by David Levy
Because of all these positives, I believe that for the vast majority of the human population sex with robots will come to be regarded as ethically “correct,” as a good thing. But the ethics of robot sex is a very broad subject, creating many different problems for the lawmakers who will come to draft the legislation that converts popular ethics into laws. First, there is the question of how one’s use of one’s own sex robot will affect other people—one’s spouse or partner in particular—and not only because of the question of whether sex with a robot will be considered unfaithful. Will it be unethical in some way to say to one’s regular human sex partner, “Not tonight, darling. I’m going to make it with the robot”? (Some couples will, of course, own two robots, a malebot and a fembot, and will enjoy orgiastic sessions in which three or all four of them take part.) And how about robot swapping? Will it be viewed as similar to wife swapping?
There are also issues relating to the use of other people’s sexbots. What will be the ethics of lending your sexbot to friends, or borrowing theirs? What about using a friend’s sexbot without telling the friend? And there will certainly be ethical (and legal) issues relating to the use of sexbots by minors. Should the age of consent for sex with a robot be the same as that for sex with a human? And what about the ethics of an adult’s encouraging a minor to have sex with a robot? Will it be regarded as a sex-educational experience or as a corrupting influence? And how will ethicists and lawyers deal with parents when one parent wants their child to have sex lessons from a robot but the other does not?
Finally, there is the matter of the ethics of robot sex as it affects the robot itself. When robots are so highly developed that without an inspection of their innards they appear almost indistinguishable from humans, should we assume that simply because they are not biological creatures it is totally acceptable for us to have sex with these objects of our creation whenever we wish? If robots become, for all emotional and practical purposes, surrogate humans, will we not have ethical obligations toward them? What happens when a robot’s owner feels randy but the robot’s programming causes it to shy away, possibly because it is running its self-test software or downloading some new knowledge and does not wish to be interrupted, or possibly because its personality was designed in such a way that it sometimes says no for whatever reason? Under such circumstances is it akin to rape if the robot’s owner countermands the robot’s indicated wish to refrain from sex on a particular occasion? All these examples warn of a minefield for ethicists and lawyers, which partly explains why “roboethics” is becoming a respectable academic topic, with conferences beginning to spring up, particularly in Europe. So the subject is very much under discussion, although the debate is still in its early stages.
Malebots and fembots will inevitably become huge commercial successes. Initially, much of the enthusiasm for coupling with sexbots will be prompted by curiosity, as our natural urges compel most of us to ignore the ethical debate and strive to discover how robot sex compares with the real thing. Many of those who are robotsex virgins will get their first experience as a result of wanting to know how it feels, but once this curiosity has been satisfied, and once the initial media exposure has made everyone aware of the pros and cons of the robot sexual experience, the demands of the market will drive sexbot researchers to work overtime in the development of newer and better technologies that can bring enhanced experiences. People will want better robot sex, and even better robot sex, and better still robot sex, their sexual appetites becoming voracious as the technologies improve, bringing even higher levels of joy with each experience. And it is quite possible that the terms “sex maniac” and “nymphomaniac” will take on new meanings, or at least new dimensions, as what are perceived to be natural levels of human sexual desire change to conform to what is newly available—great sex on tap for everyone, 24/7.
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1. Libin, Alexander, and Elena Libin. “Person-Robot Interactions from the Robopsychologists’ Point of View: The Robotic Psychology and Robotherapy Approach.” Proceedings of the IEEE 92, no. 11 (November 2004): 1789–1803.
2. Riskin, Jessica. “Eighteenth-Century Wetware.” Representations, no. 83 (2003): 97–125.
3. Riskin, Jessica. “The Defecating Duck or the Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life.” Critical Enquiry 29, no. 4 (2003): 599–633.
4. Kanda, Takayuki, Takayuki Hirano, Daniel Eaton, and Hiroshi Ishiguro. “Interactive Robots as Social Partners and Peer Tutors for Children: A Field Trial.” Human Computer Interaction 19, no. 4 (2004): 61–84.
5. Walker, Beverly, Jocelyn Harper, Christopher Lloyd, and Peter Caputi. “Methodologies for the Exploration of Computer and Technology Transference.” Computers in Human Behavior 19, no. 5 (September 2003): 523–35.
6. Turkle, Sherry, Will Taggart, Cory Kidd, and Olivia Daste. “Relational Artifacts with Children and Elders: The Complexities of Cybercompanionship.” Connection Science 18, no. 4 (December 2006): 347–61.
