Let's Talk about Sex: Robots and Sexuality

by Hasani Pettiford - Your Black World




Robosexuals: Science Fiction or Fact?




Imagine a robot that looks, sounds, smells, and feels exactly like your former, current, or dream-about-in-the-future, lover. Imagine that this robot has access to the instruction from every sex manual, sex column, and infomercial website that has ever been produced, and can synthesize this data into concrete action and sexual behavior. Imagine a robot that can teach lovemaking skills, so that men and women who feel inadequate will be able to take unlimited lessons, in private, from robot lovers who possess an unrivaled level of knowledge of sexual techniques and psycho-sexual problems, combined with great skills as sensitive, patient teachers.

Imagine this robot has software that continually evolves, becoming a more attentive lover, a more appealing partner, changing it's voice, appearance, and behavior based on how you interact with it, all the while using fewer and fewer resources to achieve this goal. Just as chess programs are loaded with databases of moves in different chess openings, so the robots can be given databases of different sexual positions and techniques from around the world. It will be possible to set different "levels" or "preferences," in much the same way that different skill levels and style-of-play preferences can be chosen on a chess computer. And the robots will be able to learn what the user likes. On one level a robot could be set to cater, in every encounter, to the user's sexual tastes. Another level could allow for a random choice of sexual activities and/or positions, in order to give the user some surprises. Yet another level could be a "teaching" mode that provides instruction for the sexual novice. By providing a host of different options, manufacturers will make sex robots appealing to just about every sexual orientation and taste. And the biggest benefit of all is unlimited sex with no risk of pregnancy, abortions, sexually transmitted disease and unwanted emotional attachment.

If you can possibly imagine all of this, imagine no more. By 2012 it is projected that humans will be able to have sex with robots. In fact, by 2050, humans will be able to marry robots. Sounds far fetched? Think again. When the Web site www.Betterhumans.com conducted a survey in February 2003 to investigate what sex technology most people desired, the clear favorite was "android love slaves" with 41% of the votes polled. And as the number of domestic robots worldwide grows dramatically, from about 400,000 in 2003 to the UN's prediction of 4.1 million in 2007, so the numbers of robot designers, robot-development companies, and robot research institutes will mushroom, all fueled by a combination of the money earned from robot sales and government mega-investments. And I'm not talking about R2D2-like robot from the epic movie Star Wars. Rather, the erotic android sexbots introduced in Austin Powers.

Androids are robots designed in a human-like form – of which many examples can be found at the bottom of this article. But in addition to having arms, legs and a head, sexual robots will also have human-sized genitalia of your choice. Japanese scientists have already unveiled the most human-looking robot to date, well at least in the public domain. Secret research is being done now which looks towards the future to build robots so real they will fool humans, in other words they maybe sitting next to you and you would never even know it. New skin technologies will allow the robots to have real human skin grown in petri dishes which will be incorporated in the sexual revolution of robots.

It is suggested that robot sex will become the only sexual outlet for a few sectors of the population: the misfits, the very shy, the sexually inadequate and uneducated, . . .; and that for different sectors of the population robot sex will vary between something to be indulged in occasionally, and only when one's partner is away from home on a long trip, to an activity that supplements one's regular sex life, perhaps when one's partner is not feeling well, or not feeling like sex for some other reason.

To remove the weirdness factor of having sex with robots, these android sex robots can be programmed with artificial intelligence software technology that will give it personality traits and characteristics that will allow a human to develop an emotional bond with it. It can be programmed to express love, exhibit a sense of humor, display sympathy, and portray other emotional qualities found a human relationship. As software becomes more advanced and the relationship between humans and robots becomes more personal, marriage could result.

As disturbing as all of this is, the soon-to-be robosexual phenomenon gets more complex. Robotic scientists, law makers and other professionals have debated the ethics of robot sex as they affect both the human and robot itself. What happens when a robot's owner feels ready but the robot's programming causes it to shy away, possibly because it is running its self-test software or downloading some new knowledge and does not wish to be interrupted, or possibly because its personality was designed in such a way that it sometimes says "no" for whatever reason? Under such circumstances, is this considered rape if the robot's owner countermands the robot's wish to refrain from sex on a particular occasion?

Will sex with a robot by a married individual be considered unfaithful? Will it be unethical in some way to say to one's regular human sex partner: "No, not tonight. I rather be intimate with my robot"? Or, perhaps is a partner telling the other, "Not tonight, go and play with your robot." Some couples will, of course, own two robots, a malebot and a fembot, and will enjoy orgiastic sessions in which three or all four of them take part. Will robot swapping be viewed as being similar to wife swapping? Then there are issues relating to the use of other people's sexbots. What will be the ethics of lending your sexbot to a friend, or borrowing theirs? What about using a friend's sexbot without his or her permission?

The possibility of sex with robots could prove a mixed bag for humanity. For instance, robot sex could provide an outlet for criminal sexual urges. "If you have pedophiles and you let them use a robotic child, will that reduce the incidence of them abusing real children, or will it increase it?"

There are some questions to be answered by the lawmakers of the future regarding robot prostitution. Should it be illegal to have a plethora of robot prostitutes ( a robot brothel)? These are all questions that are now being considered.

This stranger-than-fiction reality proves that this world is in deep, deep trouble. We are falling down the slippery slope of morality into the unethical pit of despair. The potential normalcy of sexual relationships with robots speaks to the spiritual and relational disconnect that members of society have with God and their fellow man. Le t us not be so liberal in our thinking that we accept and adjust to the notion of sexual relations with robots. Any sexual or relational problem that a manufactured, perfectly-designed piece of scrap mettle (a sexbot) can solve, a human being can solve as well. So, rather than looking outward to secure relational and sexual fulfillment, look inward first. The answer to every need is found within you and your partner.