As you may recall from Should You Fuck A Robot? Well...Maybe,* I was all hepped on banging robots. My main arguments being:
1) An article I read skimmed
that predicted that one day doctors would prescribe sex with robots as
part of a healthy lifestyle (orgasm=longevity). But mostly:
2) The
sudden realization that if sexbots were as good as predicting what I
liked, sex-wise, as Pandora internet radio is, music-wise--well, sign me
the fuck up.
However, I'm not saying that you should rush to locate the nearest robot and start humping away. No, there are a few very important caveats. To wit:
1. I'm talking about robots in the future. WAY, WAY, WAY in
the future. Like in 2050, the year experts predict sexbots will become
indistinguishable from humans. (Although, by 2050, the only thing I'll
be wanting my sexbot to do is bring me my slippers and juice.)
Unfortunately sexbots of 2011 are quite distinguishable from humans.
The happy couple
Consider Roxxxy (above and left) the state-of-art in sexbots from TrueCompanion.
She has five programmable personalities, a motor that makes her appear
to breathe, and she talks in her sleep. She can hold a "conversation,"
"look" at you with her dead, soulless eyes and will fuck you senseless
for 3 hours (at which time her battery runs out), never once mentioning
the wretched fact that you have just spent the last 3 hours having sex
with a household appliance. However, I think TrueCompanion could stand
to do some re-jiggering on Roxxxy's general demeanor. I am not a
robotologist, but in these pix, Roxxxy appears to be less "in the mood"
and more "prepared to acquire human genetic samples to take to hostile
home planet."
2. Expense. $7000--a sum of cash that's
difficult to hide, even using the kind of highly developed "black
budget" I've adopted in my own household finances. And don't be trying
to save money on this kind of thing. Reader Belindabrought
up the enchantingly disturbing possibility of cheaper knockoffs that
would exhibit only a passing knowledge of human sexual desires. "You
liiiiike arm," your cheapo doll would squeak in an unpleasant voice,
using the twisted syntax of dollar store product instructions, as it
poked your arm painfully. "Time to put sex on me!" Then its plastic eye
would fall out.
3. Various and sundry concerns brought up by beloved In Bed With Married Women readers (among them dear Ed, Tricia, Annah, Candycan and The Barreness) including
lack of relationship drama, loss of human interaction, and fear of
becoming so smitten by robot love that you'd give up on flawed humans
entirely. Not to mention embarrassing tech support calls. ("Well, the
problems started when Roxxxy and I decided to get a can of peas
involved...")
I will leave you today with a link to this wonderfully cheeky Cracked.com article, The First Talking Robot: A (Terrified) User's Review, in which Daniel O'Brien spends an evening with Roxxy. Is it a date? Household appliance review? You decide...
xoxox
jill
*Yes, this a rerun, okay? I would offer you an excuse but I can't really think of one.
(part of 3 of what has become the In Bed With Married Women Robot Sex Trilogy, a series so generally unpopular that it makes me want to write about it all the more.)
A few readers have noted the bitter inequality that is the lack of male sexbots. If you are a women, and want to get down with an inanimate human-type object, you have to go with gay robot lovin'. Gay robot lovin' is fine and all that, and I do appreciate there being an area where gay chicks don't get shafted, as it were, but as the lovely Barreness put it, "Um...where's the dude version." Chimed in Harleyq, "What about some ripped rubbed action for those not willing to share personal attention with the T.V.?"
Well, y'all raise a valid point, but don't be rushing to renew your NOW membership quite yet, or better yet do, but heed these words: The way robot technology is today you do not want gender equality. I draw your attention to the TrueCompanion site, the web site for Roxxxy, the interactive sexbot. I linked to this before, but it was only later, after you all were gone, that I looked, really looked, at that site, and damn, is it bad.
If you don't want a visit to a sexbot site in your computer's search history (and I would encourage you to figure out the "private browsing" feature--stat), I can give you the highlights since, as I've noted before, my computer's search history is already a ravaged mess, filled with web sites for balloon sexual fetishes, disembodied vagina sex toys and, most recently, the home page for the National Organization of Women.
If I was at your house showing you the True Companion web site (and don't think I won't do it), I would point out:
1. The hideous quality of the site. Web sites and sexbots both are computer-based and, on that alone, I can safely say that there is no way in hell that I would have sex with anything designed by the same people who made the site.
2. Creepy videos.
The guy on the left (above) who looks like George Costanza is Roxxxy's creator. In all his video appearances, he wears this same white lab coat. I guess it's so he doesn't look like a creepy-ass weirdo, but the coat doesn't quite do the trick. But look at Roxxxy! I mean, where to start? The way she is sitting, her drag queen body and worse--if you are brave enough to watch the video--the frightening way she turns her head to look at him. Creeeeaaak! Aaaaaaaah! It's alive! Also, there is the matter of that hideous couch, but at this point, I think that's the least of our worries.
