Whatever happened to “asshole?”
February 27, 2010
I love “The Daily Show!” (I love it apart from its inability to be embedded in my blog.) Thanks to Faemom, I was on the lookout for the following clip on February 3, 2010. Click below:
“Male Inequality”
Every time I view this clip, I laugh out loud. If you watched it and you didn’t laugh, you might need professional psychiatric intervention. Seriously. Don’t operate any heavy machinery. You should probably stay away from sharp objects too.
To recap: “Men today are probably where women were in the late 50’s; we’re about a half century behind women in terms of being understood, in terms of having options,” declares author and sociologist Warren Farrell. Right. “He’s right,” Samantha Bee says. Oh? “Men run just 4…hundred and 85 of our Fortune 500 companies and only three branches of government.” I see, Samantha. Poor men. What am I thinking being a feminist?
According to Farrell, men have been shut out of pharmaceutical sales positions because they aren’t sexually attractive to the mostly heterosexual male population of doctors that form the pharmaceutical consumer base. By his logic, pharmaceutical sales is a more desirable job prospect than medicine and women dominate the former because they are physically attractive to the latter. So doctors are misunderstood and have few options while women must rely on their attractiveness to men to get ahead? And that’s progress for women because…we now can get ahead in our careers by being sex objects? Similarly, men are disadvantaged from an early age as football players because cheerleaders – long the rulers of the high school sports universe – don’t respect and compliment fallen football heroes. Yeah…those dominant cheerleaders and sexy pharmaceutical saleswomen are really a problem for men!
Enter the Better Men Organization: nothing wrong with this organization in principle – in fact, I think it’s a very good idea, but their complaint in this segment is that men today really aren’t getting what they need, which is social acceptance to gather. Right. It’s not socially acceptable for men to gather at bars, strip clubs or sports arenas. And men are never known to gather acceptably in the woods where they would certainly be restricted from complaining about their wives.
Let’s face it: the fact that any men in America are complaining about their overall subordination to powerful women is laughable. Sure, some men are oppressed in violent relationships or at jobs overseen by power-tripping female supervisors. And many men suffer in unhappiness or die violent, painful deaths. But after thousands of years of world domination, men as a collective have NOTHING to complain about. Even if women as a class were to take over ruling the world, it would simply be a taste of men’s own medicine spooned back to them.
Bravo, Samantha Bee! In light of the fact that so few women are working as writers and performers on late night comedy shows – and even if that weren’t the case, you are a beacon of humor and wisdom for feminists. While I don’t agree that sensitivity and soft-spoken qualities in men should be labeled with a designation that’s “puss-related” – simply because the reverse can also be inflicted on women with a condemnation when we aren’t sensitive and soft-spoken, I champion your ability to poke fun at these shortsighted, complaining men.
Well, except for that last statement you made: “Attention middle-aged vagina men: sack the fuck up! Seriously. You’re turning me into a lesbian.” While there’s nothing anti-feminist about Bee’s preference for traditionally masculine men, there is something irksome in her use of the term “vagina men.” Why? Because it is negatively wielded and implies that only those with vaginas (i.e. women) can be socially acceptable as sensitive and emotionally expressive; thus compounding one lament of the Better Men Organization. And furthermore, because this use of the word vagina, something uniquely female, is derogatory, it is thus derogatory to women even though not intended to insult anybody but the men in the talking stick circle.
Now, as I said before, I love “The Daily Show” and I really appreciate Samantha Bee’s refreshing perspective. But this use of female-identified words as derogatory designations for men has got to stop. Terms like “vagina men,” “douche,” “douchebag,” and “pussy,” or “pusswad” as Bee uses in the segment, are all related to female anatomy and imply, whether intentionally or unintentionally, that female anatomy is inferior to male anatomy and thus that females are inferior to males. Why don’t we keep sex-defining anatomy out of it? Instead of “douchebag,” why not use insults like “loser,” “idiot” or “jerk?” Instead of calling the Better Men Organization “vagina men,” couldn’t Bee have called them “weaklings,” “freaks” or “wimps?” That is what she meant, is it not?
