Why I’m Worried About Raising a Son in Our Upcoming Brave New World of Android Prostitution
“Pornography” is a much more complicated issue than the usual framing that “pro-sex” hedonists and “anti-sex” prudes like to give it. I think by now most Americans have adopted some shade of middle ground position — explicit sexual images and videos are neither harmless nor are they an inevitable personal apocalypse. The diversity of porn needs to be acknowledged. The scenes filmed for married couples — erotic and pleasurable sex where everyone has a good time — are very different than much of the stomach-churning stuff of today — where it’s not uncommon for women to be led around on dog leashes into a room of a dozen men and for the scene to end with tears running down her face.
It’s like comparing a glass of wine to a shot of Everclear. Or a $1 McDonald’s cheeseburger to a “monster thickburger” from Hardee’s.
We’ve come to know this because three generations of American men have managed to survive the widespread availability of porn without all devolving back into ancient Canaanite barbarians worshiping Baal and Astarte. Sure, there have been some “casualties” with men who grow obsessed — just as some become alcoholics or obese fast food addicts. But most people get moderation and understand that life is lived in between the extremes of a Madonna-Whore complex.
In spite of the technological advancements over the last 50 years, the experience of porn hasn’t changed significantly. Whether it was boomers finding Dad’s Playboy stash in the ’60s, Gen Xers meeting Ron Jeremy via VHS tapes in the ’80s or now Millennials growing up in the age of the internet — there’s only so deep of an imprint seeing and fantasizing can have on one’s brain.
I think I could probably raise a son to navigate through this and end up a decent man who wants a marriage and who doesn’t think that real women want to be treated like porn stars in the bedroom. Enough fathers around today have managed it.
But the development of sexual robots throws a big unknown into a father’s role of teaching his son self-restraint. I saw my first pornography at a friend’s house in the fifth grade. But what would have happened if instead of a magazine, my friend had a machine that could simulate sex acts? What happens when 10 year old boys start learning about sex with machines like China’s “sperm extractor”? What transformations will happen to human sexuality when the sex provided from machines can be more exciting than with real people? What does a father say to his 10-year-old son when he comes home with stories about how all of his friends are wanting him to “try out” their robot girlfriends?
Updated: Many thanks to the first commenter, Chambers, for the reminder of one of the funniest gags in Woody Allen’s Sleeper. I’m annoyed at myself for not thinking of it first:
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Related at PJ Lifestyle:
Well what do you know? Woody Allen got it right after all. Remember the “Orgasmitron” in “Sleeper?” It’s finally here.
Answering the age-old question, who’s on the other side of the gloryhole?
Golly, what happens when your son learns to masturbate? Dave, you’ve just discovered that men can masturbate with a toy.
What happens when “masturbation” with a machine becomes more exciting than sex with a real woman?
Your Fifth Wedding Anniversary.
You’re a boomer, aren’t you?
*rimshot
haha
good one
First thing, “masturbation” will lose its scare quotes.
Those aren’t scare quotes, Charlie.
Then you actually do think that having sex with this thing is something else? Amazing. I wonder what other words you’re using here that you don’t understand?
No, Charlie. I’m talking about 15 years in the future. Did you even bother to read the whole post?
Then women will have to up their game and not just lay there with dollar signs and dreams of a lifetime of entitlement in thier eyes.
Wow. And I thought I was bitter over being born too early for fast-food “kids’ playgrounds,” Game Boys, and Transformers. Damn kids are getting more things handed to them all the time.
c. 2030: “When I was your age, you little punk, my sexbot’s name was ‘Sears Catalogue.’”
Ah, I remember when porn was the women’s underwear section of the Sears catalog. But it was the Sears Christmas catalog that taught me the meaning of lust.
Mr. Swindle, why do you attack male sexuality as some kind of malevolent evil? Women are not these pure creatures “corrupted” by “liberal” society. They deliberately choose arrogant, even violent, men because they find them attractive on a primal level, much like how men find an hourglass figure on a woman primally attractive.
