Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: We are headed vault. Word. What's in the vault today? Well,
Speaker 1: this time the vault is full of sex spots. Joe. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is an episode that I recorded with Christian
Speaker 1: back in UHR. And this one was a really interesting
Speaker 1: to want to do. This is one that we we've
Speaker 1: actually run into cases where someone has suggested it and
Speaker 1: then we get to point back and say, ah, actually,
Speaker 1: here it is. Here's everything you probably want to know
Speaker 1: and a few things you don't want to know about
Speaker 1: the idea of robots that are being created, that are
Speaker 1: being conceived and maybe created in the future. Uh that
Speaker 1: are that are created for human sexual reasons. And I
Speaker 1: mean and it really it runs the gamut from from
Speaker 1: ideas that are rather exploitive than kind of disturbing to
Speaker 1: things that actually sound like they will have a you know,
Speaker 1: positive effect on society, the idea of therapeutic robots. So
Speaker 1: anyway we we present it to you, let you dive in,
Speaker 1: and then you can let us know how you feel
Speaker 1: about these ideas. All right, Well, without any further Ado.
Speaker 1: Let's get into this vault episode. Welcome to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and my name is Christian Seger. 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 in, 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 explore. Yes, we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about some of the in many cases trashier um examples
Speaker 1: of this show up in our science fiction. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about some definite opposition to the idea of
Speaker 1: sex spots, but we're also going to explore some territory
Speaker 1: that I was really fascinated with that where where we
Speaker 1: see a more positive vision of what a sex spot
Speaker 1: or sexual interaction between humans and machines might consist, of
Speaker 1: 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 bill 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 about artificial humans, and certainly we've dreamed about artificial
Speaker 1: humans since ancient times, they factored into our many of
Speaker 1: our myth cycles. We we inherently deal with our anxiety
Speaker 1: about technology and our anxiety about human nature in dreaming
Speaker 1: up these various examples. So a few that come to mind.
Speaker 1: There's a wonderful novel titled The Wind Up Girl. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this was by Paulo Baca Galupi. And this is
Speaker 1: this coming concerned you know, sort of your sort of
Speaker 1: your typical sex bot scenario. We have a pleasure body
Speaker 1: of some kind, a feminine robot that is made for
Speaker 1: male pleasure, that escapes, goes rogue, you know, has a
Speaker 1: has a struggle for independence. It's a really good book. Uh,
Speaker 1: but it does explore kind of a classic trope here
Speaker 1: that is a very common trope in sci fi now
Speaker 1: now that I think about it, and especially looking at
Speaker 1: a lot of our examples here with things that are
Speaker 1: really kind of popular right now, like Humans or Westworld, right,
Speaker 1: like the other shows that are all exploring that same idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: both great shows. And you can and it's obvious why
Speaker 1: this is such a powerful trope because you get to
Speaker 1: explore not only are concerns about technology and the future
Speaker 1: of technology, but also about about what it means to
Speaker 1: be to be female in today's world. And and uh
Speaker 1: and in various feminine issues that you can explore through this. Uh,
Speaker 1: this fantastic vision. Yeah. The other recent one that really
Speaker 1: gripped a lot of people's attention. I thought it was
Speaker 1: maybe the best movie that came out that year was
Speaker 1: XM Gonna Yes. Alex Garland's XM Gonna Wow. Uh definitely
Speaker 1: Uh talked about the issues surrounding sex, 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's 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 undo itself, Like to what degree we in view
Speaker 1: a non living thing with life, even if it's not
Speaker 1: a robot, even if it is a doll or a
Speaker 1: toy painting. I mean, we have this fabulous ability to
Speaker 1: anthropomorphize just about anything, to have it lead you put
Speaker 1: a smiley face on something and it will create we
Speaker 1: will instantly have this smidgeon at least a smidgeon of
Speaker 1: investment in that thing as a person. Well, and that
Speaker 1: goes way back. You've got notes here to the Greek
Speaker 1: myth of Hefestus, right, or as I usually call him, Vulcan,
Speaker 1: because I think that's Vulcan's what the Roman version of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have Vulcans, the Roman version and uh yeah, and
Speaker 1: if you've ever rolled through Birmingham, Alabama, they have a
Speaker 1: big statue of Vulcan. Wait, is that right? That's true? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: why because it was like a steel working town. Okay, so,
Speaker 1: uh so Vulcan plays a role in in my personal
Speaker 1: history as well. But yeah, this in myth, he created
Speaker 1: a series of life sized golden maids, among various other models.