We’ve grown accustom to using these genitalia-related words and have forgotten that they discriminate. Even calling somebody a “dick” implies aggression typically associated with men. Can you or would you call a woman a “dick?” Usually, the term for an aggressive female is “bitch,” which is also derogatory because it historically refers to female dogs. This verbiage keeps us entrenched in our gender binary: women are passive and subordinate, and men are active and dominant forces in the world. At least “asshole” refers to something everybody has. Ergo, use it freely.
Urban Dictionary provides modern connotations for many of these slang terms we use – submitted by the users of them, many of them rooted in misogyny:
- Vagina: female opening to the uterus and an insult as in “Man’gina,” which is an outwardly masculine, heterosexual male who fusses or whines about typically female things like hair care products or cramps
- Douche: product used to sanitize an unpleasant, dirty vagina and a word to describe an individual who has shown (himself) to be very brainless in one way or another, thus comparing (him) to the cleansing product for vaginas
- Douchebag: an item consisting of a rubber bag, tube and nozzle, used to clean a woman’s vagina and an individual who has an over-inflated sense of self worth, compounded by a low level of intelligence
- Pussy: a nice name for a cat, slang for women’s genitals and cowardly
- Pusswad: guy who is a vagina or pussy
I cringe every time I hear one of these terms being used because I know that they are based on the gender binary that I’d like to see dissolved. But it really irks me when I hear or read feminists using these terms. How can we? Don’t we at large know that they are based in the assumption that we and our woman parts are inferior to men and their man parts? You don’t hear people calling another a “bidet,” an “aftershave” or a “nose hair trimmer,” which are items typically used by men and might be wielded to refer to a traditionally masculine female in a tone rooted in misandry. So why do we feminists and others continue to use terminology that is rooted in misogyny: terminology that implies that our woman parts and thus ourselves are “whin(y),” “fuss(y),” “unpleasant,” “dirty,” “brainless,” “cowardly,” passive, subordinate and weak? Stop it, I say. Stop it right now.
I believe that our collective decision to do away with such terminology is one step toward doing away with gender and equalizing the sexes. The result: women can run more than 15 Fortune 500 companies and at least one branch of government without fear of being called “bitches.” And men can sit in circles and communicate their feelings to one another without fear of being labeled “vagina men,” or even “wimps.”
Don’t worry. There will still be plenty of ridiculous ignorance in the world for Samantha Bee to wittily poke fun at.
Oprah, how could you?
February 14, 2010
The question of whether of not Oprah identifies herself as “feminist” isn’t easy to answer. I asked Google and it told me what other people think, but I haven’t been able to find out what she herself thinks of feminism and whether or not she belongs to our club, divided though it may be. I had always assumed that Oprah was a feminist, and my kind of feminist at that: one who worked hard to empower women. She’s somebody who has struck a clean balance between changing the system of television to suit her and adapting to the establishment to get ahead. For all of her wealth and success, it’s what she does for other women that interests me most. Do I care if she calls herself a feminist? Not really.
It may be more accurate to label Oprah – if you’re interested in labels – a “humanist.” She’s certainly a philanthropist and works to relieve poverty, aid struggling veterans, educate the world’s children and encourage others to give. So perhaps her interests lie less in helping women specifically and more in helping humanity. As she herself has said, “Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have.” Good for you, Oprah! I know several women who would consider themselves humanists rather than feminists. You don’t have to be part of team feminism if you don’t want to.
