Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Christians Sager. So, hey,
Speaker 1: if this is an episode that you are listening to,
Speaker 1: maybe with your kids, or maybe you're concerned about the
Speaker 1: company that you're listening to it, and we should just
Speaker 1: let you know up front, this is gonna be a
Speaker 1: little bit of a more graphic episode of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind. Be uh, based on the title. You
Speaker 1: probably know that already, but we just wanted to give
Speaker 1: you a heads up because we know that a lot
Speaker 1: of families right into us and say, hey, I really
Speaker 1: like listening to the show. I listened to it on
Speaker 1: the way to school in the morning with my daughter. Um,
Speaker 1: this might not be the episode to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you might give this one a skip in that case.
Speaker 1: Now that being said, we're we're gonna tackle the topic
Speaker 1: of sex spots in this episode, and we are, as usual,
Speaker 1: we're going to do our best to to demystify the
Speaker 1: topic of bit. We're gonna floor. Yes, we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about some of the in many cases trashy er um.
Speaker 1: Examples of this show up in our science fiction. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about some definite opposition to the idea
Speaker 1: of sex spots, but we're also going to explore some
Speaker 1: territory that I was really fascinated with that where where
Speaker 1: we see a more positive vision of what a sex
Speaker 1: spot or sexual interaction between humans and machines might consist,
Speaker 1: of visions of this that are beneficial, even therapeutic. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I think that's the real hook here, and the thing
Speaker 1: that I didn't know a lot about going into the research,
Speaker 1: which is that there are a lot of uh of
Speaker 1: these robots being built, and there's a lot of research
Speaker 1: going into their construction that's healing basically for human beings
Speaker 1: in a variety of ways. And we'll get into that now.
Speaker 1: Before we get into the science, we should just take
Speaker 1: a few moments to talk about some of the examples
Speaker 1: that we've seen, and there are many different examples of
Speaker 1: sex spots in science fiction. I mean, whenever we start
Speaker 1: thinking thinking about artificial humans, and certainly we've dreamed about
Speaker 1: artificial humans since ancient times and they factored into our
Speaker 1: many of our myth cycles. We we inherently deal with
Speaker 1: our anxiety about technology and our anxiety about human nature
Speaker 1: in dreaming up these various examples. So a few that
Speaker 1: come to mind. There's a wonderful novel titled The Wind
Speaker 1: Up Girl. Uh, and this was by Paulo Bacadalupe. And
Speaker 1: this is this coming concerned you know, sort of your
Speaker 1: sort of your typical sex bot scenario. We have a
Speaker 1: pleasure body of some kind, a feminine robot that is
Speaker 1: made for male pleasure, that escapes, goes rogue, you know,
Speaker 1: has a has a struggle for independence. It's a really
Speaker 1: good book. Uh, but it does explore kind of a
Speaker 1: classic trope here that is a very common trope in
Speaker 1: sci fi now now that I think about it, and
Speaker 1: especially looking at a lot of our examples here with
Speaker 1: things that are really kind of popular right now, like
Speaker 1: Humans or Westward Old, right, like the other shows that
Speaker 1: are all exploring that same idea. Yeah, both great shows.
Speaker 1: And you can and it's obvious why this is such
Speaker 1: a powerful trope because you get to explore not only
Speaker 1: are concerns about technology and the future of technology, but
Speaker 1: also about about what it means to be to be
Speaker 1: female in today's world and and uh and in various
Speaker 1: feminine issues that you can explore through this, Uh, this
Speaker 1: fantastic vision. Yeah. The other recent one that really gripped
Speaker 1: a lot of people's attention. I thought it was maybe
Speaker 1: the best movie that came out that year was XM
Speaker 1: Gonna Yes. Alex Garland's XM Gonna Wow. Uh definitely Uh
Speaker 1: talked about the issues surrounding sex spots, but was more
Speaker 1: about I guess the like emotional availability of AI. And
Speaker 1: this is something that like we've actually off air been
Speaker 1: kind of talking about, like how it relates to this
Speaker 1: topic is um For instance, that Spike Jones movie Her,
Speaker 1: which I haven't seen but I don't think actually features
Speaker 1: a robot in it, but it sort of the same idea.
Speaker 1: It's like, can an artificial intelligence convince you that it's
Speaker 1: real enough that you have you're an emotionally engaging relationship
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, this is, of course, is the whole
Speaker 1: topic unto itself, Like to what degree we in do
Speaker 1: you a non living thing with life, even if it's
Speaker 1: not a robot, even if it is a doll or
Speaker 1: a toy painting. I mean, we have this fabulous ability
Speaker 1: to anthropomorphize just about anything. Yea to have it lead
Speaker 1: you put a smiley face on something and it will
Speaker 1: create we will instantly have this smidgeon at least a
Speaker 1: smidgeon of investment in that thing as a person. Well,
Speaker 1: and that goes way back. You've got notes here to
Speaker 1: the Greek myth of Hefestus, right, or as I usually
Speaker 1: call him, Vulcan, because I think that's Vulcans. What the
Speaker 1: Roman version of that? Yeah, if you have Vulcans, the
Speaker 1: Roman version and uh yeah, and if you've ever rolled
Speaker 1: through Birmingham, Alabama, they have a big statue of Vulcan. Wait,
Speaker 1: is that right? That's true? Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it
Speaker 1: was like a steal working town. Okay, so, uh so
Speaker 1: Vulcan plays a role in in my personal history as well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this in myth. He created a series of
Speaker 1: life sized golden maids, among various other models. So he
Speaker 1: was kind of mad scientist of Greek and Roman myth.