Speaker 1: So he was kind of a mad scientist of Greek
Speaker 1: and Roman myth. But you can see they're like going
Speaker 1: that far back that we human beings were thinking about
Speaker 1: in our culture and our storytelling, like how we were
Speaker 1: going to try to replicate the human experience in machines
Speaker 1: or in I believe the terminology that was used referring
Speaker 1: to Vulcan and Hefestus was biotechnique. Yeah, yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: and there's a wonderful Ian magazine, aren't on that. I'll
Speaker 1: try to include a link to that and some of
Speaker 1: the other articles who were mentioning here in the landing
Speaker 1: page for this episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: dot Com. Also, obviously many people out there probably thinking
Speaker 1: of Darryl Hannah's character Priss from Blade Runner, which is
Speaker 1: referred to as a basic pleasure model. Although so it's funny.
Speaker 1: I was reading an Ionine article yesterday that's all about
Speaker 1: what what we're talking about right now, the fictionalized versions
Speaker 1: of sex spots. There's a lot of argumentation in the
Speaker 1: commentary about whether Priss counted because replicants are technically organic individuals.
Speaker 1: I think she counts. Yeah, yeah, there there's that whole
Speaker 1: Once you get into the whole android replicant thing, it
Speaker 1: gets a little, uh, a little hazy. Now, anybody out
Speaker 1: there is a fan of Rick and Morty, there was
Speaker 1: an episode titled Raising gas Orpazorp that included a sex
Speaker 1: spot that I haven't seen that one. Yeah, that that
Speaker 1: Morty ends up acquiring and has a brief addiction to.
Speaker 1: So we might come back to that vision of a
Speaker 1: sex spot here in the future. But that kind of
Speaker 1: leads us into some of the more exploited visions. I
Speaker 1: guess you can say, the sort of heavy metal visions
Speaker 1: of the sex spot. Um, what what was the name
Speaker 1: of the artist that you 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 you're unfamiliar with it, is an American
Speaker 1: magazine that specializes in comics that are sort of like
Speaker 1: R rated fantasy sci fi comics. Uh. And the cover
Speaker 1: art is usually pretty salacious. And Robert found this one
Speaker 1: artist who has done quite a number of covers for
Speaker 1: them that specializes in sexualized female robots. Oh yeah, this
Speaker 1: would be, of course, be Japanese artist Hajjimie Sori Yama. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is this is one of the Remember when
Speaker 1: I first got online really the first year of college,
Speaker 1: last year of high school, I ended up introducing myself
Speaker 1: to a number of fantasy artists that that I was
Speaker 1: instantly taken with. And uh and I remember encountering this
Speaker 1: guy's work and it's it's I catch ing, but it's
Speaker 1: all of like sexy robot pinop dolls, like that's his
Speaker 1: his thing, and that's certainly a vision of the sex spot,
Speaker 1: the fimbot that you know, whatever you want to call them,
Speaker 1: whatever they're calling your particular uh sci fi property that
Speaker 1: we see time and time again. Um, like a property
Speaker 1: that I think back to is nineteen eight seven's Cherry
Speaker 1: two thousand starring Melanie Griffith. I have never seen that,
Speaker 1: and I you know, I've always kind of heard about
Speaker 1: it on the fringe of things, but yeah, it really
Speaker 1: 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 nineteen 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 fifties
Speaker 1: shades of gray movies. Then if like daughter can just
Speaker 1: be like, well you were in Cherry two thousand, Yes,
Speaker 1: but she was not Cherry two thousand, Oh she was.
Speaker 1: She was just she's 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: into 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 eggs ideas they were going to discuss here,
Speaker 1: because it's men making robot women to be their perfect wives. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's Jude Law as Jigglo 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 sex spots, including one of Buffy for Spike, which
Speaker 1: really there's some really dicey sexual relationship stuff that goes
Speaker 1: on 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
Speaker 1: comics check that out. So obviously, some of these visions
Speaker 1: of the sex spot are are more fantastic than others,
Speaker 1: and some are more serious than others in their commentary.