But feminists have sometimes demanded that she show allegiance to women specifically. Why? Is it because women have formed the core of her consumer base and can be partially credited with Oprah’s rise to power and fame? Okay. I get that. What’s fair is fair. I don’t agree that Oprah was in the wrong for endorsing Barack Obama for President instead of Hillary Clinton back in the 2008 Democratic primary. According to the TimesOnline, critics of Oprah’s decision flooded her Oprah.com expressing anger that she chose “her race over her (sex)” and calling her a “traitor.” Oprah wasn’t the only prominent woman to choose Obama, however. According to The Huffington Post on February 3, 2008, “(m)ore than 100 New York feminist leaders released a joint statement Sunday afternoon criticizing Hillary Clinton and supporting Obama for president – evidence that Clinton’s support among women activists (had) declined significantly in the days before the super-Tuesday primary.”
It’s not anti-feminist to choose a male political candidate over a female candidate because you agree with his message more than you agree with hers. Just like it wouldn’t have been racist for Oprah to have endorsed Clinton over Obama.
I’ll tell you what is anti-feminist: endorsing somebody who hurts women. As far as I know, Obama is not guilty of that. However, David Letterman is.
Let me be very clear about one very important thing: I am not condemning (nor am I condoning) Letterman’s act of cheating on his girlfriend/wife.
Cheating is a moral issue and we, as feminists, cannot be party solely to moralizing another’s sexuality. If we allowed ourselves to do that – to say things like “cheating is wrong” and “marriage is best when monogamous” – we validate arguments made against some of our causes like “abortion is wrong” and “gay marriage is immoral,” etc. Morality has no place in the feminist analysis of Letterman’s 2009 sexual scandal, in my opinion. You can personally shame Letterman, but when representing Feminism (capital F), you need to remember the question at hand, which is NOT was Letterman acting immorally, but is rather was Letterman acting illegally and hurting the Feminist (capital F) agenda for female equality? The answer to the first question is a draw because different feminists have different moralities. The answer to the second question: YES!
How did he do that, you might ask? In a nutshell, David Letterman allegedly created a hostile work environment for women at his production company. Women may have perceived that: 1. sleeping with Letterman could advance their careers in television, a truly unequal realm for women and 2. not sleeping with Letterman could result in damage to their careers or even dismissal from employment. That’s illegal: maybe not criminal to result in jail time, but against the law nonetheless. So why is David Letterman getting a pass?
“Prove it,” says the iron (man) judicial system. It’s difficult to prove when the women who slept with Letterman are likely afraid to call any more attention to themselves for fear of damaging their careers subsequent to working with Letterman. Almost nobody hires the woman who allegedly slept her way to the top, thereby belying her professional credibility, unless the hirer anticipates the employee doing it again for his own benefit or unless the hirer is a feminist looking to give the woman a break. And sexual harassment is also difficult to prove because it usually boils down to a he said-she said argument with no possible victor.
The history of Letterman’s love life in the professional arena according to ABC News is as follows:
Just before he was named the host of NBC’s “Late Night With David Letterman” in 1982, he began dating (Merrill) Markoe, who would become the show’s head writer… In typical Letterman fashion, he and (Regina) Lasko (a former “Late Show” staff member) were married in a secret ceremony on March 19, 2009 at the Teton County Courthouse in Choteau, Mont. The couple already had a son together, Harry, in 2003… (In October) a CBS News employee tried to blackmail (Letterman) for $2 million by exposing the sexual affairs he had with female subordinates… His admission on the air (Oct.1) to having not just a one-time romantic affair with a single staffer but to having ’sex with women who work with me on this show,’ shed new light on what the public does know about his love life.
Reportedly, none of Letterman’s affairs outside his relationship with Lasko occurred during their marriage. While that may be comforting to fans and Lasko alike, it is irrelevant to the question of whether or not Letterman’s behavior constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace. The focus of the legal investigation surrounding the scandal has been on the blackmail. The public consequence for Letterman: a little embarrassment. The Oct. 14 cover of Entertainment Weekly magazine depicted Letterman with his pants down. Ha ha! His show’s ratings rose temporarily and then drifted back to where they were before the scandal. Nobody cares about the female employees it seems; nobody but us feminists. “‘Clearly CBS has a moral and political obligation to investigate this,’ says NOW president Terry O’Neill, who’s also a lawyer. But a Worldwide Pants spokesman says that the company circulates an employee manual each year that addresses harassment, while also saying, ‘Dave is not in violation of our policy, and no one has ever raised a complaint against him.’” (Oh, why did O’Neill use the word “moral?”)