Speaker 1: But you can see they're like going that far back
Speaker 1: that we human beings were thinking about in our culture
Speaker 1: and our storytelling, like how we were going to try
Speaker 1: to replicate the human experience in machines or in I
Speaker 1: believe the terminology that was used referring to Vulcan and
Speaker 1: Hephestus was biotechnique. Yeah, yeah, that's right, And there's a
Speaker 1: wonderful Ian magazine article on that, and I'll try to
Speaker 1: include a link to that and some of the other
Speaker 1: articles who were mentioning here in the landing page for
Speaker 1: this episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. Also,
Speaker 1: obviously many people out there probably thinking of Darryl Hannah's
Speaker 1: character Priss from Blade Runner, which is referred to as
Speaker 1: a basic pleasure model. Although so it's funny. I was
Speaker 1: reading an Ionine article yesterday that's all about what what
Speaker 1: we're talking about right now, the fictionalized versions of sex spots.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of argumentation in the commentary about whether
Speaker 1: Priss counted because replicants are technically organic individuals. I think
Speaker 1: she counts. Yeah, yeah, there there's that whole Once you
Speaker 1: get into the whole android replicate thing, it gets a
Speaker 1: little a little hazy. Now that anybody out there is
Speaker 1: a fan of Rick and Morty, there was an episode
Speaker 1: titled Raising gas Orpazorp that included a sex spot that
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that one. Yeah, that that Morty ends
Speaker 1: up acquiring and has a brief addiction to. So we
Speaker 1: might come back to to that vision of a sex
Speaker 1: spot here in the future. But that kind of leads
Speaker 1: us into some of the more exploitive visions. I guess
Speaker 1: you can say, the sort of heavy metal visions of
Speaker 1: the sex spot. Um, what what was the name of
Speaker 1: the artist that you, uh, you sent me yesterday? There's
Speaker 1: this guy. So heavy Metal Magazine is what we're referring to,
Speaker 1: which is if if you're unfamiliar with it, it is
Speaker 1: an American magazine that specializes in comics that are sort
Speaker 1: of like R rated fantasy sci fi comics. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the cover art is usually pretty salacious. And Robert found
Speaker 1: this one artist who has done quite a number of
Speaker 1: covers for them that specializes in sexualized female robots. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this would be, of course, be a Japanese artist, Hajimie
Speaker 1: sore Yama. Okay, yeah, and this is this is one
Speaker 1: of the Remember when I first got online, really the
Speaker 1: first year of college, last year of high school, I
Speaker 1: ended up introducing myself to a number of fantasy artists
Speaker 1: that that I was instantly taken with. And uh and
Speaker 1: I remember encountering this guy's work and it's it's eye catching,
Speaker 1: but it's all of like sexy robot pin up dolls,
Speaker 1: like that's his his thing, and that's certainly a vision
Speaker 1: of the sex spot, the fimbot that you know, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call them, whatever they're calling your particular
Speaker 1: uh sci fi property that we see time and time again. Um,
Speaker 1: like a property that I think back to is NS
Speaker 1: Cherry two thousand starring Melanie Griffith. I have never seen that,
Speaker 1: and I, uh, you know, I've always kind of heard
Speaker 1: about it on the fringe of things, but yeah, it
Speaker 1: really hit my radar doing the research for this episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely one that falls more into the you know,
Speaker 1: exactly what you'd expect from a ninety eighties film, So
Speaker 1: it has a sex about it. I suppose like she
Speaker 1: can't complain too much about her daughter doing these fifty
Speaker 1: shades of Gray movies. Then if like her daughter can
Speaker 1: just be like, well you were in Cherry two thousands, Yes,
Speaker 1: but she was not Cherry two thousand. She was she
Speaker 1: was just she was like a human bounty hunt. Okay,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, all right, Um, you know what
Speaker 1: is not on the list that it just like popped
Speaker 1: in my head. I can't believe we forgot about this.
Speaker 1: The Stepford Wives. Yeah, the Stepford Wives a big one
Speaker 1: that and it ties in directly with some of the
Speaker 1: fears and anxieties they were going to discuss here, because
Speaker 1: it's men making robot women to be their perfect wives. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's Jude Law as Jiggalo Joe in the movie AI. Uh,
Speaker 1: one of the rare examples of a male sex spot
Speaker 1: in popular culture. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they made
Speaker 1: several sexpot including one of Buffy for Spike, which really
Speaker 1: there's some really dicey sexual relationship stuff that goes on
Speaker 1: in that show towards the end of the later seasons,
Speaker 1: and that's one of them. Um. And then the comics, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's this comic called Autumn Lends that's coming out right
Speaker 1: now that I really enjoy. It's by Kurt Busick and
Speaker 1: Benjamin Dewey and uh. In the second arc, the characters
Speaker 1: encounter these statue esque naked robot women who once served
Speaker 1: this like long forgotten civilization as sex slaves, and when
Speaker 1: one of the characters tries to force himself upon them,
Speaker 1: they rebel and it's it's really it's a really interesting
Speaker 1: take on this whole thing that we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about today. But um, I highly recommended if you're into comics,
Speaker 1: check that out. So obviously, some of these visions of
Speaker 1: the sex spot are are more fantastic than others, and
Speaker 1: some are more serious than others in their commentary, But
Speaker 1: ultimately it's all sort of circling around our our legitimate
Speaker 1: concerns about ourselves and technology. So what are we afraid of? What?
Speaker 1: What indeed are we very right to be concerned about? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, we see this continuing trope of the human
Speaker 1: abuse of robots mirroring our own abuse of each other.
Speaker 1: If we create robots in our image, then are we
Speaker 1: destined to exploit them, to abuse them, and even further
Speaker 1: objectify and to humanize each other based on this model?
Speaker 1: And I also can't help but feel that female sex
Speaker 1: spots and fiction especially tend to serve, as you know,
Speaker 1: as commentaries on product femininity. Uh the the all too
Speaker 1: you know, frequent portrayal of human females as mere sex objects,
Speaker 1: devoid of nuanced personality or identity. And we didn't plan
Speaker 1: it out this way, but actually so coming out this
Speaker 1: week along with this episode, we're doing an episode on
Speaker 1: the science of ovulation and how that plays into marketing. Femininity.
Speaker 1: Uh and and so it's it's interesting to do these
Speaker 1: two episodes side by side and sort of see the parallels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's always this weird synchronicity between episodes, it seems. So
Speaker 1: why don't we get into the current state of you
Speaker 1: know what. Some of you out there are probably like, well, wait, what,
Speaker 1: Like there's all these pop culture versions that you just mentioned,
Speaker 1: but where are these sex spots you speak of now? Right? Um,
Speaker 1: I would just first like to very quickly go over
Speaker 1: a short history of sex toys in terms of you
Speaker 1: know where we're at with that. These are tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of years old. You know, most people don't know that.
Speaker 1: They probably think it's relatively recent invention. The oldest dil though,
Speaker 1: is more than twenty thousand years old. And vibrators began
Speaker 1: as medical devices that midwives and physicians used to treat
Speaker 1: illnesses such as hysteria through what they referred to as
Speaker 1: pelvic massage or manual stimulation. The first one of these
Speaker 1: was introduced in seventeen thirty four. That's that goes far back. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't into the late eighteen hundreds when powered
Speaker 1: vibrators were available to doctors and then by they were
Speaker 1: available directly to consumers, and then you know, nowadays people
Speaker 1: think about computer driven sex toys. That goes back to
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen seventies. Yes, I mean, certainly, sexuality is
Speaker 1: always a huge aspect of human behavior, even if we
Speaker 1: want to push it through the background. So it has
Speaker 1: a tendency to be at the forefront of any technological
Speaker 1: advancement or any kind of new enterprise. I think it's
Speaker 1: just yeah, worth like reminding ourselves like, hey, this isn't new,
Speaker 1: this isnt been around for a long time. What we're
Speaker 1: discussing here is really just like the latest iteration of
Speaker 1: this and what does that say about us? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's not a situation where suddenly sexually minded individuals are
Speaker 1: at the forefront, uh, you know, pushing and meddling with
Speaker 1: the technology. They've always been there. Uh So, just to
Speaker 1: give a brief idea of the future so that we
Speaker 1: can we can backtrack and discuss the present. There was
Speaker 1: an interesting Pew Research Center paper that came out in
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen titled Digital Life in five AI Robotics
Speaker 1: in the Future of Jobs. Now. For the most part,
Speaker 1: this article did not go into the use of sexual robots.
Speaker 1: But there is one part where this guy by the
Speaker 1: name of Stowboyd, whose lead researcher for Giga o M
Speaker 1: Research a futurist, he predicted quote, Pizzas will not be
Speaker 1: delivered by teenagers hoping for a tip. Food will be
Speaker 1: raised by robotic vehicles, even in small plot urban farms.