7. Kanda, Takayuki, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Michita Imai, and Tetsuo Ono. “Development and Evaluation of Interactive Humanoid Robots.” Proceedings of the IEEE 92, no. 11 (November 2004): 1839–50.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
CHAPTER 1
1. Fraley, Chris, and Philip Shaver. “Adult Romantic Attachment: Theoretical Developments, Emerging Controversies, and Unanswered Questions.” Review of General Psychology 4 (2000): 132–54.
2. Kleine, Susan, and Stacey Baker. “An Integrative Review of Material Possession Attachment.” Academy of Marketing Science Review (online publication) 8, no. 1 (2004). Available at www.amsreview.org/articles/kleine01-2004.pdf.
3. Belk, Russell. “Possessions and the Extended Self.” Journal of Consumer Research 15 (September 1988): 139–68.
4. Grayson, Kent, and David Shulman. “Indexicality and the Verification Function of Irreplaceable Possessions: A Semiotic Analysis.” Journal of Consumer Research 27 ( June 2000): 17–30.
5. Pines, Ayala. Falling in Love: Why We Choose the Lovers We Choose. New York: Routledge, 1999.
6. Byrne, Donn, and Sarah Murnen. “Maintaining Loving Relationships.” In The Psychology of Love, ed. Robert Sternberg and Michael Barnes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998, 293–310.
7. Pines, Ayala. Falling in Love.
8. Livine, Deb. “Virtual Attraction: What Rocks Your Boat.” Cyberpsychology and Behavior 3, no. 4 (August 2000): 565–73.
CHAPTER 2
1. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Animal Attraction. TV program, 2001.
2. Rynearson, Edward. “Humans and Pets and Attachment.” British Journal of Psychiatry 133 (1978): 550–55.
3. Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.
4. Kellert, Stephen. “The Biological Basis for Human Values of Nature.” In The Biophilia Hypothesis, Keller, Stephen, and Edward O. Wilson, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993, 42–69.
5. Headey, Bruce. “Pet-ownership: Good for Health?” Medical Journal of Australia 179 (November 3, 2003): 460–61.
6. Melson, Gail. Why the Wild Things Are: Animals in the Lives of Children. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.
7. Robin, Michael, and Robin ten Bensel. “Pets and Socialisation of Children.” Marriage and Family Review 8 (1985): 63–78.
8. Lewis, Thomas, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon. A General Theory of Love. New York: Vintage Books, 2001.
9. Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
CHAPTER 3
1. Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
2. Young, Robert. Mental Space. London: Process Press, 1994.
3. Young, Robert. “Transitional Phenomena: Production and Consumption.” In Crises of the Self: Further Essays on Psychoanalysis and Politics, ed. Barry Richards. London: Free Association Books, 1989, 56–72.
&nbs
p; 4. Turkle, Sherry. “Diary.” London Review of Books (April 20, 2006): 36–37.
5. Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit.
6. Holland, Norman. “The Internet Regression.” 1996. Available at www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/holland.html.
7. Weizenbaum, Joseph. Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1976.
8. Nass, Clifford, and Youngme Moon. “Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers.” Journal of Social Issues 56, no. 1 (2000): 81–103.
9. Moon, Youngme. “Intimate Exchanges: Using Computers to Elicit Self-Disclosure from Consumers.” Journal of Consumer Research 26, no. 4 (March 2000): 323–39.
10. Ibid.
11. Nass, Clifford, and Youngme Moon. “Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers.”
12. Turkle, Sherry. “Diary.”
13. Koller, Marvin. Families: A Multigenerational Approach. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974.
14. Turkle, Sherry. “New Media and Children’s Identity” (edited summary). Media In Transition Conference, MIT, October 1999. Available at web.mit.edu/m-i-t/conferences/m-i-t/summaries/plenary1_st.html.
15. Turkle, Sherry. “Diary.”
16. Ibid.
17. Beck, Alan, Nancy Edwards, Batya Friedman, and Peter Khan. “Value Sensitive Design: Robotic Pets and the Elderly.” Available at www.ischool.washington.edu/vsd/projects/aiboelderly.html.
18. Turkle, Sherry. “Diary.”
CHAPTER 4
1. Breazeal, Cynthia. Designing Sociable Robots. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.
2. McGill, Michael. The McGill Report on Male Intimacy. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985.
3. Brave, Scott, Clifford Nass, and Kevin Hutchinson. “Computers That Care: Investigating the Effects of Orientation of Emotion Exhibited by an Embodied Computer Agent.” International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 62 (2005): 161–78.
4. Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
5. Libin, Alexander, and Elena Libin. “Person-Robot Interactions from the Robopsychologists’ Point of View: The Robotic Psychology and Robotherapy Approach.” Proceedings of the IEEE 92, no. 11 (November 2004): 1789–1803.
6. Levine, Deb. “Virtual Attraction: What Rocks Your Boat.” Cyberpsychology and Behavior 3, no. 4 (August 2000): 565–73.
7. Kim, Jong-Hwa, Kang-Hee Lee, Yong-Duk Kim, Bum-Joo Lee, and Jeong-Ki Yoo. “The Origin of Artificial Species: Humanoid Robot HanSaRam.” Proceedings 2nd International Conference on Humanoid, Nanotechnology, Information Technology, Communication and Control, Environment and Management, Manila, 2005.
8. Hodder, Harbour. “The Future of Marriage.” Harvard Magazine, November–December 2004, 38–45.
9. Cott, Nancy. Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation.” Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
10. Ibid.
11. Hodder, Harbour. “The Future of Marriage.”
12. Hatfield, Elaine, and Susan Sprecher. “Men’s and Women’s Preferences in Marital Partners in the United States, Russia and Japan.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 26, no. 6 (November 1995): 728–50.
13. Søby, Morten. “Collective Intelligence—Becoming Virtual.” Paper 16, Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft: Medie-Generation, University of Hamburg, 1998.
14. Virilio, Paul. The Art of the Motor. Minneapolis: University Press of Minnesota, 1995.
15. Haraway, Donna. “A Manifesto for Cyborgs.” Socialist Review 80 (1985): 65–108. Reprinted with minor revisions and corrections to notes, in Coming to Terms: Feminism, Theory, Politics, ed. Elizabeth Weed. New York: Routledge, 1989, 173–204.
16. Author unknown. “Life with a Robot. Wakumaru.” Available at http://www.mhi.co.jp/kobe/wakamaru/english/about/index.html.
17. Levine, Deb. “Virtual Attraction: What Rocks Your Boat.”
INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO
1. Bloch, Iwan. The Sexual Life of Our Time, trans. M. Eden Paul. London: Rebman, 1909.
2. Schwaeblé, René. Les Détraqués de Paris: Études documentaries. Paris, 1905.
3. Bloch, Iwan. The Sexual Life of Our Time.
CHAPTER 5
1. Suler, John. “Mom, Dad, Computer (Transference Reactions to Computers),” revised version 1998 (originally posted 1996). Available at http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/computertransf.html.
2. Holland, Norman. “The Internet Regression.” Norman Holland, 1996. Available at www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/holland.html.
CHAPTER 6
1. Loebner, Hugh. “Being a John.” In Prostitution: On Whores, Hustlers, and Johns, ed. James Elias, Vern Bullough, Veronica Elias, and Gwen Brewer. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998, 221–25.
2. International Women’s Rights Action Watch. Country Report: The Philippines, 2003. Available at http://iwraw.igc.org/publications/countries/philippines.htm.
3. Overall, Christine. “What’s Wrong with Prostitution? Evaluating Sex Work.” Signs (Summer 1992): 705–21.
4. Sánchez Taylor, Jacqueline. “Dollars Are a Girl’s Best Friend? Female Tourists’ Sexual Behavior in the Caribbean.” Sociology 35, no. 3 (2001): 749–64.
5. Bowen, Nigel. “Sugar Mamas.” Bulletin, Sydney, June 9, 2004.
6. Sánchez Taylor, Jacqueline, and Julia O’Connell Davidson. “Fantasy Islands: Exploring the Demand for Sex Tourism.” In Sun, Sex and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean, ed. Kampadoo Kamala. New York: Rowman and Little-field, 1999.
7. Sánchez Taylor, Jacqueline, and Julia O’Connell Davidson. “Travel and Taboo: Heterosexual Sex Tourism to the Caribbean.” In Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy and Identity, ed. Laurie Schaffner and Elizabeth Bernstein. London: Routledge, 2005, 83–100.
8. Plumridge, Elizabeth, Jane Chetwynd, Anna Reed, and Sandra Gifford. “Discourses of Emotionality in Commercial Sex: The Missing Client Voice.” Feminism and Psychology 7, no. 2 (1997): 165–81.