This male-bashing has to stop.
“Mr. Swindle, why do you attack male sexuality as some kind of malevolent evil?”
Because it is. Male sexuality unrestrained is very malevolent and evil and I’m not afraid to say it.
ANY unrestrained human behavior can be evil. You’re not doing any man any favors here.
I had parents who taught me to fear and hate my own sexuality too, and I can’t recommend it as a life path.
Male sexuality has an evil quality to it that female sexuality does not. If that were not the case then the number of sexual predators in prison today would be equally male and female. And the number of buyers of gang-rape porn films would be equal between men and women.
The urge to be promiscuous and have sex with as many people as possible is biologically a male drive, not a female one for obvious reasons.
I don’t hate or fear my own sexuality. Restraining one’s sexuality is akin to hitching a horse to pull a wagon instead of letting it run wild. It’s a simple question every man has to make: is sex about my pleasure or about building a family? Sure, it can be both, but only if a man restrains his nature and resists promiscuity.
“Male sexuality has an evil quality to it that female sexuality does not.”
Nonsense on stilts.
The high divorce rate (and subsequent victimization of men in family court) is a direct result of unrestrained female sexuality.
Men are attracted to hot bodies, but women are attracted to powerful, confident, unpredictable men who do not bend to their will. For a long time, a woman had to trade off between the reckless man that attracted her and the reliable man that would provide for her.
However, the Pill and female economic independence changed that completely.
Now, a woman can go straight to what attracts her, bypassing all the nice guys, since she no longer needs their provisioning and doesn’t have to worry about pregnancies. After having tasted those attractive men, she marries a reliable man who is all too happy to commit to her. Problem is, this man does not even compare to who she was having sex with before, so she grows bored and irritable, eventually committing adultery and/or divorcing the man and taking everything he owns. Now, she drains the husbands wallet while chasing the men she really wants.
All because she got bored with her accommodating husband.
After that, she is applauded by society for her “strong, independent self-determination.”
Male sexuality isn’t the only thing with an evil quality. Female sexuality has its own dark side, and an honest person would acknowledge that. If she perceives you as weak, she will abandon you in a heartbeat.
P.S.: Don’t forget paternity fraud.
There is no evil from female sexuality that is comparable to rape and child molestation — two field that are dominated by men, not women.
Really Dave?
You don’t know any women who use sex as a weapon? You don’t know any women who use their bodies and men to get what they want?
You do realize that medical studies indicate the incidence of psychopathy is far more evenly distributed than previously thought?
I have bad news for you, sir, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, more coldly calculating than the female of the species.
I’m really concerned about this misandry of yours Dave.
I’m not a misandrist. I don’t hate men. I hate rape — and rape comes from male sexuality, not female sexuality.
(Reposting without the links)
“Male sexuality has an evil quality to it that female sexuality does not.”
Nonsense on stilts.
The high divorce rate (and subsequent victimization of men in family court) is a direct result of unrestrained female sexuality.
Men are attracted to hot bodies, but women are attracted to powerful, confident, unpredictable men who do not bend to their will. For a long time, a woman had to trade off between the reckless man that attracted her and the reliable man that would provide for her.
However, the Pill and female economic independence changed that completely.
Now, a woman can go straight to what attracts her, bypassing all the nice guys, since she no longer needs their provisioning and doesn’t have to worry about pregnancies. After having tasted those attractive men, she marries a reliable man who is all too happy to commit to her. Problem is, this man does not even compare to who she was having sex with before, so she grows bored and irritable, eventually committing adultery and/or divorcing the man and taking everything he owns. Now, she drains the husbands wallet while chasing the men she really wants.
All because she got bored with her accommodating husband.
After that, she is applauded by society for her “strong, independent self-determination.”