Speaker 1: That will become the norm since so many people will
Speaker 1: have lost their jobs to bots. Your X rays will
Speaker 1: be reviewed by a battery of Watson grade aiyes, and
Speaker 1: humans will only be pulled in when the machines disagree.
Speaker 1: Robotics sex partners will be commonplace. Although the source of
Speaker 1: scorn and division the way that critics today bemoans selfies
Speaker 1: as an indicator of all that's wrong with the world.
Speaker 1: So I think that's an interesting take on it. I
Speaker 1: definitely agree with him that on the scorn and division,
Speaker 1: and that is going to be a you know, really
Speaker 1: the big divide that we're going to speak about today
Speaker 1: in terms of what's going on with this technology. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't see it as being analogous to selfies,
Speaker 1: though I think it's a little more extreme than that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think time and time again we have to come
Speaker 1: back to examples of what the what the current technology is.
Speaker 1: So today we have a number of different sexual devices,
Speaker 1: sexual toys of your will that are on the market,
Speaker 1: and many of them are very high selling. That being said,
Speaker 1: sex toys continue and perhaps will always be. Uh that
Speaker 1: the punch line of many a joke. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were talking about this earlier that it's like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, this is the stuff of like late night
Speaker 1: talk show hosts, like making a throwaway joke here there.
Speaker 1: It's something everybody can kind of relate to and laugh
Speaker 1: at and laugh at themselves about. Right, And then at
Speaker 1: the same time, many of the people who are laughing
Speaker 1: and some that are not laughing are still going to
Speaker 1: perhaps go online and order one of these devices for
Speaker 1: their personal use. Yeah. So we're a far cry, though,
Speaker 1: from having a robotic humanoid body that that moves like
Speaker 1: we do. But Roby Boss continue to make strides in
Speaker 1: this area. So everyone's seeing videos of the various of
Speaker 1: Boston Dynamics robots, you know, and they're often kind of
Speaker 1: fear something like mechanical jumping horses. I guess, so we
Speaker 1: should probably clarify what this is. Maybe not everybody out
Speaker 1: there is familiar with this. So this is what last
Speaker 1: year and a half, Boston Dynamics is like continually releasing
Speaker 1: these kind of like press release videos of these robots
Speaker 1: that they're working on that basically look like robot pack mules. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the cell, right that their robotic
Speaker 1: pack mules that can that would have a military application,
Speaker 1: that can go over diverse terrain. So we can look
Speaker 1: to those and obviously these are not sexy, these are
Speaker 1: not these are not devices where you say, hey, that's
Speaker 1: the future of sexual robotics right there, but they do
Speaker 1: demonstrate the strides that we're making and creating robots that
Speaker 1: can move in reality, that can that can that can
Speaker 1: actually interact with the world physically and an you know,
Speaker 1: there are other areas where the technology continues to impress.
Speaker 1: So we know robotis listed surgery, VR, haptic feedback, and
Speaker 1: there is this, uh, this field of that's sometimes referred
Speaker 1: to as tele del donis uh where they're utilizing all
Speaker 1: this technology for more advanced sexual devices and sex toys. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is basically across long distances right right. Like one
Speaker 1: example of this is uh uh Frison I believe is
Speaker 1: the name of how you pronounced the product, and they
Speaker 1: use haptic sensors and robotic accessories to enable remote control sex. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's take a quick break and when we get back,
Speaker 1: now that we've covered sort of, you know, up to
Speaker 1: the current state of affairs with sex spots, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the off the shelf on the market
Speaker 1: robot Roxy. Alright, we're back. So yeah, let's talk about
Speaker 1: Roxy a little bit. Roxy is I think a it's
Speaker 1: an important example to hit, but it's also such a
Speaker 1: uh problematic example because it it represents some of the
Speaker 1: more notorious aspects of sexual robots. So we learned about
Speaker 1: Roxy from Eon magazine, which if you're a listen long
Speaker 1: time listener, you know that we read quite a bit
Speaker 1: of it. Uh. It's a robot companion. Uh. It doesn't
Speaker 1: quite produce the Uncanny Valley effect, you know, unlike um,
Speaker 1: those actroids that you sometimes see that are created in
Speaker 1: like Japanese commercials or something like that, but they come
Speaker 1: Roxy comes in a variety of models and some of
Speaker 1: them actually have personalities. So there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: programming that goes into this. Uh. It includes the regular Roxy.
Speaker 1: There is also mature Martha Young Yoko and Frigid Farrah.
Speaker 1: And that's where I got a little I got a
Speaker 1: little creeped out personally, because the idea of frigid fare
Speaker 1: is it's like she plays hard to get, she's you know,
Speaker 1: not necessarily interested in having sex with you. And that's
Speaker 1: a little that's where they're some weird lines. I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this is, you know, an obvious example of something
Speaker 1: will come back to the idea that you have men
Speaker 1: creating female robots for a male audience, and they've got
Speaker 1: very specific fetish aia, very stereotypical betrayals and um and
Speaker 1: sort of male approved models of what a female is,
Speaker 1: very simplistic models. Yeah. Oh, and I should clarify to
Speaker 1: young Yoko is not although we are going to talk
Speaker 1: about pedophile sex spots, Young Yoko is supposed to be
Speaker 1: over the age of eighteen personality wise. But basically, this
Speaker 1: roxy robot sounds kind of like Sirian the way that
Speaker 1: it talks back to you. Their purpose is to pride
Speaker 1: more than sex. The idea is that they're your true
Speaker 1: companion and you can talk to them before and after sex. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and given that you've got all the personalities chosen here,
Speaker 1: you know what, what does this tell us about the
Speaker 1: future proliferation of these sex spots? Uh? And here's where
Speaker 1: it gets real weird. Aon says that the person who
Speaker 1: created roxy it was originally created as the recreation of
Speaker 1: a friend that was lost in nine eleven, and then
Speaker 1: that developed into this consumer oriented sex spot. Well, and
Speaker 1: then I've also read that that the the technology behind
Speaker 1: rocks he started out as a as an inquiry into
Speaker 1: creation of a robot home care nurse. So now I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if there's just like these different urban myths about Roxy. Well, now,
Speaker 1: I I I wrote a little bit years ago where
Speaker 1: I ended up touching on Roxy and uh, and I
Speaker 1: believe the home care nurse thing is is legit. But
Speaker 1: I guess it comes down to like the evolution of
Speaker 1: an idea, the evolution of of figuring out how to
Speaker 1: commercially apply your technology. So what starts is an is
Speaker 1: an intention to create a robotic nurse. Uh, may end
Speaker 1: up going through some changes until suddenly you're producing a
Speaker 1: sex doll. Well, like you said, with all technological developments,
Speaker 1: that kind of the pioneer end of it is sexual
Speaker 1: in nature. I mean, look at the Internet. Yeah, exactly
Speaker 1: now we mentioned sex dolls. Of course, sex dolls have
Speaker 1: been around for some time, and it's been proven that
Speaker 1: individuals can at least find some sort of detached pleasure
Speaker 1: or even an imaginative bond with even just a non
Speaker 1: robotic semblance of a human. I always think back to
Speaker 1: a wonderful BBC documentary titled Guys and Dolls that came out. God,
Speaker 1: it must have been this. I think it maybe ten
Speaker 1: years old. Now you can find I think you can
Speaker 1: find most of it on YouTube and other such websites.