Or this, a video in which Roxxxy demonstrates her "new leg, head and body movement in action!"
In it, Lab Coat Dude sits at a computer, trying desperately to convey that not only is he a respected member of the medical community, he's also computer literate. This is immediately disproved with the continuation of the vid which inexplicably has no sound. In eerie silence, Roxxxy demonstrates her new hip movement by thrusting in the general direction of an wooden dining room chair. Although she is wearing thigh-highs and animal print undies (rawwrr!), she moves with the sensuality of a bag of frozen peas. Right in the middle of the damned thing, Mr. Lab Coat walks into frame--not to have his dirty, dirty way with Roxxxy--but to remove her wig! Help! Suddenly bald Roxxxy! Not real girl, scary robot! Fantasy abruptly ruined! He sort of fondles her bald pate for a moment, then places the wig back on and walks back out of frame. I think he is demonstrating something, but we'll never know what because over at TrueCompanion they haven't yet mastered the technology of talkies. (Again, they can't even put friggin' sound on videos. Do you really want to stick your wiener in something they've designed?)
3. The history page for TrueCompanion in which mention is made of an earlier 1993 'bot called Trudy. She was not "user-friendly" is all they will allude to, and frankly, I don't think I want to know any more. Also mentioned in the history are 9/11, a dead friend and the idea of recreating said dead friend via talking robot which leads--obviously--to...sex robot!
And finally, 4. A male robot is indeed in the works. His name in Rocky. On his order form (he's about $7000 plus $19.99 monthly service fees), you can choose his hair color, race, razor stubble ($100 extra), etc... I was briefly intrigued until I remembered the horror of the Roxxxy video. I can only imagine what sort of hideous barely-representative-of-human-male creature would arrive at my doorstep. They won't even show Rocky's picture on the site, so I think he might look a lot like the Rocky from Mask. (My worse fear: Rocky looks just like Mr. Lab Coat, despite my asking for a German-speaking Asian man with black eyebrows, hairstyle #7, and paying $100 extra for razor stubble.)
Oh wait, I forgot about 5. The weird prudish language on the site. Here's what they have to say about Rocky:
When you are using Rocky’s private “area”, it is like sleeping with a beautiful hunk that is really big down there and he moves it around to please you instead of just pleasing himself! Plus, the vibrations from his manhood coupled with his erotic personality is described as unbeatable.
"Private 'area'"? "Down there"? "It"? "Manhood"? What the fuck is that? "Attention purchaser, touch me in my private 'area.' Feel the vibrations from my manhood as it touches you 'down there.'"
Oh, I could go on, but my butt, it grows numb. Suffice it to say, if you have a spare $7000 earmarked for sex toys, I can think of about 233 better things to spend your money on. I bet you can, too. (May I suggest Good Vibrations? Good products, eco-friendly policies and a sweet sweet cut to IBWMW if you buy something through this link.)
As you may recall from the last post, Should You Fuck A Robot? Well...Maybe, I was all hepped on banging robots. My main arguments being:
1) An article I read skimmed that predicted that one day doctors would prescribe sex with robots as part of a healthy lifestyle (orgasm=longevity). But mostly:
2) The sudden realization that if sexbots were as good as predicting what I liked, sex-wise, as Pandora internet radio is, music-wise--well, sign me the fuck up.
However, I'm not saying that you should rush to locate the nearest robot and start humping away. No, there are a few very important caveats. To wit:
1. I'm talking about robots in the future. WAY, WAY, WAY in the future. Like in 2050, the year experts predict sexbots will become indistinguishable from humans. (Although, by 2050, the only thing I'll be wanting my sexbot to do is bring me my slippers and juice.) Unfortunately sexbots of 2011 are quite distinguishable from humans.
Consider Roxxxy (above and left) the state-of-art in sexbots from TrueCompanion. She has five programmable personalities, a motor that makes her appear to breathe, and she talks in her sleep. She can hold a "conversation," "look" at you with her dead, soulless eyes and will fuck you senseless for 3 hours (at which time her battery runs out), never once mentioning the wretched fact that you have just spent the last 3 hours having sex with a household appliance. However, I think TrueCompanion could stand to do some re-jiggering on Roxxxy's general demeanor. I am not a robotologist, but in these pix, Roxxxy appears to be less "in the mood" and more "prepared to acquire human genetic samples to take to hostile home planet."