Speaker 1: But ultimately it's all sort of circling around our our
Speaker 1: legitimate concerns about ourselves and technology. So what what are
Speaker 1: we afraid of? What? What indeed are we very right
Speaker 1: to be concerned about? Uh? You know, we see this
Speaker 1: continuing trope of the human abuse of robots mirroring our
Speaker 1: own abuse of each other. If we create robots in
Speaker 1: our image, then are we destined to exploit them, to
Speaker 1: abuse them, and even further objectify and to humanize each
Speaker 1: other based on this model? And I also can't help
Speaker 1: but feel that female sex spots and fiction especially tend
Speaker 1: to serve, as you know, as commentaries on product femininity.
Speaker 1: Uh the the all too frequent portrayal of human females
Speaker 1: as mere sex objects, devoid of nuanced personality or identity.
Speaker 1: And we didn't plan it out this way, but actually
Speaker 1: so coming out this week along with this episode, we're
Speaker 1: doing an episode on the science of ovulation and how
Speaker 1: that plays into marketing femininity. Uh and and so it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting to do these two episodes side by side
Speaker 1: and sort of see the parallels. Yeah, there's always this
Speaker 1: weird synchronicity between the episodes, it seems. So why don't
Speaker 1: we get into the current state of you know what.
Speaker 1: 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 sexpots 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 dildough
Speaker 1: is more than twenty thousand years old. Vibrators began as
Speaker 1: medical devices that midwives and physicians use to treat illnesses
Speaker 1: such as hysteria through what they referred to as pelvic
Speaker 1: massage or manual stimulation. The first one of these was
Speaker 1: 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 to 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 has 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 AI Robotics in
Speaker 1: the Future of Jobs. Now. For the most part, this
Speaker 1: 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 Stow Boyd, whose lead researcher for Giga o
Speaker 1: M Research futurists. 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 A eyes,
Speaker 1: and 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 world 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 punchline of many a jail. 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 Joe 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 roboticists continue to make strides in this area.
Speaker 1: So everyone's seeing videos of the various of Boston Dynamics robots,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're often kind of fearsome. They look
Speaker 1: like mechanical jumping horses. I gets. So we should probably
Speaker 1: clarify what this is. Maybe not everybody out there is
Speaker 1: familiar with this. So this is what the last year
Speaker 1: and a half Boston Dynamics is like continually releasing these
Speaker 1: kind of like press release videos of these robots that
Speaker 1: they're working on that basically look like robot pack mules. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the cell, right that there robotic
Speaker 1: pack mules that can that would have a military application,
Speaker 1: that can go over diverse terraine. 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 any of There
Speaker 1: are other areas where the technology continues to impress, So
Speaker 1: we know robot assisted surgery VR, haptic feedback, and there
Speaker 1: is this, uh, this field of that's sometimes referred to
Speaker 1: as tele del donis uh where they're utilizing all this
Speaker 1: technology for more advanced sexual devices and sex toys. This
Speaker 1: is basically across long distances right right. Like one example
Speaker 1: of this is uh uh Frixtion, I believe is the
Speaker 1: name of how you pronounced the product, and they use
Speaker 1: 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 robot. So we learned about
Speaker 1: Roxy from Eon magazine, which if if you're a 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 there's 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 NNE
Speaker 1: creating female robots for a male audience, and they've got
Speaker 1: very specific fetish very stereotypical betrayals and um and sort
Speaker 1: of male approved models of what a female is, very
Speaker 1: simplistic models. Yeah. Oh, and I should clarify to young
Speaker 1: Yoko is not although we are going to talk about
Speaker 1: pedophile sex spots. Young Yoko is supposed to be over
Speaker 1: the age of eighteen personality wise. But basically this roxy
Speaker 1: robot sounds kind of like Sirian the way that it
Speaker 1: talks back to you. There urpist is to pride more
Speaker 1: than sex. The idea is that they're your true companion
Speaker 1: 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 technology behind Roxy
Speaker 1: started out as a as an inquiry into creation of
Speaker 1: a robot home care nurse. So now I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: 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 the evolution of an idea,
Speaker 1: the evolution of of figuring out how to commercially apply
Speaker 1: your technology. So what starts as an as an intention
Speaker 1: to create a robotic nurse, uh, may end up going
Speaker 1: through some changes until suddenly you're producing a sex doll. Well,
Speaker 1: like you said, with all technological developments, that kind of
Speaker 1: the pioneering end of it is sexual in nature. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at the Internet. Yeah, exactly. Now we mentioned sex dolls.