Speaker 1: But they profiled a handful of real doll owners. These are,
Speaker 1: of course anatomically correct life size human replicants. So are
Speaker 1: they built for the purpose of sexes. They're built with
Speaker 1: that purpose exclusively in mind. But is this documentary explored
Speaker 1: the individuals in their bond with these things ranged immensely,
Speaker 1: so there was there's like a there's one guy in
Speaker 1: it that's hanging them up on hooks, and another that
Speaker 1: just seems to obsessively collect him and has some stack
Speaker 1: like kindling and his crawl space. And those are some
Speaker 1: examples that you know, maybe hit the creep level of
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. But then there's this one
Speaker 1: guy who seems to have a largely, if not exclusively,
Speaker 1: emotional relationship with his doll, and he's going through like separation,
Speaker 1: anxiety over having he's having to move, and he's having
Speaker 1: to ship it. Okay, so it's it. It doesn't. It
Speaker 1: does a good job of just showing you, all right, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can have something like a real doll, but then
Speaker 1: the varying levels of engagement with it, the way people
Speaker 1: anthropomorphize it is going to vary from person to person. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess like if you want to step
Speaker 1: back at it and look at it like a very
Speaker 1: simple sense here and and pardon me if this is
Speaker 1: a little vulgar, but uh, it sounds like we're somewhere
Speaker 1: between that movie her I referred to earlier, where like
Speaker 1: nobody is needed. It's just an emotional relationship with an
Speaker 1: artificial consciousness and like a fleshlight, right, um, a flashlight.
Speaker 1: Just to explain, because this will come up again, is
Speaker 1: a popular sex toy with a male market, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: um so, And that's kind of where we're going to
Speaker 1: find criticism on both sides about this. Is like arguments
Speaker 1: about why we shouldn't make sex spots and arguments about
Speaker 1: why we should because there's this broad spectrum, right, um speaking,
Speaker 1: which have you seen the movie Dead Girl before? I
Speaker 1: have not. I'm familiar with it. I think is one
Speaker 1: that would always show up on Netflix formula. Yeah, it's that,
Speaker 1: I saw it on Netflix. It's not about sex spots,
Speaker 1: but it's, um, it's related to this. I don't want
Speaker 1: to give too much away, but essentially, these guys find
Speaker 1: a woman's dead body, but the body doesn't rot at all,
Speaker 1: like she's inanimate, but she's not dead. So it's a
Speaker 1: zombie film kind of yeah. Uh, and it goes where
Speaker 1: you would expect it to go based on what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. A right, Anyways, it seemed related to this,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, and no, let's get into the case
Speaker 1: against sex spots. I feel like this is a good
Speaker 1: place to start because it's going to tie in more
Speaker 1: directly with some of those sci fi ideas that we
Speaker 1: explored already. So you have one individual in particular with
Speaker 1: it's worth mentioning here, and that's Dr Kathleen Richardson. She's
Speaker 1: a robot ethicist at de Montfort University in Leicester, and
Speaker 1: she heads the campaign against sex Robots. Or c A
Speaker 1: s R. And she makes a number of arguments. She
Speaker 1: basically has a manifesto. Yeah, and so look, we should
Speaker 1: clarify like like this appeared to me to start off
Speaker 1: as a long academic paper which is you know, well written,
Speaker 1: but now it's like it's this whole web presence with
Speaker 1: sort of action items to it um. And she calls
Speaker 1: basically for an organized approach against the development of sex
Speaker 1: robots as a necessary response for humanity. And she says
Speaker 1: the reason why is that sex robots, in her mind,
Speaker 1: reflect human principles of dignity, mutuality, and freedom, and that
Speaker 1: by creating these bots, it's a representation of violence, discrimination
Speaker 1: and coercion. So we are manifesting kind of like the
Speaker 1: worst parts of ourselves in making these sex spots. And
Speaker 1: she also argues that the development of sex spots further
Speaker 1: sexually objectifies women and children. She says the vision for
Speaker 1: sex spots is underscored by reference to the prostitute John Exchange,
Speaker 1: which relies on recognizing only the needs and wants of
Speaker 1: the buyers of sex, while the sellers of sex are
Speaker 1: not attributed subjectively, and they're reduced to you know, a thing,
Speaker 1: an object like a robot. She argues that the development
Speaker 1: of sex robots and the ideas to support their production
Speaker 1: show the immense horrors still present in the world of prostitution,
Speaker 1: which is built on the perceived inferiority of women and children,
Speaker 1: and therefore justifies their use of sex objects. Also that
Speaker 1: the development of sex robots will further reduce human empathy
Speaker 1: and that can only be developed by an experience of
Speaker 1: a mutual relationship. And that's a that one ties in
Speaker 1: nicely to You and Joe's recent episodes on animal empathy
Speaker 1: and the absolutely Yeah. She goes on to challenge the
Speaker 1: view that the development of adult and child sex robot
Speaker 1: robots will have a positive benefit to society but instead
Speaker 1: further reinforced power relations of inequality and violence. Will get
Speaker 1: into what she's arguing about in a little bit, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then finally she says, you know, they take issue
Speaker 1: with arguments that propose that sex robots could help reduce
Speaker 1: sexual exploitation and violence toward prostituted persons. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: pointing to all the evidence that shows how technology and
Speaker 1: the sex trade co exists and reinforce each other, creating
Speaker 1: more demands subsequently for human bodies and we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about that a little bit too, especially in the case
Speaker 1: of pedophilia. Now. Dr Kate Devlin, who's a researcher at
Speaker 1: Goldsmith University of London, UH, their Department of Computing, she
Speaker 1: took some issue with this in a September two thousand
Speaker 1: sixteen interview with The Guardian. So she countered that that
Speaker 1: this argument as the whole dismisses the fact that women,
Speaker 1: not men, are quote more likely to purchase artificial non
Speaker 1: human substitutes such as vibrators. Yeah. She also says that
Speaker 1: the campaign against sex robots this is to distinguish, this
Speaker 1: is Kate Devlin talking against Kathleen Richardson. UH. She says
Speaker 1: that it rests on a parallel parallel that's drawn between
Speaker 1: sex robots and female sex workers. And Devlin sees sex
Speaker 1: robots as being potentially useful, especially if they're using machine
Speaker 1: learning and biofeedback, in the sense that they can quote
Speaker 1: provide adaptive, personal, fulfilling sexual experiences and in that way
Speaker 1: they could be used for therapeutic reasons. She also says
Speaker 1: sex look, sex is part of humanity's mental processes and
Speaker 1: it's fundamental to our human conditions. So it's worth considering
Speaker 1: how are bodily interactions like this make changes to our
Speaker 1: brain and how that has bearing on our cognitive processes.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot here that she's arguing that says like, yeah, like,
Speaker 1: I understand your argument, Kathleen Richardson about you know, a
Speaker 1: campaign against sexual robots. But there's some potential benefits here
Speaker 1: too that you seem to be ignoring. Yeah, yeah, she
Speaker 1: I think she makes a strong counter argument here, you know, saying, hey,
Speaker 1: would a woman be disinterested in buying a human replica
Speaker 1: or just a robotic sexual stimulations system because the the
Speaker 1: market information would tend to say no, that women already
Speaker 1: buy uh sexual technology, so why not the next generation
Speaker 1: of sexual technology? Yeah? Absolutely, Now, indeed, there is this
Speaker 1: problem that technology in general is often made buying men
Speaker 1: four men uh. And we can see examples of this
Speaker 1: well beyond the scope of of sexual devices. The artificial heart,
Speaker 1: for example, Uh, it's it's sizing has long best fit
Speaker 1: the dimensions of an adult human males chest. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until later that companies like Sincardia eventually rolled out a
Speaker 1: size more suitable for a for adult females and children.