Male sexuality isn’t the only thing with an evil quality. Female sexuality has its own dark side, and an honest person would acknowledge that. If she perceives you as weak, she will abandon you in a heartbeat.
P.S.: Don’t forget paternity fraud.
Yup,
I recall the cheerleader in college who claimed she was raped by three of the football players.
All but ruined their lives. They were suspended, lost their scholarships, were arrested and charged. All on the word of one woman.
The truth? A friend walked into the dorm, saw her drunk and pulling a train. So she screamed rape.
The truth _in this case_ came out, but how often has it not?
How often has unrestrained female sexuality destroyed lives on mere accusation? Duke LaCrosse anyone?
The actions of the stripper who falsely accused the Duke Lacrosse players of rape had nothing to do with female sexuality.
Dave:
I have to disagree with you here. Women are not somehow immune to sexual sin; their actions can be every bit as evil as those of men.
The difference is that their kind of evil is excused by our society, and most especially by folks with shallowly-traditional approaches to sexual mores, the kind formed in American churches over the last 75 years or so.
(Please note: I didn’t say that traditional sexual values are shallow. I said that there’s an approach to sexual mores which is not richly traditional but, sad to say, shallowly traditional.)
Your jail statistics are right on, of course: But they demonstrate merely that the sexual evils perpetrated by men are (a.) more likely to be forcible, and (b.) more likely to be prosecuted and result in convictions. Well, I think everyone already knew that.
But that neglects the evils of the female endless-courtship cycle, the female hypergamy inclination, and the female propensity to rationalize discontent with her mate as the fault of her mate and her own relationship selfishness as something she’s helpless to change on account of her feelings. All the laws of society have been redesigned over the last hundred years to cater to these evil propensities in women, which is why they’re so tragically on display, damaging families on a regular basis.
And lets not forget the impact of the pill, which drastically reduces libido in a large minority of women, resulting in that shocking bait-and-switch outcome when sweethearts who’ve been making goo-goo eyes at one another uncontrollably for ages in response to perfectly healthy procreative hormones finally get married or become sexually active, and suddenly the woman — who has now opted for hormonal contraception to avoid the ad-hoc messiness of condoms — begins treating the guy she formerly couldn’t get enough of like a half-forgotten roommate. It isn’t called the Divorce Pill for nothing.
Anyhow, there’s plenty of blame on the female side. But traditionalists, especially in American churches, have been hypersensitive to accusations of misogyny for several decades now. As a result, they typically are quick to decry all of men’s sins: focus on the visual at the expense of the person, roving eyes, aggressiveness and lack of relational sophistication, failure to be romantic and generous and self-sacrificial…that sort of thing. The smiling pastors and counselors of America have generally said little, however, about the fact that when a man is sensitive and generous and sacrificial, he often “beta-izes” himself to such an extent that his wife becomes dissatisfied with him and, in response to her deep need for exciting tingles, dumps him for a rowdier or wealthier man, and rationalizes it retroactively.
P.S. Please check my other post below, for information regarding the technological changes and the neurochemical mechanisms of porn addiction.
I never said women are immune to sexual sin. But their sexual nature unchecked doesn’t naturally lead them to promiscuity and rape.
Sorry, but I can’t think of an evil act that women can do with their vaginas that is any way comparable to the evil act that men can do with their penises (gang rape.) Maybe you can. So no, I don’t think we should be equally concerned with the potential evils of female sexual nature as we are with the evils of male sexual nature.
Quibble, R.C.: Condoms are only slightly less reprehensible than birth control pills. The real problem is that people want to have sex without accepting the fact that sex makes babies. Without contraceptives, the average healthy couple would have about five kids. However, people these days have rejected the notion of having a normal sized family without controlling their sexuality.
The problem with your approach is that it puts all of the responsibility for good behavior on the man, due to his sexuality. It ignores the woman’s responsibilities in the relationship, and it ignores her own sexuality which, while different from a man’s, can be just as debased. In many ways, your view reflects that of the feminist progressive culture — that males have to behave themselves while females should be rewarded regardless of behavior. Men treat women badly because the women themselves reward such behavior with sex.