At least one former staffer has spoken out about the professional atmosphere under Letterman’s employ since the scandal broke, though she didn’t report it to Human Resources during her tenure. Nell Scovell wrote “Letterman and Me” for Vanity Fair online.
At this moment, there are more females serving on the United States Supreme Court than there are writing for ‘Late Show with David Letterman,’ ‘The Jay Leno Show,’ and ‘The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien’ combined. Out of the 50 or so comedy writers working on these programs, exactly zero are women. It would be funny if it weren’t true. Late-night talk shows have long snubbed female writers… There’s a subset of sexual harassment called sexual favoritism that, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, can lead to a ‘hostile work environment,’ often ‘creating an atmosphere that is demeaning to women.’ And that pretty much sums up my experience at ‘Late Night with David Letterman.’
Scovell goes on to claim that, while Letterman never hit on her, he did pay her enough extra attention that another writer spoke to her about it. She claims that Letterman and other “high-level male employees” were having sex with female employees and that these affairs gave the women in them an advantage over other women in that workplace by virtue of favoritism and their having additional access to information that allowed them to “wield power disproportionate to their job titles.” Scovell concludes that there was most definitely a hostile work environment permeating the show and that she felt demeaned. So, she quit, or as she puts it, “I walked away from my dream job.”
Now why are David Letterman and his fellow high-level male employees getting a pass and what does all of this have to do with Oprah?
Well, as I mentioned before, sexual harassment is difficult to prove and as CBS asserts nobody ever reported Letterman for it. Of course, that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. But several high-profile women have given Dave a pass just like his audience. On “The View,” Barbara Walters remarked that Dave “is a very attractive man” and excused his affairs by saying that it’s perfectly acceptable to meet people and begin relationships at work and by claiming that she could recite a list of names of executives who were guilty of the same thing. As if that makes it alright! Joy Behar called Letterman “smart” and championed his political savvy in revealing his affairs rather than denying them. And Oprah appeared with him in a high-profile Super Bowl commercial to promote his television show. Take a look:
Whether or not this spot is funny is irrelevant to this discussion. Oprah agreed to do the spot to promote Letterman’s show and possibly, if he hasn’t learned his lesson, unwittingly to keep a hostile work environment for women in play over at the “The Late Show.” There are those who would point out that Letterman is innocent of sexual harassment until proven guilty. I agree. But that doesn’t make him any less responsible for it. Whether the legal system catches up with David Letterman or not, he and his production company are responsible to Scovell and others who endured the hostile work environment of his creation. And Oprah, as a female pioneer of the male-dominated industry that is television, should know better and should champion equal opportunities for women in its workplaces. I see her actions as anti-feminist and as a direct violation of women’s equality in the workplace. She can hold any moral opinion of Letterman in private, but as a public personality I think she should stand for what’s right for women.
Am I seriously off the mark here? Is Oprah only responsible to women if she wears the feminist label? Is she responsible to women at all?
Bleeding to get in
January 30, 2010
I’ve never been much of a joiner, but lately I’ve been considering joining a women’s club in a neighboring town. What does that mean? Well, for starters, joining such a group represents my desire to socialize with other members of my sex. I haven’t always been very good at that. Nursery school teachers remarked at how I would play alongside other children rather than with them. But joining a women’s club would also mean the opportunity to participate in organized charity work, book club meetings, yoga, etc. without having to take the initiative to find these activities on my own.
Sounds like a plan. I’ll join a women’s club.