Speaker 1: Another thing worth noting here too, is that newer forms
Speaker 1: of sex toys are created specifically for sharing between couples,
Speaker 1: so it's not necessarily male oriented. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: They're either marketed to couples or two men, not directly
Speaker 1: to women, even though, as Devlin says, women are the
Speaker 1: ones primarily using sex toys. So sex technology is definitely
Speaker 1: being created from a dominant heterosexual male perspective here. And
Speaker 1: even if sex spots aren't conscious, they're externally made to
Speaker 1: look like people, right uh, specifically women who are owned
Speaker 1: by heterosexual men. So maybe if we thought broader about
Speaker 1: our sex spots, we could alleviate these long running human
Speaker 1: problems the same way I like to think of it,
Speaker 1: looking back to the vibrator and how it basically changed
Speaker 1: completely like the way that medicine was approaching things like hysteria. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it comes down to the fact that you
Speaker 1: can you can go out to buy a sex um
Speaker 1: toy and you can get something, Yes, it definitely looks
Speaker 1: like a replica of a human body part, but you
Speaker 1: can also get things that can easily be mistaken for
Speaker 1: other household gadgets totally um. For instance, I U I
Speaker 1: travel with an arrow press, which is a coffee making device,
Speaker 1: but it is a cylindrical gadget. It's like a like
Speaker 1: a a French press that like is uh compartmentalized. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's basically like a plastic cylinder with a plunger that
Speaker 1: goes in it and to press the coffee out the
Speaker 1: other side. And I travel with it because it's a
Speaker 1: great way to ensure good coffee on the go. But
Speaker 1: it inevitably looks like something like it could be some
Speaker 1: sort of sexual when it's getting scanned through t s. A. Yeah,
Speaker 1: our dogs have these toys called go Nut. The company
Speaker 1: is called go Nuts, uh, and they make these like
Speaker 1: really sturdy rubbery dog chew toys. Because I've got two
Speaker 1: pit bull mixes, so they just like destroy anything I
Speaker 1: give them. And one of them is like a long
Speaker 1: shaft like looking thing and the other one looks like
Speaker 1: a doughnut. And the day that they got sent to
Speaker 1: my wife's office, you know, she she works for a
Speaker 1: big company security screens all the mail that goes through,
Speaker 1: and she's just laughing. She's like, can you imagine with
Speaker 1: the security people downstairs think as this stuff is going
Speaker 1: through their X ray machine. The good news here though,
Speaker 1: is that this all means plausible deniability for any actual
Speaker 1: sex device that has some degree of of of design
Speaker 1: ambiguity about it. Now, in two thousand and ten, there
Speaker 1: was a Dutch paper that came out and this was
Speaker 1: written for the United Nations, and it was titled gender
Speaker 1: Dimensions of Product Design and that it highlighted a quote
Speaker 1: male gender bias in mini tech products and as well
Speaker 1: as just a disconnect from the view of gender as
Speaker 1: a spectrum. Uh, and that observationally, um, all of this
Speaker 1: is influenced by biology, culture, and situation. So even I
Speaker 1: guess the idea here is that even if you get
Speaker 1: beyond the fact that it's it's largely men designing technology
Speaker 1: for men or men designing technology for women, there's also
Speaker 1: not necessarily that nuanced an idea of what what constitutes
Speaker 1: gender in the human reality. Yeah, and you know, male
Speaker 1: thinking has dominated the development of TVs and GPS devices,
Speaker 1: so can we really expect anything better from physical and
Speaker 1: conceptual design for sexual robotic systems? And then we've got
Speaker 1: David Levy here, uh, and he I'm gonna let you
Speaker 1: introduce this, but man, he wrote this really fascinating pieces.
Speaker 1: It seems like He's written multiple pieces specifically about ethics
Speaker 1: and robots. Yeah, this guy, this would be a good
Speaker 1: place if you want to do a deeper dive into
Speaker 1: some of these topics. That he's a British author, chess
Speaker 1: master and CEO of Intelligent Toys Limited, uh and he
Speaker 1: wrote about much of these issues in the Ethics of
Speaker 1: Robot Prostitutes from his UH that's a featured in the
Speaker 1: book Robot Ethics, published in two thousand eleven, and he
Speaker 1: argued that sex spots only really become a problem when
Speaker 1: they're bestowed with artificial consciousness, thus elevating them from mere
Speaker 1: artifact to something more something at least mimicking personhood. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the gist here of Levy's argument is that as
Speaker 1: long as sex spots are artifacts without any artificial consciousness,
Speaker 1: there's no ethical implications and having sex with them or
Speaker 1: using them for prostitution. Now, if we go back, I
Speaker 1: would imagine Dr Kathleen Richardson would take umbradge with that.
Speaker 1: But he says, you know, as long as there's no
Speaker 1: artificial consciousness, we're okay. But if they do have a consciousness,
Speaker 1: then that's when we get into llegal and ethical implications.
Speaker 1: And not just for ourselves. But then we've got to
Speaker 1: think about the robots. Do they get rights? Do they
Speaker 1: have legal and ethical rights that are implied by their consciousness? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this isn't in This is a whole can of worms
Speaker 1: here because on one hand, it gets into the whole
Speaker 1: question of what is consciousness? We can't even define what
Speaker 1: it is for humans, how do we define it in robots?
Speaker 1: And then it makes you ask questions about any and
Speaker 1: everything where there's a potential like faking of consciousness, Like
Speaker 1: when do I start have when I have to start
Speaker 1: becoming concerned about MPC characters and video games virtual individuals,
Speaker 1: Like if you have if you have an MPC in
Speaker 1: a video game that like it has a very realistic
Speaker 1: betrayal to your your violence and you're you know, running
Speaker 1: around gun toting whatever the behaviors in the video game.
Speaker 1: Like at what point does it become kind of creepy?