Not just you, but many social conservatives seem to have a very romantic view of women as pure creatures who are then corrupted by progressive society. Marriage, then, becomes a means to rescue these corrupted creatures from society and use the power of niceness to bring that pure creature out once more.
Take note: women have a responsibility in the relationship as well, but the larger culture does not communicate this at all.
You’re not arguing with me you’re arguing with your preconceived notions of me. I have no such view of women as pure creatures nor do I let women who misbehave off the hook for their misbehavior. “Men treat women badly because the women themselves reward such behavior with sex.” I’m very much in agreement with this. That was my undergraduate experience and the strategy that worked. But you’re not recognizing the root of the problem. Women choose to be promiscuous and feel a need to get male attention with their bodies usually because of some combination of A) absent father B) sexual abuse. Women aren’t promiscuous by default — they get that way because the men in their life who should have been there for her weren’t. Girls who have strong Dads, aren’t sexually abused, and that grow in a Judeo-Christian/conservative household have an advantage here — they don’t have the emotional emptiness that leads them to imitate prostitutes.
And no, a woman’s sexuality is not just as debased as a man’s. There is no act that a woman can do to a man with her vagina that is any way comparable to a man raping a woman with his penis.
Note that what you’re talking about isn’t really about what my post is about. The whole point of the post is to get people to think about what the world will be like in 10, 15, 20 years when fantasy sex with a robot can be more pleasurable than sex with a real person.
It may be true that a girl with a strong father does not act out as much, but the need for arrogant, forward confidence to attract her still remains. That means that while niceness will make her comfortable with you, it’s not enough to get her to want you sexually.
Regarding sex with robots, what I mentioned earlier is relevant. Many men discover that they need to be arrogant jerks to attract women for casual sex. The robots will make it so that they no longer need to do this to get pleasure. Far from making them ravenous rape machines, it would pacify them, as they would only seek human women for marriage and children. Casual sex with a human may even be frowned upon, since there are easier alternatives.
However, the Coolidge effect could complicate this. The Coolidge effect says that for either sex, it would take longer and longer for them to become aroused by the same partner. The best modification they can do to any particular sexbot is changing its clothes, but that would only go so far — it would still have the same face and body type. Thus, the impact of sexbots may be less than you think, since you would have to constantly replace them to keep from getting bored.
You’re still avoiding the central point that I’m making with the piece. We know what happens when teenage boys’ initial experiences with sex are with explicit images and their hand. We don’t know what happens when instead it’s sex with a robot that feels better than sex with a person.
And I haven’t speculated that it would make “them ravenous rape machines.”
Mythbuster: And for women who cannot have another child, because it will kill them, like my wife?
And if you enjoy the vision of a world with 5 kids per family, I urge you to move to India.
Though India is pushing birth control HARD.
Because their dominant religion has always accepted sex, been comfortable with it, and doesn’t have the retardery attached to the subject that our dominant religion does.
Balderdash. Hogwash. Sexist, female worshipping pap. Try again.
Dave, you have just, officially, gone around the bend. Oh, and, for the record, yes, you are Dworkin 2.0. She could have written what you said with a smile and atwitch of her swinish snout.
Male sexuality is not evil. No sexuality is evil. One can do horrifically evil things that have sexual connotations, but sexuality, in and of itself, male or female, does not have any innate evil characteristics.
I will reiterate my suggestion that perhaps you need help.
Male sexuality is no more evil than that of females. What we risk is an amorality that will be exacerbated by the use of sex toys, wheter it be bots or not. Most are demeaning to the user and further isolotes them from the real world by providing an artificial release. When that tool represeents a vunerable victim, it further desensitizes the user making real abuse of children ior women more likely. Most predators act out their fantasies using props in private before procuring an actual victim.
