimacy; Surprise!
It would be great if sex robots could be used to teach human beings how to have realistic - but still racy and imaginative - sex, perhaps including sexual behaviours of a more loving and mutual (or at least creative) kind. But in our current culture, one fears that most of the robots will end up being programmed to be slavish recipients of money shots from oblivious straight men. Sorry to continue with the hetero-bashing and male bashing here! As a pretty much straight man (we didn't know how many other options there were when I was growing up!), I know it's hard to be a straight man despite all the privilege we have, and there has been so much contradictory pressure and fear involved in performing that role. I also understand the urge to detach and objectify, and if I were 20 years old today, I can imagine I would feel that sexual relations are a minefield, and I might even be avoidant myself. I'd certainly feel more apprehensive than I already did when I was looking to lose my virginity myself.
Of course, there will be sex robots for women too. Perhaps it is not out of place here to mention which faction of society is already more likely to be "having sex" with machines... Straight men might do well to consider the possibility that the male sex robots for women - able to go at it forever with never an issue or complaint, and equipped with attachments that human men currently don't have (vibrating penis, anyone?) - are likely to seem much more obviously superior from a physical pleasure point of view!
Maybe there will also be male sexbots for straight women that have been programmed to have deep conversations after coupling, studs that will do the cooking and housework, and will listen empathetically to women's complaints and random thoughts: Male simulacra more suited to satisfying all aspects of the conventional straight woman role. In the fascinating fictional Swedish miniseries Real Humans (later remade in England, but in a much less interesting way; watch the Swedish one) some of the single mothers have "boyfriends" who are robots, and one of them wants to get married to her robot lover. These "men" are not just cute, fit, and good at sex; they're sensitive, smart, respectful, and agreeable. Maybe they also have vibrating penises. In the Black Mirror episode Be Right Back, a woman orders a robotic recreation of her deceased lover. She actually finds the simulation unsatisfactory in almost every way, but he proves to have some sex moves that the real guy never managed. Robots will presumably never have problems with erectile dysfunction, stamina, or premature orgasm. And afterwards they will do the dishes. Maybe the straight guys are the ones who should be more worried about the robot companions of the future ...
I personally don't like the idea of humanoid robot companions, servants, or sex slaves. Is sex with a robot really likely to be of much interest? I have my doubts. I don't think easy sex is very sexy, and eroticism to me seems to involve dances around power and desire, attempts at communion and communication, two parties working with but also against one another. Long before there were sex robots, Alan Watts, a famous philosopher and Western popularizer of Eastern spiritual insights, talked about how what makes a sexual encounter exciting is precisely the possibility of "comebacks" and "surprises," the lack of full control:
Supposing I have - I'm an alchemist, and I have a whole secret closet full of love filtres [potions, drugs]; very potent ones. And if I see a desirable woman, all I have to do is to offer her a cigarette or give her a glass of wine with one of my secret potions in it, and instantly I'm her master.
Now, when I think that through, what would I do with a situation like that? Because all I've got, again, is that plastic doll that, when I push it, it does what I tell it to and doesn't have any comeback. What you always are looking for in things is where the surprise is there, where there's a comeback. And you say, "My god, this thing is alive! It has a will of its own. It is not in my control. And I would like to have a relationship with something like that, because it would never be dull."
And also, you would feel true affection. After all, you can make love to yourself in a mirror. You can have one of those "Dutch wives"; you buy them in a place in Kobe, where you get these rubber girls that you fill with hot water. And sailors take them on long voyages. But what an awful thing, you know, when you realize that this thing has no surprise in it, no ... thing that it does on its own, you see? (Alan Watts, "What do you want?")
This "thing" is alive. In other words, they're not a thing; they're another person. Surprise. The unexpected. Someone out of your control. Pushback. Comeback. A living encounter. A real-life person. Surely sex with robots will run the risk of being predictable and meaningless. In the process it could cheapen sexual intimacy between humans still further, true.
Or, it seems possible that it might make real human intimacy seem even more precious - the holy grail that most people don't get or don't feel up to. Unless the robots actually have some kind of "human" sentience and free will, it's hard to imagine how sex with a robot will seem like anything but sophisticated masturbation. Perhaps it will be more interesting or even more satisfying masturbation than we have now, but ultimately it sounds to me like a solitary, lonely, at least slightly sad or wanting experience. Also, as I just mentioned - and I'll come back to this in the next lesson, I believe - I really don't personally think it's healthy for us to have humanoid slaves of any kind, whether it's android butlers or robot hookers.
But maybe I'm just old-fashioned. And maybe people will use their sex robots in a truly artistic way, to explore new configurations and potentials, not just to recreate the formulaic porn of mainstream culture. Maybe sex will be art, and the robots will be willing (or will-less) canvases. And that could lead to more sex as art between real people too. I don't mind the idea of sex as art, for some reason. But of course that is more hyperreality.