Speaker 1: That's essentially I think the argument that West World tries
Speaker 1: to make a season right, Yeah, like insert Westworld is
Speaker 1: as potential commentary on that question. One one more thought
Speaker 1: on this, UH was reading an article Indian magazine and
Speaker 1: this is a sex spot slaves sociologist Lee Reich has
Speaker 1: this excellent quote. But and if sex spots are not
Speaker 1: currently conscious, they do have the external markings of personhood,
Speaker 1: and we are programming them to be person alike. Indeed,
Speaker 1: we are programming them to be like a specific type
Speaker 1: of person, the type of woman who can be owned
Speaker 1: by a heterosexual man. So now we've heard many of
Speaker 1: the arguments against sex spots. When we've set up kind
Speaker 1: of where we're at with the technology, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break, and when we get back, we're gonna come
Speaker 1: back in on this and we're gonna talk about the
Speaker 1: argument for sex spots and how they could be beneficial
Speaker 1: to humanity. All Right, we're back, so uh, in this
Speaker 1: next little bit, we're going to talk about the victimization
Speaker 1: reduction argument for sex spots, And just a quick warning,
Speaker 1: we're going to briefly discuss pedophilia here, So if you
Speaker 1: really don't want to hear that, you know, skip ahead
Speaker 1: a little bit on your device. We're we're gonna discuss
Speaker 1: it with decorum here. But it does play a role
Speaker 1: in this discussion. So a point of contentions, as referenced already,
Speaker 1: is the argument that a robotic sex spot would absorb
Speaker 1: the violence and abuse that a human would otherwise suffer,
Speaker 1: and this would apply to both will really to to
Speaker 1: all individuals male, female, or a child or I've also
Speaker 1: seen the argument, uh for animals as well. So if
Speaker 1: you could have a robot stand in and absorb that abuse,
Speaker 1: like better a robot than an actual human like that,
Speaker 1: that's a problematic argument. Yeah, but that is an argument
Speaker 1: that some people make, right. I don't think there are
Speaker 1: many people out there who would who would argue with
Speaker 1: the statement that if a robot could suffer something rather
Speaker 1: than a human that would be preferable. Well, depending on
Speaker 1: whether or not it has consciousness. Yeah, well then then
Speaker 1: we get into that whole can of worms. But there's
Speaker 1: a as I say, it's it's a problematic argument, but
Speaker 1: it's it's one worth discussing, especially as it relates to
Speaker 1: people with pedophilic impulses. Um. There's a great deal of
Speaker 1: work that is on into this topic over the years,
Speaker 1: and we could easily do a whole episode on it,
Speaker 1: though it would be rather down or of an episode.
Speaker 1: There's no known medical or psychiatric cure for pedophilia, and
Speaker 1: our methods of dealing with such individuals as often crude,
Speaker 1: but we do have men such as Shin Takaji, who's
Speaker 1: abuse a Japanese man profiled in the in the Atlantic
Speaker 1: in two thousand sixteen. And this is a guy who
Speaker 1: struggles with an attraction to children as well as the
Speaker 1: knowledge the resolve that his attraction is just incompatible with reality.
Speaker 1: And that's the ultimate tragedy here, right, is that these
Speaker 1: are individuals who are born with this this drive, this inclination,
Speaker 1: and it's completely incompatible with our world is it's completely reprehensible.
Speaker 1: And some of these individuals realize this enter and do
Speaker 1: not act on their impulses. So what um, what this
Speaker 1: man know what to to is has been working on
Speaker 1: is creating sex dolls look like children, shifting them out
Speaker 1: around the world to individuals who claim to need them.
Speaker 1: But because what are the other options. There's cognitive behavioral therapy,
Speaker 1: there's chemical castration, but a two thousand seven meta analysis
Speaker 1: from the Mayo Clinic found that no current method can
Speaker 1: actually quote alter the pedophiles basic sexual orientation toward children. Right,
Speaker 1: So you end up with this argument, which is sort
Speaker 1: of like, if you have these child sex spots, is
Speaker 1: that a safer outlet for pedophiles or the the sort
Speaker 1: of flip side to that, is, is that going to
Speaker 1: aggravate their sense of frustration so that they act out
Speaker 1: on real human beings even more right, And there's no
Speaker 1: evidence to show that his approach works, but it is
Speaker 1: difficult to gauge because things I already mentioned. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of research, but a lot of the research is
Speaker 1: based on actual offenders, not people who managed to stay
Speaker 1: off impulse is. But what research there is tends to
Speaker 1: imply that such a doll might have really a reinforcing effect. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, there are several different categories for pedophiles, but
Speaker 1: a University of Toronto forensic psychologist and sexologist Michael Setto,
Speaker 1: speculates that there might be two broader distinctions among pedophiles.
Speaker 1: So for one group, a doll or robot might serve
Speaker 1: to keep them from seeking out shop pornography or become
Speaker 1: abusers themselves. For others, though, it just might aggravate their impulses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this this is very problematic. Uh, and I think
Speaker 1: to like, I'm imagining you, the listener, are probably struggling
Speaker 1: with one concept here that that we're sort of it's
Speaker 1: sort of like the unspoken thing in the room, right,
Speaker 1: which is the idea that pedophilia is inherent. It's not.
Speaker 1: It's natural and it's part of this person's you know, biology,
Speaker 1: and not something that's learned. And uh, you know, either way, though,
Speaker 1: the research shows that it is different extremely difficult or
Speaker 1: if not impossible to cure in the individuals. So so
Speaker 1: what do you do. We're left without the technology of
Speaker 1: the medical expertise to quote unquote fix someone like this.
Speaker 1: Then does that mean that a robotic doll would have
Speaker 1: a place? And I have to say, you know, like
Speaker 1: as sort of creepy as it is to read about
Speaker 1: two Kagi, at least seems to be taking his impulses
Speaker 1: and doing something productive with them, right, at least he's
Speaker 1: trying to like turn it around, uh, into something that
Speaker 1: has a benefit I guess to society, or at least
Speaker 1: reduces danger to society. Um. But when you, like you
Speaker 1: read about in this Atlantic article his workshop. He's got
Speaker 1: this mountain workshop that's up in the woods, and all
Speaker 1: of his employees have to be former military, specifically because
Speaker 1: of the kind of chemicals that he's using in order
Speaker 1: to create like, um, like more realistic skin. Uh. And
Speaker 1: we should talk about this ceremony. So apparently because they're Japanese. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's the special ceremony that sort of along the lines
Speaker 1: of Shinto animism that's performed for the dolls, specifically at
Speaker 1: a shrine when their owners don't want them anymore because
Speaker 1: they think of them as having I don't know if
Speaker 1: soul isn't the right word, but but that there is
Speaker 1: some kind of essence to them that you don't just
Speaker 1: take this thing and throw it in the trash. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he says in the article quote it's a common belief
Speaker 1: in Japan that dolls are mirrors, that dolls show their
Speaker 1: owners true self. So, again, a problematic scenario to look at,
Speaker 1: but one that that is core to both the arguments
Speaker 1: for and against uh sex robots. Right, and then this
Speaker 1: leads us right back to Dr Kate Devlin, who was,
Speaker 1: you know, the person who originally argued against the case
Speaker 1: against sex robots. Yeah, and this brings us into what
Speaker 1: I think is the most the most fascinating area, uh,
Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about here today, and that's
Speaker 1: the theory of the ankle. So she argues that sex
Speaker 1: spots would essentially be sex toys that benefit from machine
Speaker 1: learning and bio feedback and She also points out that
Speaker 1: despite all of our sci fi visions of humanoid sex robots,
Speaker 1: there's no reason they these things would need to have
Speaker 1: a human form or a human face. Again, we've already
Speaker 1: as we've already said, a great many sex toys do
Speaker 1: not even look like parts of a human, much less
Speaker 1: a human being. Um. She She points out specifically that
Speaker 1: for female females, there is I think it's called the
Speaker 1: rabbit is is a vibrator device that does not look
Speaker 1: like a part of the male or female anatomy. And
Speaker 1: then the flesh light, which we already mentioned. There apparently
Speaker 1: some models that do look like replicas of human of
Speaker 1: human anatomy, but others that don't, others that have more
Speaker 1: fantastic or abstract appearances. So you could put these together,
Speaker 1: and you could easily imagine a sexual robot that either
Speaker 1: does not look like a gendered human or even like
Speaker 1: maybe looks like a spider or something. You know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like it could it could sort of be anything that
Speaker 1: could be like a rumba. Yeah, rumba might be something.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I was going this way, but
Speaker 1: like somebody might particularly want like a kind of whale,
Speaker 1: like a like a smallish whale. Yeah, And I mean
Speaker 1: the thing is we can say, oh that's propellant. Who
Speaker 1: would want to have, you know, sexual contact with an
Speaker 1: inhuman machine. But again, we are already doing it. The
Speaker 1: market research shows that the individuals have been using non
Speaker 1: human sexual machines for some time now, so it's not
Speaker 1: out of keeping with human behavior. And so there's a
Speaker 1: lot of applications here that Devil is saying, right, like,
Speaker 1: we could use this to treat a lot of different
Speaker 1: ailments that humans are suffering from. That's right. So there's
Speaker 1: the treatment of sex offenders, which we've already touched on, UH,
Speaker 1: couples therapy, which I think is interesting. You made a
Speaker 1: point earlier about so many of the current devices are
Speaker 1: made for for a couple to uh to use together,
Speaker 1: sometimes across fast distances. Yeah. Then this is a big one.