What evil that females do with their vaginas is comparable to the evil that males throughout history (rape and gang rape) have done with their penises?
you’re so completely wrong… The main if not sole reason the majority of “sexual predators” behind bars are men is that for decades, if not centuries, any accusation of sexual impropriety made by a woman against a men was an automatic conviction of rape or other sexual assault and led to the hapless guy being dragged off to the slammer for years if not the rest of his life.
Men accusing women of similar acts were laughed out of the police station if not arrested themselves for making false accusations as a matter of cause.
First, you’re confusing sexuality and dominance. Rape is not about sex, rape is about dominance plain and simple. It is about taking that which is not freely given to assert dominance over another, thus “rape” can actually take many forms aside from that which we typically assign it. Men and women both play their own dominance games, they often just play them on different levels. Isn’t the woman who denies her man sex (forcing him NOT to have sex) just as bad as the man who forces her to have sex? Both are dominance on the part of one over the other, both have a detrimental effect on the dominated party.
Second, there are not more women sex offenders because we have a different attitude concerning young women and young men. All you have to do is look at the differnce in the way male teachers are treated/sentanced vs. female teachers who have sexual relations with their students.
Mr. Swindle your lack of understanding of human nature is towering, you really should stop writing on such topics. I’ll refer you to Abraham Lincoln’s quote, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
I don’t suppose we could prevail on you to define both malevolent and evil, for these purposes. Don’t worry about the dictionary; how are _you_ using them?
This article I wrote a few months ago describes my approach to these issues: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/06/08/7-reasons-why-the-right-should-not-seek-to-convert-the-left/
I take an Old Testament approach to defining evil and malevolence in regards to sex. Much of modern day pornography (the media of pimp-prostitute culture) is a revival of the nature-worshiping fertility cults of the ancient world. Back then human sacrifice and gang rape were sacred activities. How did you worship the goddess? You went to the temple and paid to have sex with one of her “priestesses,” a sex slave. Many men today view women in the same way — as just objects for them to enjoy.
No, defining something by reference to something as broad as the OT really doesn’t work for any number of reasons. So I’ll ask again, how are _you_ defining evil and malevolent? I’m perfectly happy for you to reference particular passages of the OT, but, no, I don’t think you can just hide behind a thick and unopened volume.
Example: David and Bathsheba with a side order of dead Hittite. Sex. Illicit sex. Adultery. Eeevil. Immoral by pretty much any code…results, eventually, in Christ. If the end result is that good, is the initial sin that bad? Example: Abraham and Hagar. When you cite to the OT without specificity, you leave aside the rather vexing question of the legitimacy and use to our time of using a servant/slave girl to get a child and heir when your wife can’t produce or, at least, hasn’t.
Those are just example to illustrate why hiding being the OT without specificty doesn’t work.
OK. Is this definition simple enough for you? Evil and malevolent = rape, slavery, and human sacrifice.
See also this part of the OT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments
It’s a bit of a jump from a sex-bot to rape, slavery and human sacrifice Dave. That’s a leap of logic I’m not sure even a liberal could manage.
What’s the leap in logic? I bet you can’t even restate my argument. No comment you’ve ever made on any of my articles has ever actually dealt with the arguments I’ve made. All you do is willfully misinterpret my arguments and make ad hominem attacks against me. Maybe we should just agree to disagree about sex since it’s clear we operate according to different value systems.
“What’s the leap in logic? I bet you can’t even restate my argument.”
~~~
No bet, because I doubt YOU can restate your argument, and certainly not in any logical progression.
You hate your gender. We get it. You’re the male equivalent of a feminist. You can try to justify it all you want, but it comes down to you hating your gender. Though admitting it won’t make your arguments any more logical or grounded.
Do all men who hate rape “hate their gender”?
No. I hate rape. Without hating men. I would estimate every commenter here feels the same. A small percentage of predators are the problem, and it has nothing to do with their sexuality, but with the sociopathic mind.