Speaker 1: Of course, sex dolls have been around for some time,
Speaker 1: and it's been proven that individuals can at least find
Speaker 1: some sort of detached pleasure or even an imaginative bond
Speaker 1: with even just a non robotic semblance of a human.
Speaker 1: I always think back to a wonderful BBC documentary titled
Speaker 1: Guys and Dolls that came out. God, it must have
Speaker 1: been this. I think it maybe ten years old. Now
Speaker 1: you can find I think you can find most of
Speaker 1: it on YouTube and other such websites. But they profiled
Speaker 1: a handful of real doll owners. These are, of course
Speaker 1: anatomically correct life size human replicants. So are they built
Speaker 1: for the purpose of sexes. They're built with that purpose
Speaker 1: exclusively in mind. But is this documentary explored the individuals
Speaker 1: in their bond with these things ranged immensely so there
Speaker 1: was there's like a there's one guy in it that's
Speaker 1: hanging him up on hooks, and another that just seems
Speaker 1: to obsessively collect him and has some stack like kindling
Speaker 1: and his crawl space, and those are some examples that
Speaker 1: you know, maybe hit the creep level of for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. But then there's this one guy who
Speaker 1: seems to have a largely, if not exclusively, emotional relationship
Speaker 1: with his doll, and he's going through like separation, anxiety
Speaker 1: over having he's having to move and he's having to
Speaker 1: ship it, and so it's it. It doesn't. It does
Speaker 1: 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 fleshlight.
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 a sense actually these
Speaker 1: guys find a woman's dead body, but the body doesn't
Speaker 1: rot at all, like she's inanimate, but she's not dead.
Speaker 1: So it's a zombie film kind of yeah. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it goes where you would expect it to go based
Speaker 1: on what we're talking about. Anyways, it seemed related to
Speaker 1: this alright. Well, on that note, let's get into the
Speaker 1: case against sex spots. I feel like this is a
Speaker 1: good place to start because it's going to tie in
Speaker 1: more directly with some of those sci fi ideas that
Speaker 1: we explored already. So you have one individual in particular
Speaker 1: with it's worth mentioning here, and that's Dr Kathleen Richardson.
Speaker 1: She's a robot ethicist at de Montfort University in Leicester,
Speaker 1: and she heads the Campaign Against Sex Robots or c
Speaker 1: a s R. And she makes a number of arguments,
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
Speaker 1: thing and object like a robot. She argues that the
Speaker 1: development of sex robots and the ideas to support their
Speaker 1: production show the immense horrors still present in the world
Speaker 1: of prostitution, which is built on the perceived inferiority of
Speaker 1: women and children, and therefore justifies their use of sex objects.
Speaker 1: Also that the development of sex robots will further reduce
Speaker 1: human empathy and that can only be developed by an
Speaker 1: experience of a mutual relationship. And that's a that one
Speaker 1: ties in nicely to you and Joe's recent episodes on
Speaker 1: animal empathy and the human Absolutely. Yeah. She goes on
Speaker 1: to challenge the view that the development of adult and
Speaker 1: child sex robot robots will have a positive benefit to
Speaker 1: society but instead further reinforced power relations of inequality and violence.