Speaker 1: The restoration of sexual confidence following trauma and or injury. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a topic we touched on some in our
Speaker 1: our episode that we did where we interviewed Mary Roach
Speaker 1: about about the surgical repair of genitalia, specifically soldiers who
Speaker 1: have suffered, you know, grievous wounds to that area of
Speaker 1: the academy that's an episode we should definitely put in
Speaker 1: the links on the landing page because it's related. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh and and indeed, I believe Walter Reed Hospital
Speaker 1: came up in that episode as well. They have a
Speaker 1: sexual health and intimacy service that focuses on education and therapy. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there's a great Atlantic article about this from last
Speaker 1: year that focuses on the broader topic. But but the
Speaker 1: author points out that the department in question features quote
Speaker 1: de facto sex classes that include sex toys aimed at
Speaker 1: stimulating different parts of the body. So the main aim
Speaker 1: here is individuals who have experienced genital or spinal cord injuries. Uh.
Speaker 1: They may have lost their ability to have an orgasm themselves,
Speaker 1: and they have to adapt to their new bodies and
Speaker 1: a new approach to physical intimacy with with their spouse
Speaker 1: or with you know, with with new relationships in their lives. Now,
Speaker 1: in this case, we're talking specifically about veterans who are
Speaker 1: maybe lost a limb or something like that, or or
Speaker 1: but there's there's some cases where sex therapy like this
Speaker 1: is needed for other people as well. Yeah. And indeed,
Speaker 1: also memory impairing injuries and just basic trauma that stems
Speaker 1: from combat can disrupt an individual sex lift. So you
Speaker 1: need not even have a physical injury for this kind
Speaker 1: of therapy to be necessary. And so the question is
Speaker 1: could a sex robot aid in this kind of of
Speaker 1: work as well. Now, Delvin also hits on general sex
Speaker 1: therapy and says that, you know, VR therapy is already
Speaker 1: a big deal. And she also mentions that VR therapy
Speaker 1: is already already a thing and it's only going to
Speaker 1: become more of a of a big deal in the future.
Speaker 1: And uh. And then there's this idea of the use
Speaker 1: of of sex spots to potentially a allow individuals to
Speaker 1: explore gender or sexual orientation or just sexuality um as
Speaker 1: a whole. And in this the role of the sex
Speaker 1: spot would very closely mimic the role of a sex surrogate.
Speaker 1: So this is a thing that already exists. Uh, and
Speaker 1: you can look this up. Uh, this is not prostitution.
Speaker 1: Surrogates are members of the International Professional Surrogates Association, and
Speaker 1: they only work with people who have been referred to
Speaker 1: them by psychotherapist. According to an interview in the two
Speaker 1: thousand three Salon article, I was a middle aged version
Speaker 1: Los Angeles surrogate partner Dr Vina Blanchard. Uh. She works
Speaker 1: generally works with older versions. They account for fifty of
Speaker 1: her practice. And these patients are, you know, are men
Speaker 1: who have encountered limiting obstacles to experiencing sex. They didn't
Speaker 1: develop the interpersonal skills necessary, etcetera. And the exact reasons,
Speaker 1: you know, very quite a bit, encompassing everything from extreme
Speaker 1: shyness to history of sexual abuse. They're often plagued by
Speaker 1: feelings of shame and that they need someone to help
Speaker 1: them break through it all. All right, So I've got
Speaker 1: a personal story here that I can absolutely see applications focus. Okay, Uh,
Speaker 1: I had a nightmarish temp job in my early twenties.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've told you about this before. Um So,
Speaker 1: I was tempting in my early twenties. This was when
Speaker 1: I was living in Boston, and one of my assignments
Speaker 1: was to work for a week for a psychotherapist whose
Speaker 1: job it was to basically review and interview sex offenders
Speaker 1: and decide whether or not they should be released from
Speaker 1: prison into the general population, like whether or not their
Speaker 1: sentence was was up they had been quote unquote reformed,
Speaker 1: and the job that was assigned to me, was to
Speaker 1: literally this was a while ago. I literally listened to
Speaker 1: cassette tapes that they would record of their sessions and
Speaker 1: inscribe everything. And so I did this for a week
Speaker 1: straight in the middle of a very cold winter in Boston.