2. Expense. $7000--a sum of cash that's difficult to hide, even using the kind of highly developed "black budget" I've adopted in my own household finances. And don't be trying to save money on this kind of thing. Reader Belindabrought up the enchantingly disturbing possibility of cheaper knockoffs that would exhibit only a passing knowledge of human sexual desires. "You liiiiike arm," your cheapo doll would squeak in an unpleasant voice, using the twisted syntax of dollar store product instructions, as it poked your arm painfully. "Time to put sex on me!" Then its plastic eye would fall out.
3. Various and sundry concerns brought up by beloved In Bed With Married Women readers (among them dear Ed, Tricia, Annah, Candycan and The Barreness) including lack of relationship drama, loss of human interaction, and fear of becoming so smitten by robot love that you'd give up on flawed humans entirely. Not to mention embarrassing tech support calls. ("Well, the problems started when Roxxxy and I decided to get a can of peas involved...")
I will leave you today with a link to this wonderfully cheeky Cracked.com article, The First Talking Robot: A (Terrified) User's Review, in which Daniel O'Brien spends an evening with Roxxy. Is it a date? Household appliance review? You decide...
If you asked me yesterday what my opinion on robot sex was, I would have said--while backing away from you, claiming to have vague, but quite pressing errands to attend to--something dismissive about social misfits and sex dolls. But today as I was walking Daisy, I was pondering the concept of robot sex (well, what the hell do you think about when you walk your dog?) and my whole robot sex worldview radically shifted with one word: Pandora. Sweet sweet Pandora. Pandora, if you haven't had the pleasure, is an Internet radio station that picks music for you based on what you like.
I am half crazy in love with Pandora. If I could make out with it, I would. Pandora is like the best, most attentive lover ever. It knows exactly what I'd like to hear and when I'd like to hear it. It makes music choices that charm and delight me--"Following an obscure live Radiohead track with old Pogues? Pandora, how clever!" And Pandora doesn't just spew back what I put into it. Using some algorhythms that are probably highly creepy and may well be the ruin of us all, Pandora peers into my fucking soul, man, and knows what I want. Nay, what I need.
So here's my idea: what if a robot lover was like Pandora? What if using the same creepy-ass technology, Robot Lover could be exactly what you need, even if you didn't know what it was that you needed? In the h+ Magazine article, Sexbots Will Give Us Longevity Orgasm, writer Hank Hyena predicts that such sexbots are coming and will be a physician-recommended tool for longevity as present in American homes as Omega oil capsules and Zumba DVDs. Writes Hyena:
Remember the most convulsive, brain-ripping climax you ever had? The one that left you with "I could die happy now" satiety? Sexbots will electrocute our flesh with climaxestwice as gigantic because they'll be more desirable, patient, eager, and altruistic than their meat-bag competition,plusthey'll be uploaded with supreme sex-skills from millennia of erotic manuals, archives and academic experiments,andtheir anatomy will feature sexplosive devices. Sexbots will heighten our ecstasy until we have frothy, shrieking, bug-eyed, amnesia-inducing orgasms. They'll offer us split-tongued cunnilingus, open-throat fellatio, deliriously gentle kissing, transcendent nipple tweaking, g-spot massage prostate milking dexterity, plus 2,000 varieties of coital rhythm with scented lubes.
Of course, sexual communion between real flesh-and-blood humans is transcendent and soul-igniting and all that, and yet...
Well, consider the Pandora factor. Maybe you'd be thinking you needed some soulful tender sex, but your sexbot would give you a spanking--and it would be exactly right. Or vice versa. (That is, you get the tender love, not that you spank the robot. Though of course you could. If it's been naughty. And that's the whole point, it's your sex fantasy robot--you can do whatever the hell you want.) You could set your 'bot to Javier Bardem one night, then the cute dad from school the next. Hell, set it to Carol Channing, if that's what you're feeling. Plus, you could have all the unhealthy brain fuck relationships you want with none of the painful psychic damage. That means you could set your sexbot -- full power! -- to Somewhat Insane, but Delightfully Passionate Philosophical Guy on Thursday, and Hilarious But Depressive Writer on Friday.
This all plays into an area which is endlessly fascinating to me--that is, the continuum and overlap between sex and love. I mean, you can have incredible sex with your hand or your vibrator or whatever but (most of us, at least) don't experience any kind of love feelings for them. Conversely, you can have emotionally intense sex with a live person but experience only mild physical sensations. Or some mix n' match combo therein. Where would these 'bots fit in? Would we fall in love with them? Or would we feel as romantically attached to them as we do to, say, our toasters?
What do you think about all this? (And if I were your sexbot, I would already know.)
P.S. Coming Next: "Should You Fuck A Robot? Well...Maybe Not."