In college, I didn’t pledge sororities, which in principle should offer the same comforts: friendship, challenges to one’s altruistic nature and motivation to be active. I had a couple of girlfriends from high school who went to the same college and decided to pledge a sorority to enhance their social circle so that they wouldn’t rely on only each other for company. Good idea. I think they endured some hokey initiation ritual and then became fast friends with several young women in the sorority and even roomed with them for their remaining three years.
Meanwhile, over in my dorm building at Boston University, my neighbor cried herself to sleep several nights in a row because a high school sweetheart of hers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) had drunk himself to death while pledging a fraternity. We on that specified subject floor all silently concluded that the Greek system was flawed – especially for young men – and inwardly congratulated ourselves on being film geeks, often-blocked writers and dark artists instead of joiners. We certainly weren’t headed for sports teams, the military or even religious cults…yet. We were safe from hazing. And as a woman, even knowing how shallow and vicious girls could be – threatening to beat me up because my sweatshirts were Hanes® and not Champion® brand, and calling me names because I was chubby, and telling me that they’ll “be (my) best friend” in exchange for secrets that they then blabbed all over school, etc. – I felt certain that hazing was a male problem, something women are exempt from.
But let’s be clear about the word “hazing.” It doesn’t simply mean prerequisite achieved or initiation performed. According to Dictionary.com, hazing means “subjection to harassment or ridicule.” And in some cases, that harassment and ridicule has resulted in death. While a boy I knew had pledged a fraternity and was beaten with a paddle until his ass cheeks were bright red and blistered, so much so that he couldn’t sit or lie down for days; the MIT chap had passed out in a drunken stupor, vomited in his sleep and choked to death…all in the name of acceptance.
According to StopHazing.org: “Hazing is an act of power and control over others – it is victimization. Hazing is pre-meditated and NOT accidental. Hazing is abusive, degrading and often life-threatening.” And hazing is a problem for women as well as men.
The New York Times reported in “Girls Just Want to Be Mean” that psychologists have traditionally assumed that boys are more naturally aggressive than girls, and therefore more prone to engage in hazing.
That consensus began to change in the early 90’s, after a team of researchers led by a Finnish professor named Kaj Bjorkqvist started interviewing 11- and 12-year-old girls about their behavior toward one another. The team’s conclusion was that girls were, in fact, just as aggressive as boys, though in a different way. They were not as likely to engage in physical fights, for example, but their superior social intelligence enabled them to wage complicated battles with other girls aimed at damaging relationships or reputations – leaving nasty messages by cellphone or spreading scurrilous rumors by e-mail, making friends with one girl as revenge against another, gossiping about someone just loudly enough to be overheard. Turning the notion of women’s greater empathy on its head, Bjorkqvist focused on the destructive uses to which such emotional attunement could be put. ‘Girls can better understand how other girls feel,’ as he puts it, ’so they know better how to harm them.’
So, while we should be warning our daughters about the risks of rape, date rape and other forms of violence from men, we should also be warning them about the emotional wounds that women can and do inflict. And if we know girls who possess “superior social intelligence,” we have to teach them not to be mean.
Remember Jesse Logan’s story? She was an 18-year-old high school senior who sent a text message containing nude photographs of herself to her boyfriend. But after she and that boyfriend broke up, he circulated the pictures to high school girls knowing that they would be cleverly mean about them. True to form, those girls were mean; and poor Jesse hung herself at home in the lonely privacy of her bedroom. Armed with plenty of ammunition – the secrets and insecurities we wish to hide – mean girls can and do fire again and again at will.
It would seem that boys can also be vicious – the boyfriend instigated the taunting of Logan; and after a recent incident of sorority hazing at my second alma mater Rutgers University in New Jersey, it would also seem that girls too can be violent. This month, Rutgers suspended the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority and authorities arrested six members after severe hazing was reported by several pledges. The claim: hazing included beatings with a 1′ x 6″ wooden paddle, and starvation. One pledge was so badly injured that she ended up in the hospital. The six members who have been charged with aggravated hazing, an indictable offense, are free on $1,500 bail. They are all adults and could face up to 18 months in jail if found guilty.