Speaker 1: Will get 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 a 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 bio feedback, in the sense that they can
Speaker 1: quote provide adaptive, personal, fulfilling sexual experiences and in that
Speaker 1: way they could be used for therapeutic reasons. She also
Speaker 1: says sex look, sex is part of humanity's mental processes
Speaker 1: and it's fundamental to our human conditions, so it's worth
Speaker 1: considering how our bodily. Interactions like this make changes to
Speaker 1: our 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 by men
Speaker 1: for 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 it
Speaker 1: wasn't until later that companies like SynCardia eventually rolled out
Speaker 1: a 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 hoosexual 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 completely,
Speaker 1: 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 aero 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 it looks like something like it could be
Speaker 1: some sort of sexual and it's getting scanned through t s. A. Yeah,
Speaker 1: our dogs have these toys called go Nuts. 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 featured in the book
Speaker 1: Robot Ethics, published in two thousand eleven. And he argued
Speaker 1: that sex spots only really become a problem when they're
Speaker 1: bestowed with artificial consciousness, thus elevating them from mere artifact
Speaker 1: to something more, something at least mimicking personhood. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the gist here of Levy's argument is that as long
Speaker 1: as sex spots are artifacts without any artificial consciousness, there's
Speaker 1: no ethical implications and having sex with them or using
Speaker 1: them for prostitution. Now, if we go back, I would
Speaker 1: imagine Dr Kathleen Richardson would take umbradge with that. But
Speaker 1: he said, as 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 illegal 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 This is a whole can of worms here
Speaker 1: because on one hand, it gets into the whole question
Speaker 1: of what is consciousness. We can't even define what it
Speaker 1: is for humans, how do we define in robots? And
Speaker 1: then it makes you ask questions about any and everything
Speaker 1: where there's a potential like faking of consciousness, Like when
Speaker 1: do I start have when I have to start becoming
Speaker 1: concerned about MPC characters and video games, um, 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 games.
Speaker 1: Like at what point does it become kind of creepy?
Speaker 1: That essentially I think the argument that West world tries
Speaker 1: to make a season, right, Yeah, like insert Westworlds as
Speaker 1: potential commentary on that question. One one more thought on this,
Speaker 1: uh was reading an article Indian magazine and this is
Speaker 1: a sex spot Slaves. Sociologist Lee Reich has this excellent quote,
Speaker 1: but even if sex spots are not currently conscious, they
Speaker 1: do have the external markings of personhood, and we are
Speaker 1: programming them to be person alike. Indeed, we are programming
Speaker 1: them to be like a specific type of person, the
Speaker 1: type of woman who can be owned by a heterosexual man.
Speaker 1: So now we've heard many of the arguments against sex spots,
Speaker 1: when we've set up kind of where we're at with
Speaker 1: the technology, let's take a quick break and when we
Speaker 1: get back, we're gonna come back in on this and
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about the argument for sex spots and
Speaker 1: how they could be beneficial to humanity. All Right, we're back,
Speaker 1: So in this next little bit, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about the victimization reduction argument for sex spots, And just
Speaker 1: a quick warning, we're going to briefly discuss pedophilia here,
Speaker 1: So if you really don't want to hear that, you know,
Speaker 1: skip ahead a little bit on your device. We're we're
Speaker 1: gonna discuss it with decorum here. But it does play
Speaker 1: a role in this discussion. So a point of contentions,
Speaker 1: as referenced already, is the argument that a robotic sex
Speaker 1: spot would absorb the violence and abuse that a human
Speaker 1: would otherwise suffer, and this would apply to both well,
Speaker 1: really to to all individuals male female, um or a
Speaker 1: child or I've also seen the argument, uh for animals
Speaker 1: as well. So if you could have a robot stand
Speaker 1: in and absorb that abuse, like better a robot than
Speaker 1: an actual human like that, that's a problematic argument. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that is an argument that some people make, right.
Speaker 1: I don't think there are many people out there who
Speaker 1: would who would argue with the statement that if a
Speaker 1: robot could suffer something rather than a human that would
Speaker 1: be preferable. Well, depending on whether or not it has consciousness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well then then we get into that whole can of worms.