So we come back to you, Dave.
Why exactly are you looking at “very popular” porn that objectifies women into stylized rape victims?
If you hate rape then what are you doing to make less rape in the world?
” I would estimate every commenter here feels the same.”
If that were the case then there wouldn’t be any rapes in the world.
“A small percentage of predators are the problem, and it has nothing to do with their sexuality, but with the sociopathic mind.”
No, it’s more than a small percentage of predators. Not everyone who rapes a woman and damages her for the rest of her life is a sexual predator no more than someone who commits a few thefts is a career criminal.
I’ve said nothing in hatred of men. Give me one quote that says anything about hating men. I’m very pro-men. (If I was not then why would I edit a publication like PJ Lifestyle that publishes men’s rights advocate Dr. Helen Smith?) Men don’t rape women. Adult boys rape women. Immature Boys don’t know how to control their sexual nature like mature men do. I’m talking about male sexual nature (testosterone) unrestrained — which is what emerges at males during puberty. You’re the one that’s somehow been tripped up emotionally by my post that you feel the need to try and ad hominem me instead of deal with the actual points being made.
I tend to take the Dennis Prager approach to male sexual nature – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8W9gv9CIAM
What about Yahweh supposedly giving the young girls (virgins) of an unjustly conquered people to his Hebrew soldiers to debauch (Old Testament, Numbers 31)? The bible is full of savagery supposedly sanctioned, commanded, or committed by God, but you’ve managed to miss it, focusing instead on temple prostitution. “Baal” isn’t a name, but another word for “Lord,” and Astarte was also called Ashtoreth, worshiped as Yahweh’s wife by some ancient Hebrews. Of course, imagining the Creator as a male AND female couple implies that the penis some fundamentalists insist God has might actually be more than decorative.
The same testosterone that builds muscle and makes males horny can also make them violent. So is it male sexuality that’s evil, or male hormones?
Do you refer to ejaculate as “seed,” and live in terror of spilling it, lest Yahweh strike you down? Do you regard women who’ve recently given birth as unclean? Do you think of foreskins as altar offerings? Do you really–really–sit around worrying about teenage boys having sex with mechanical devices? Unmatched socks? Cantaloupes?
I think you’re having us all on. At least, I hope you are.
God is not Yahweh. People who worship God like adults don’t think that God is some bearded man up in the skies.
Of course my position sounds ridiculous when you distort it.
Yes. Women would never even have sex if they hadn’t been tempted by the serpent. For the love of heaven — GROW UP. Women are as bad as men and many are far, far worse.
Sadly given what I have seen him write here, his age, who he looks up to intellectually… he cannot grow up. He is not able.
Seems like someone has deep seated issues with their own sexuality…really Dave its ok if you’re turned on by the idea of spanking your wife. If she’s ok with it then it’s ok to actually do it, if not then that’s your own cross to bear.
Dave, you should be much more worried about your son being within 10 feet of these hideous supremacist monsters we call “women” these days.
That machine is so cute. It’s even got little buttons and knobs so you can nerd out with it. It should have blinking lights like on old school Star Trek.
Let’s look at the next logical steps. A scoring mechanism, and after that, competition for a high score. And then, networked ejaculation death-matches. I mean, if Dave is going to be silly and stupid about this mere automation of a sex-toy, then let’s give it the full 4chan treatment. . . . (evil grin)
Well, it does give new meaning to the phrase, “plug and play”.
“When virtual reality becomes cheaper than dating, society is doomed.” — Scott Adams (paraphrased from memory)
i’ve wanted one of those machines since i first saw that movie, back when.
hate to break it to ya’ll, but sex robots are an up and coming industry (oops, sorry, couldn’t resist). looks like japan is the leader so far, and they have already had feminists protest that the ‘bots look too young. the advanced ones are quite pricey. they look very real, from the videos online. check it out. very interesting.
with marriage becomming heck on earth for men (unlimited alimony, palimony, child support, loss of children, house, car, and so forth), what could be more natural than a companion who won’t rip your heart out, never grows old, never has a headache, never cheats, doen’t talk too much, and, you can use her for illegal access to the left car pool lane?
besides, women have had numerous type ‘momma’s little helpers’ since the 70′s (?). and i’ll bet more than a few young girls have already lost their virginity to these mean old machines.
personally, i’m still waiting for the new cherry 9000 to come out.