Make no mistake: this is not an isolated incident. Recent hazing incidents have been reported at Drake University in Iowa and Rider University in N.J., to name a couple. And according to HazingStudy.org’s “Hazing in View: College Students at Risk,” 55 percent of college students experience hazing and, in 95 percent of said cases, the hazing goes unreported. Like in instances of rape, women (and men) must be encouraged to speak up about hazing. It is harmful and possibly deadly.
No matter how badly you want to be accepted – and as women we know from fashion, television and movies that to be part of an elite group (the skinny girls) is something we think we need because the alternative is so rarely spoken of or even seen unless it’s full of ridicule (witness a bloated Kirstie Alley on magazine covers, for starters) – we cannot allow other girls and women to encourage us to be victims. We have to learn to love ourselves as we are. And if necessary, we have to feel empowered to be alone or to start our own groups based on the aforementioned positive tenets: friendship, altruism and well-being.
I’m excited about the prospect of joining a women’s club for those healthy reasons, but I’m not bleeding to get in. The minute a wooden paddle comes out or a snicker is made about my clothes, I’ll be headed for the door.
SeXXX robot or Stepford wife?
January 17, 2010
It’s here: Roxxxy, the world’s “first” ever sex robot. Not just a doll, she’s a fully automated pleasure giver developed by a New Jersey-based company. (Great! That’s just what New Jersey needs: more questionable notoriety! It’s a great state, I swear!) According to an article in The Huffington Post, this robot is better than a sex doll because she’s connected to a laptop and can carry on a conversation: “I love holding hands with you,” Roxxxy told her creator when he touched her hand at a recent Las Vegas, Nevada expo.
Wait just a minute there! I thought the whole point of a sex doll or robot was to be the same for men as the vibrator is for women: non-conversing, non-politicking sexual pleasure. The idea that a man pleasures himself with a doll or robot in the privacy of his own home doesn’t offend me. Women don’t lose anything in this scenario: men who ONLY want to receive pleasure rather than give it as well aren’t worth having relationships with…unless that’s what you want. And the ones who do want meaningful human relationships can use sex toys for additional fun on the side rather than looking outside the relationship for sex with other women.
But what if the men using these sex robots are trying to make meaningful relationships with these female stand-ins? What’s wrong with this picture? Why aren’t these potential buyers of robotic conversationalists trying to have meaningful relationships with real women or men, sexual or otherwise? And if they are, why do they need a robot unless it’s just used for getting off? Scarier still: do some men want their female companions to be robotic anyway, saying only the things their weak egos want to hear?
Hetero women today already have it hard enough. According to an article in Marie Claire about the male midlife crisis, “guys (today) are part of a cause-less generation. They didn’t grow up burning their draft cards or fighting the Nazis. They weren’t part of the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, or any other movement. They were spoiled as kids and now they want to spoil themselves as adults.”
And according to this article, today’s young men mostly want to play video games in their free time. That time does not include buying a house in the burbs, and having/raising children with a wife they personally talk to every day. I worry that if we give these guys the option – girlfriend or sex robot? – they’ll go with the robot because it’s easier. And because it’s no longer just a toy, guys won’t get lonely around Roxxxy because they can talk sports and even politics with it.
I don’t engage in any discourse with my vibrator. Real sex and real conversation are the benefits of my marriage to a real man.
This line of robots isn’t the first for this robot developer, but it is the most advanced.
Douglas Hines, founder of Lincoln Park, N.J.-based True Companion LLC, said Roxxxy can carry on simple conversations. The real aim, he said, is to make the doll someone the owner can talk to and relate to.