Speaker 1: But there's a as I say, it's it's a problematic argument,
Speaker 1: but it's it's one worth discussing, especially as it relates
Speaker 1: to people with pedophilic impulses um. There's a great deal
Speaker 1: of work that has gone 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 Takachi who's
Speaker 1: abuse a Japanese man profiled in the in the Atlantic
Speaker 1: in two thousands 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. It is, it's
Speaker 1: completely reprehensible. And some of these individuals realize this enter
Speaker 1: and do not act on their impulses. So what um,
Speaker 1: what this man, what Takagi 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 the
Speaker 1: sort of flip side to that is, is that going
Speaker 1: to aggravate their sense of frustration so that they act
Speaker 1: out on real human beings even more right, And there's
Speaker 1: no evidence to show that his approach works, but it
Speaker 1: is difficult to gauge because things I already mentioned. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of research, but a lot of the research
Speaker 1: is based on actual offenders, not people who managed to
Speaker 1: stay off impulses. 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 psychologists 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 chop 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 we're sort of it's sort
Speaker 1: of like the unspoken thing in the room, right, which
Speaker 1: is the idea that pedophilia is inherent, it's not it's natural,
Speaker 1: and it's part of this person's you know, biology, and
Speaker 1: 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 individual. 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's 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 sex robots. Right, and then this leads
Speaker 1: us right back to Dr Kate Devlin, who was, you know,
Speaker 1: the person who originally argued against the case against sex robots. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this brings us into what I think is the
Speaker 1: most the most fascinating area, uh, that we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about here today, and that's the therapy angle. So
Speaker 1: she argues that sex spots would essentially be sex toys
Speaker 1: that benefit from machine learning and bio feedback. And she
Speaker 1: also points out that despite all of our sci fi
Speaker 1: visions of humanoid sex robots. There's no reason they these
Speaker 1: things would need to have a human form or a
Speaker 1: human face. Again, we've already as we've already said, a
Speaker 1: great many sex toys do not even look like parts
Speaker 1: of a human, much less a human being. Um she
Speaker 1: She points out specifically that for female females, there is
Speaker 1: I think it's called the rabbit is u is, a
Speaker 1: vibrator device that does not look like a part of
Speaker 1: the male or female anatomy. And then the flesh light,
Speaker 1: which we already mentioned. There apparently some models that do
Speaker 1: look like replicas of human of human anatomy, but others
Speaker 1: that don't, others that have more fantastic or abstract appearances.
Speaker 1: So you could put these together and you could easily
Speaker 1: imagine a sexual robot that either does not look like
Speaker 1: a gendered human or even like maybe looks like a
Speaker 1: spider or something. Yeah. Yeah, Like it could could sort
Speaker 1: of be anything that could be like a rumba. Yeah,
Speaker 1: rumba might be something. I don't know why I was
Speaker 1: going this way, but like somebody might particularly want like
Speaker 1: a kind of whale, like like a smallish whale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean the thing is we can say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's repellant. Who would want to have, you know, sexual
Speaker 1: contact with an inhuman machine. But again, we are already
Speaker 1: doing it. The market research shows that that individuals have
Speaker 1: been using non human sexual machines for some time now,
Speaker 1: so it's not out of keeping with human behavior. And
Speaker 1: so there's a 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,
Speaker 1: UH couples therapy, which I think is interesting. You made
Speaker 1: a point earlier about so many of the current devices
Speaker 1: are made for for a couple to UH to use together,
Speaker 1: sometimes across vast distances. 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.
Speaker 1: And there's a great Atlantic article about this from last
Speaker 1: year that folk this is on the broader topic. But
Speaker 1: but the author points out that the department in question
Speaker 1: features quote de facto sex classes that include sex toys
Speaker 1: aimed at stimulating different parts of the body. So the
Speaker 1: main aim here is individuals who have experienced genital or
Speaker 1: spinal cord injuries. Uh, they may have lost their ability
Speaker 1: to have an orgasm themselves, and they have to adapt
Speaker 1: to their new bodies and a new approach to physical
Speaker 1: intimacy with with their spouse or with you know, with
Speaker 1: with new relationships in their lives. Now, in this case,
Speaker 1: we're talking specifically about veterans who are maybe lost a
Speaker 1: limb or something like that, or or but there's there's
Speaker 1: some cases where sex therapy like this is needed for
Speaker 1: other people as well. Yeah, and indeed, also memory impairing
Speaker 1: injuries and just basic trauma that stems from combat can
Speaker 1: disrupt an individual sex lift. So you need not even
Speaker 1: have a physical injury for this kind of therapy to
Speaker 1: be necessary. And so the question is could a sex
Speaker 1: robot aid in this kind of of work as well. Now,
Speaker 1: Delvin also hits on general sex therapy and says that,
Speaker 1: you know, VR therapy is already a big deal. And
Speaker 1: she also mentions that VR therapy is already already a
Speaker 1: thing and it is only going to become more of
Speaker 1: a of a big deal in the future. And uh.