9. Bernstein, Elizabeth. “Desire, Demand, and the Commerce of Sex.” In Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy and Identity, ed. Laurie Schaffner and Elizabeth Bernstein. New York: Routledge, 2005, 101–28.
10. Holzman, Harold, and Sharon Pines. “Buying Sex: The Phenomenology of Being a John.” Deviant Behavior 4 (1982): 89–116.
11. Kernsmith, Roger. “Social Bonds as Motivators for Deviant Behavior: An Unobtrusive Analysis of Prostitute Clients.” Eastern Michigan University, 2001.
12. Winick, Charles. “Prostitutes’ Clients Perceptions of the Prostitutes and of Themselves.” International Journal of Social Psychiatry 8, no. 4 (1992): 289–99.
13. de Hemptinne, Gerald. “Hookers Learn to Give ‘More than Sex.’” Available at http://iafrica.com/loveandsex/features/232211.htm.
14. Monto, Martin. “Prostitution and Fellatio.” Journal of Sex Research 58, no. 2 (May 2001): 140–45.
15. Ibid.
16. Monto, Martin. Personal communication.
17. Bernstein, Elizabeth. “Desire, Demand, and the Commerce of Sex.”
18. McKeganey, Neil, and Marina Barnard. Sex Work on the Streets: Prostitutes and Their Clients. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 1996.
19. Holzman, Harold, and Sharon Pines. “Buying Sex: The Phenomenology of Being a John.”
20. Monto, Martin. “Prostitution and Fellatio.”
21. Plumridge, Elizabeth, Jane Chetwynd, Anna Reed, and Sandra Gifford. “Discourses of Emotionality in Commercial Sex: The Missing Client Voice.”
22. Laner, Mary. “Prostitution as an Illegal Vocation: A Sociological Overview.” In Deviant Behavior: Occupational and Organizational Bases, ed. Clifton Bryant. Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1974, 406–18.
23. Lyman, Randy. “The Ethics of Sex Therapy,” 2001. Available at www.disbled.gr/at/?p=1650.
24. Blanchard, Vena. “The Tapestry of Surrogate Partner Therapy.” The School of ICASA Web site, 2001. Available at www.icasa.co.uk.
25. Noonan, Raymond. “Sex Surrogates: The Continuing Controversy.” In Continuum Complete Encyclopedia of Sexuality, ed. Nell Noonan and Robert Francoeur. New York: Continuum, 2003, 1279–1281.
26. Roberts, Barbara. “The Sexual Surrogate,” InnerSelf, 2000. Online magazine available at http://innerself.com/Sex_Talk/Sexual_Surrogate.htm.
27. Ibid.
CHAPTER 7
1. Maines, Rachel. The Technology of Orgasm. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
2. Granville, Joseph. Nerve-Vibration and Excitation. London: J. & A. Churchill, 1883. 3. Ibid.
4. Maines, Rachel. “Declaration Under Penalty of Perjury.” Affidavit for the United District Court, Northern District, Alabama, April 30, 2001.
5. United States District Court Northern District of Alabama Northeastern Division, Civil Action No. CV-98-S-1938-NE, 2002.
6. Rubenstein, Steve. “Texas Housewife Busted for Hawking Erotic Toys.” San Francisco Chronicle, December 16, 2003.
7. Davis, Clive, Joani Blank, Hung-Yu Lin, and Consuelo Bonillas. “Characteristics of Vibrator Use Among Women.” Journal of Sex Research 33, no. 4 (1996): 313–20.
8. Heslinga, Klaas, Antonius Schellen, and Arie Verkuyl. Not Made of Stone: The Sexual Problems of Handicapped People. Leyden, Netherlands: Stafleu’s Scientific Publishing Company, 1974.
9. Robert Trost, personal communication.
10. Tabori, Paul. The Humor and Technology of Sex. New York: Julian Press, 1969.
11. Author unknown. “Alma’s Life,” 2005. Available at http://www.alma-mahler.at/ engl/almas_life/puppet3.html.
12. Lamarr, Hedy. Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman. New York: Fawcett World Library, 1966.
13. Laslocky, Meghan. “Real Dolls: Love in the Age of Silicone.” Available at www.saltmag.net/images/pdfs/RealDollsPDF.pdf. (An earlier and shorter version of this article appeared on www.salon.com under the title “Just Like a Woman,” October 11, 2005.)