‘Sex only goes so far – then you want to be able to talk to the person,’ Hines said.
The phrases that were demonstrated were prerecorded, but the robot will also be able to synthesize phrases out of prerecorded words and sounds, Hines said. The laptop will receive updates over the Internet to expand the robot’s capabilities and vocabulary. Since Hines is a soccer fan, it can already discuss Manchester United, he said. It snores, too.
Owners will also be able to select different personalities for Roxxxy, from ‘Wild Wendy’ to ‘Frigid Farrah,’ Hines said. He’s charging somewhere from $7,000 to $9,000 for the robot, including the laptop, and expects to start shipping in a few months.
A Japanese company, Honey Dolls, makes life-size sex dolls that can play recorded sounds, but Roxxxy’s sensors and speech capabilities appear to be more sophisticated. Hines’ goals are certainly more far-reaching.
An engineer, Hines said he was inspired to create the robot after a friend died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. That got him thinking about preserving his friend’s personality, to give his children a chance to interact with him as they’re growing up. Looking around for commercial applications for artificial personalities, he initially thought he might create a home health care aide for the elderly.
‘But there was tremendous regulatory and bureaucratic paperwork to get through. We were stuck’ Hines said. ‘So I looked at other markets.’
The broader goal of the company is still to take artificial personalities into the mainstream, beyond sex toys, Hines said.
‘The sex robot thing is marketing – it’s really about making a companion,’ he said.
Okay, Mr. Hines. I’ll buy that you have nobler intentions than contributing to the market of sex toys. But your idea that you can preserve someone’s personality is truly terrifying. A personality is just that: personal. No robot or computer will ever be able to fully simulate the miracle of life. Who do you think you are? God? Mother? Uh, father?
We humans implemented the telephone to make interpersonal communication faster and easier. What happened? Over time, we stopped walking across office floors to put in face time with each other and started picking up the phone every time we needed a bit of information. Then, we figured out that email was an even simpler way to disconnect from social interactions. We’ve substituted email for phone calls. And when people started (mis)reading tone and inflection into email, we invented emoticons to give “personality” to our informative missives through little bits of code. When, at last, we got tired of typing full sentences, we switched over to instant message systems and texting on our cell phones. Now, we don’t even need to learn to spell as children because almost every common phrase we use has an acronym or abbreviation. Sometimes, we even stand right next to each other and text rather than talk. Will we forget how to make eye contact? Will we forget how to speak?
And the real question for sex robot creators and buyers is this: will you forget what it’s like to love and care for somebody else? For like all of our blatant abuses of technologies that minimize social interaction, surely the ongoing development of a sex robot is just one more step in the evolution of a completely isolated, alienated human being. If you’re in the market for a sex robot who talks, won’t you soon expect to be able to purchase a sex robot who cooks, cleans, does laundry, runs errands, earns a decent wage and raises your adopted children? Where do you draw the line between sex robot and Stepford wife?
It’s true that not all people have it easy when it comes to meeting members of the desired sex. But buying a sex robot is the easy way out, and it’s detrimental to the human race. If you’re using a sex toy for sex, it’s a tool. If you’re using it for conversation, it’s a hindrance. According to another source, “Mr Hines sees his creation as not only a recreational innovation but as an outlet for the shy people with sexual dysfunction and those who want to experiment without risk.”
Experiment without risk; go for it! Shy people and those with physical dysfunctions who would seek out robot discourse usually aren’t suffering in just the romantic areas of their lives. They might need therapy and possibly medication to cope with most human interactions, from handshaking to speaking to sex. I worry that giving a “shy” person a sex robot/Stepford wife might only worsen his shyness. We get better at being with people the more we do it. And the less we spend time in the real world with real people, the less we’ll be able or even want to.
And of course, there’s this: a sex robot will never love you the way a woman can and will. Is the advancing Roxxxy a substitute for love? Will we forget how to love and be loved in return?
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