Speaker 1: And then there's this idea of the use of of
Speaker 1: sex spots to potentially allow individuals to explore gender or
Speaker 1: sexual orientation or just sexuality um as a whole. And
Speaker 1: in this the role of the sex spot would very
Speaker 1: closely mimic the role of a sex surrogate. So this
Speaker 1: is a thing that already exists. Uh. And you can
Speaker 1: look this up. Uh, this is not prostitution. Surrogates are
Speaker 1: members of the International Professional Surrogates Association and they only
Speaker 1: work with people who have been referred to them by psychotherapist.
Speaker 1: According to an interview in the two thousand three Salon article,
Speaker 1: I was a middle aged version Los Angeles surrogate partner
Speaker 1: Dr Vina Blanchard. Uh. He works generally works with older virgins.
Speaker 1: They account for her practice. And these patients are, you know,
Speaker 1: are men who have encountered limiting obstacles to experiencing sex.
Speaker 1: They didn't develop the interpersonal skills necessary, etcetera. And the
Speaker 1: exact reasons, you know, very quite a bit, encompassing everything
Speaker 1: from extreme shyness to history of sexual abuse. They're often
Speaker 1: played by feelings of shame and that they need someone
Speaker 1: to help them break through it all. All right, So
Speaker 1: I've got a personal story here that I can absolutely
Speaker 1: see applications. Okay, uh, I had a nightmarish temp job
Speaker 1: in my early twenties. I don't think I've told you
Speaker 1: about this before. Um So, I was tempting in my
Speaker 1: early twenties. This was when I was living in Boston,
Speaker 1: and one of my assignments was to work for a
Speaker 1: week for a psychotherapist whose job it was to basically
Speaker 1: review and interview sex offenders and decide whether or not
Speaker 1: they should be released from prison into the general population,
Speaker 1: like whether or not their sentence was was up, they
Speaker 1: had been quote unquote reformed, and the job that was
Speaker 1: assigned to me was to This was a while ago.
Speaker 1: I literally listened to Cassette tapes that they would record
Speaker 1: of their sessions and transcribe everything. And so I did
Speaker 1: this for a week straight in the middle of a
Speaker 1: very cold winter in Boston. It's a long community. It
Speaker 1: was in Quincy, and uh wow, like it was just
Speaker 1: like getting like this toxic sludge dumped into your head,
Speaker 1: you know. And I remember that last day, like knowing
Speaker 1: it was over, just standing there at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, waiting for the shuttle to pick me up
Speaker 1: to take me to the train and just crying. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so I think about you know, not not just
Speaker 1: virgins or or maybe pedophiles or even veterans who need
Speaker 1: some help with you know, these potentially debilitating sexual I
Speaker 1: don't know issues that they're having, but but all of
Speaker 1: this stuff is it's very real in my head based
Speaker 1: on that one week experience. Yeah, yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: sounds like it definitely definitely, I mean I had an
Speaker 1: impact on your your psyche to to have to absorb
Speaker 1: all that. Yeah, yeah, but it Yeah, I can see
Speaker 1: that the definitely applications uh 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 virgins, 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: it seems to be something that sort of breeds a
Speaker 1: vicious cycle. Uh, you know, like the people who are
Speaker 1: hurt or tend to then go on to hurt others.
Speaker 1: So in this instance, like I'm I'm seeing like the surrogates,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to be in that situation. But the
Speaker 1: sex robots, again, as long as they're not artificially conscious,
Speaker 1: they could serve a role to sort of put a
Speaker 1: halt to that vicious circle. Yeah. Yeah. And and also
Speaker 1: just the idea you think about this idea that there
Speaker 1: are people out there who have trouble developing relationships, that
Speaker 1: they don't have the social tools perhaps or there there's
Speaker 1: some sort of trauma holding them back from having the
Speaker 1: kind of interpersonal relationships that can lead to sexual contact
Speaker 1: when they are their individual Should they should they just
Speaker 1: live out their lives without sexual contact? Are they aren't?
Speaker 1: Do they have like on some level, do they have
Speaker 1: a right to have sex with a robotic device or
Speaker 1: machine or robotic humanoid if such a thing can be
Speaker 1: made available within an ethical framework that works well. And
Speaker 1: let's remember, let's go back to what we said earlier,
Speaker 1: which is that sexuality and sex are part of the
Speaker 1: human condition and our brains are absolutely affected by them.