Speaker 1: It's a long commute. It was in Quincy, and uh wow,
Speaker 1: like it was just like getting like this toxic sludge
Speaker 1: dumped into your head, you know. And I remember that
Speaker 1: last day, like knowing it was over, just standing there
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, waiting for the shuttle
Speaker 1: to pick me up to take me to the train
Speaker 1: and just crying. Uh. And so I think about you know,
Speaker 1: not not just virgins or or maybe pedophiles or even
Speaker 1: veterans who need some help with you know, these potentially
Speaker 1: debilitating sexual I don't know issues that they're having, but
Speaker 1: but all of this stuff is it's very real in
Speaker 1: my head based on that one week experience. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that sounds like it definitely definitely, I mean
Speaker 1: I had an impact on your psyche to have to
Speaker 1: absorb all that. Yeah, yeah, but it Yeah, I can
Speaker 1: see that the definitely applications here as well. Now surrogates,
Speaker 1: as we've been talking about their their intimacy coaches and therapists,
Speaker 1: and they don't always have sex with clients. So there
Speaker 1: is much about imparting relationship skills, providing human combassion, and
Speaker 1: also just creating an open, honest line of communication, breaking
Speaker 1: through in the case of especially in the case of
Speaker 1: the visions, breaking through the shame. And I can see
Speaker 1: where this could this could definitely be an area for
Speaker 1: sex robots in the future. You know, So sexual abuse
Speaker 1: or any kind of sort of sexual dysfunction as we
Speaker 1: see it, especially in sort of psychoanalytical terms, right are,
Speaker 1: seems to be something that sort of breeds a vicious cycle. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, like the people who are hurt or tend
Speaker 1: to then go on to hurt others. So in this instance,
Speaker 1: like I'm I'm seeing, like the surrogates, we wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to be in that situation. But the sex robots, again,
Speaker 1: as long as they're not artificially conscious, they could serve
Speaker 1: a role to sort of put a halt to that
Speaker 1: vicious circle. Yeah. Yeah. And and also just the idea
Speaker 1: you think about this idea that there are people out
Speaker 1: there who have trouble developing relationships that they don't have
Speaker 1: the social tools perhaps, or there there's some sort of
Speaker 1: trauma holding them back from having the kind of interpersonal
Speaker 1: relationships that can lead to sexual contact when they are
Speaker 1: their individual Like should they should they just live out
Speaker 1: their lives without sexual contact? Are they aren't? Do they
Speaker 1: have like on some level, do they have a right
Speaker 1: to have sex with a robotic device or machine or
Speaker 1: robotic humanoid if such a thing can be made available
Speaker 1: and within an ethical framework that works well. And let's remember,
Speaker 1: let's go back to what we said earlier, which is
Speaker 1: that sexuality and sex are part of the human condition
Speaker 1: and our brains are absolutely affected by them. So why
Speaker 1: I not have this technology that would allow those people
Speaker 1: to experience the human condition like the rest of us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this this all forces me to sort of try
Speaker 1: to imagine this future sex spot. Like on one hand,
Speaker 1: imagine like a purely the therapeutic one. So you have
Speaker 1: to go to a therapist, to human therapist to be
Speaker 1: you know, prescribed your sex spot and they come to
Speaker 1: you and it's not about just simply fulfilling some physical
Speaker 1: need or even an emotional need, but allowing a transformation,
Speaker 1: like getting you to a point to where you are
Speaker 1: comfortable with your own sexuality, comfortable, comfortable to human sexuality
Speaker 1: in general, that you are more capable of of healthy
Speaker 1: human sexual relationships. And on the other hand, like a
Speaker 1: purely hedonistic level, a mechanical room. But or spider that
Speaker 1: just when when called, you know, crawls out of a
Speaker 1: box in your closet and does what needs to be
Speaker 1: done and sleep at night. Right, that's very trans metropolitan,
Speaker 1: and I'm imaginating expider Jerusalem has something like that and
Speaker 1: as closet. Yeah, yeah, but not too far from you know,
Speaker 1: other topics that we've talked about in the past, especially
Speaker 1: when you add in sort of like a bioengineering into
Speaker 1: the mix. All right, So there you have it. Sex
Speaker 1: spots again, something we just see time and time again
Speaker 1: in sci fi. That's really become part of our pop culture.
Speaker 1: But I don't think most of us take time to
Speaker 1: really break it down and think about the components, think
Speaker 1: about the pros and the cons. Certainly some of these
Speaker 1: I thought about before, but other aspects, especially the whole
Speaker 1: therapeutic aspect, I'd never really given any consideration. I think
Speaker 1: with the surge of Westworld last year that like this
Speaker 1: kind of thing has become maybe water cooler talk but
Speaker 1: not to the extent of like the research that we
Speaker 1: did here really looking at like the pros and cons
Speaker 1: and how it's beneficial or how the theory, the philosophical
Speaker 1: approach to it, of how it could potentially sort of
Speaker 1: show the worst of humanity as well. That's the part
Speaker 1: I think that like West World's really honing in on.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, like has West World I can't
Speaker 1: really remember, and I don't think this is spoilers, but like,
Speaker 1: was there an instance of somebody who visited the park
Speaker 1: who needed that kind of therapeutic help and going to
Speaker 1: one of the brothels. I feel like it might have
Speaker 1: come up just um, you know, in the margins, but
Speaker 1: I don't remember it being a major character of all
Speaker 1: it because because ultimately, like how how dramatic is that? Right? Right?
Speaker 1: You want you wanted to explore the cases of abuse
Speaker 1: or the cases of love, because that those are the
Speaker 1: two big trance we see either someone either is abusive
Speaker 1: to a feminine sexual robot or they fall in love
Speaker 1: with it. There's not a lot of in obviously, there's
Speaker 1: a lot more space in the human condition for sexual
Speaker 1: conduct to take place as a broader spectrum, So it
Speaker 1: seems like it should be present as well in our
Speaker 1: consideration of sex button. Maybe that's something Season two will
Speaker 1: get into. I mean, I'm not sure. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: everyone listening to this episode is a human being, so
Speaker 1: I'm sure everyone has thoughts on the current technology, uh
Speaker 1: where we're headed with it, as well as all the
Speaker 1: various fantastic and and maybe even more hard boiled sci
Speaker 1: fi visions of what sex spots might consist of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we hope we didn't, you know, disturb you too
Speaker 1: much with getting into some graphic territory here, but this
Speaker 1: seemed like a topic that was worth really diving into
Speaker 1: and relevant to not only popular culture but modern technology.
Speaker 1: All right. Now, as we close out here, we've been
Speaker 1: we we like to highlight various nonprofits and uh and
Speaker 1: and helpful organizations. Given the some of the subject matter
Speaker 1: we've talked about here, we just wanted to mention rain
Speaker 1: as are ai n N there, the Rate Abuse and
Speaker 1: Incest National Network. You can find them online, but you
Speaker 1: can also call them two seven on your phone at
Speaker 1: one eight hundred six five six hope or one eight
Speaker 1: hundred six five six four six seven three. And also
Speaker 1: we're still celebrating tripod month. Here at how stuff We're works.
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with what that is. Podcasts around
Speaker 1: the world are sharing one another's feeds, and the way
Speaker 1: that they're doing that is on social media, letting everybody
Speaker 1: know what they're listening to using the hashtag tripod. That's
Speaker 1: t r y pod uh. And the one that I'd
Speaker 1: like to include here is I just got back from
Speaker 1: south By Southwest and I saw a couple of live
Speaker 1: performances of the podcast Recode Decode uh, and they did
Speaker 1: some pretty cool stuff that I think if you're a
Speaker 1: fan of stuff to blow your mind, you might be
Speaker 1: interested in. Yeah, and hey, you get on social media
Speaker 1: everyone out there and use the the hashtag tripod with
Speaker 1: a Y to just list some of your favorite podcast
Speaker 1: I'm not saying list us you can you want, but
Speaker 1: also listed the other things that you listen to, the
Speaker 1: other shows that get you through the day. We've had
Speaker 1: a couple of people who have who have done some
Speaker 1: really nice hashtag tripods for us. Specifically, I've seen some
Speaker 1: really cool stuff on Instagram where they take pictures of
Speaker 1: hell they listen to us. Yeah cool, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a clever idea. All right, In the meantime, head on
Speaker 1: over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's
Speaker 1: what you'll find all the podcast episodes. The landing page
Speaker 1: for this episode, you will find links out to our
Speaker 1: various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram,
Speaker 1: and who knows what else? Who knows what? The future
Speaker 1: will break? Yeah, and if you just want to write
Speaker 1: us the old fashioned way, we are at blow the
Speaker 1: mind at how stuff works dot com. Well more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff
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