Speaker 1: So why not have this technology that would allow those
Speaker 1: people 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 with just human
Speaker 1: sexuality in general, that you are more capable of of
Speaker 1: healthy human sexual relationships and on the other hand, like
Speaker 1: a purely hedonistic level, a mechanical room. But we're Spider
Speaker 1: that just when when called, you know, crawls out of
Speaker 1: a box in your closet and does what needs to
Speaker 1: be done and sleep at night. Right, that's very transmetropolitan.
Speaker 1: I'm imagining Spider Jerusalem has something like that in his closet. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but not too far from you know, other topics that
Speaker 1: we've talked about in the past, especially when you add
Speaker 1: in sort of like a bioengineering into the mix. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: so there you have it. Sex spots again, something we
Speaker 1: just see time and time again in sci fi. That's
Speaker 1: really become part of our pop culture. But I don't
Speaker 1: think most of us take time to really break it
Speaker 1: down and think about the components, think about the pros
Speaker 1: and the cons. Certainly some of these I thought about before,
Speaker 1: but other aspects, especially the whole therapeutic aspect, I've never
Speaker 1: really given any consideration. I think with the surge of
Speaker 1: Westworld last year, like this kind of thing has become
Speaker 1: maybe water cooler talk, but not to the extent of
Speaker 1: like the research that we did here really looking at
Speaker 1: like the pros and cons and how it's beneficial or
Speaker 1: how the theory, the philosophical approach to it, of how
Speaker 1: it could potentially sort of show the worst of humanity
Speaker 1: as well. That's the part I think that like West
Speaker 1: World's really honing in on. But I don't know, like
Speaker 1: has West World? I can't really remember, and I don't
Speaker 1: think this is spoilers, but like, was there an instance
Speaker 1: of somebody who visited the park who needed that kind
Speaker 1: of therapeutic help and going to one of the brothels.
Speaker 1: I feel like it might have come up, just you know,
Speaker 1: in the margins, but I don't remember it being a
Speaker 1: major character of all because because ultimately, like how how
Speaker 1: dramatic is that? Right? Right? You want? You wanted to
Speaker 1: explore the cases of of abuse or the cases of love,
Speaker 1: because that those are the two big trends we see.
Speaker 1: Either someone either is abusive to a feminine sexual robot
Speaker 1: or they fall in love with it. Uh, there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of in Obviously, there's a lot more space
Speaker 1: in the human condition for sexual contact to take place
Speaker 1: as a broader spectrum, so it seems like it should
Speaker 1: be present as well in our consideration of sex spots.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's something Season two will get into. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. All right, Well, everyone listening to this
Speaker 1: episode is a human being, so I'm sure everyone has
Speaker 1: thoughts on the current technology, uh where we're headed with it,
Speaker 1: as well as all the various fantastic and and maybe
Speaker 1: even more hard boiled sci fi visions of what sex
Speaker 1: spots might consist of. Yeah, and we hope we didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, disturb you too much with getting into some
Speaker 1: graphic territory here, but this seemed like a topic that
Speaker 1: was worth really diving into and relevant to not only
Speaker 1: popular culture but modern technology. All right, Now, as we
Speaker 1: close out here, we've been we we like to highlight
Speaker 1: various nonprofits and and and helpful organizations. Given the some
Speaker 1: of the subject matter we've talked about here, we just
Speaker 1: wanted to mention RAIN. That's r ai N in there,
Speaker 1: the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network. You can find
Speaker 1: them online, but you can also call them seven on
Speaker 1: your phone at one eight hundred six five six hope
Speaker 1: or hundred six five six four six seven three. And
Speaker 1: also we're still celebrating Tripod month here at how stuff 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 listened 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've done some really
Speaker 1: nice hashtag tripods for us Specifically, I've seen some really
Speaker 1: cool stuff on Instagram where they take pictures of oh,
Speaker 1: they listen to us. Yeah, that's a that's a clever idea.
Speaker 1: All right. In the meantime, head on over to stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. That's what you'll find
Speaker 1: all the podcast episodes. The landing page for this episode,
Speaker 1: you will find links out to our various social media
Speaker 1: accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram, and who knows
Speaker 1: what else. Who knows what the future will bring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you just want to write us the old
Speaker 1: fashioned way, we are at blow the mind at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com.
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