Daveinga, you make a good point, “(unlimited alimony, palimony, child support, loss of children, house, car, and so forth)” you see Mr. Swindle doesn’t realize that the ease of divorce has created a perfect way for women to legally rape men.
Many women do use divorce as a way to dominate their husbands, and the courts are predispoed to help them do it.
I’m still talking to the hand, given the choice between the two. Somethings are better low tech. Sex is low tech and a vivid imagination.
I want to still feel in control.
Dave,
I’m afraid you’re incorrect in saying that, ‘In spite of the technological advancements over the last 50 years, the experience of porn hasn’t changed significantly.”
Video streaming has changed it pretty significantly in that a lot of young men seem to get started early on wiring themselves for desensitization with respect to real women coupled with hypersensitivity to the endless, quick-changing diversity of women on the screen. Result: High incidence of erectile dysfunction and joy-free orgasms, paradoxically combined with premature ejaculation in some cases. This used to never happen to men in their twenties or thirties and rarely men in their forties; now it’s commonplace and even happens to men in their late-teens.
The website yourbrainonporn.com explains the neurochemical mechanism pretty well; and he did one of those TED lectures on the same topic. There’s an Italian study that shows the effect as widespread. And, a bit surprisingly, there’s a countercultural backlash building with the r/NoFap group on Reddit: A huge cohort of folks who, in order to combat the way porn has hijacked their binge-reward circuitry in their brains, have opted out of masturbation entirely.
Anyhow, I thought you should know. The ability to rapidly switch from one onscreen “sex partner” to another, coupled with the live video and audio made possible by fast internet connectivity, does measurably create greater problems than the static centerfolds of yesteryear. It doesn’t turn men (in general) into psychopaths, as you said. It just gives a heck of a lot of them a limp, flaccid approach to life in the real world.
Hi R.C., appreciate your perspective. We don’t really disagree on much of consequence — just the meaning of the word “significantly.”
What I mean is this: from magazines to VHS tapes to the internet these are all just variations on the same thing — visual material for male fantasies of imagined realities. Most men who look at porn still prefer to actually have sex with a real woman. But as sexbot technology advances we won’t be able to tell the difference between sex with a real woman and sex with a machine. So what happens when these kinds of machines fall into the hands of young males as they inevitably will? We know what happens when teenage boys get magazines, tapes, or the internet — and fathers can guide their sons to deal with it.
But we have no idea what happens when people’s formative sexual experiences are with machines instead of people.
You said” where it’s not uncommon for women to be led around on dog leashes into a room of a dozen men and for the scene to end with tears running down her face.”
~~~
I must be on different sites. I’ve never seen that. Which sites do you frequent where this is common? And why?
Michael:
I’ve never seen those either. While not as pure as the driven snow, I don’t think I’d likely click on the kinds of images that’d link to that kind of site: Beyond a certain threshold, “dirty” porn is merely repulsive.
But I have heard of that kind of thing existing, and from folks who should know; e.g. that woman who blogs/reports about the porn industry, I forget her name, to whom Instapundit frequently links…Susannah Breslin, I think?
I suspect Dave Swindle has the same kind of indirect knowledge of them, though of course it’s amusing to insinuate otherwise.
I mean, you didn’t say, “Bondage bukkake, and google it if you need to and have a strong stomach.” You name a very specific scenario.
That you claim to be aware is “very common.”
Perhaps you protest too much? Maybe a frank discussion with the wife is called for?
While I don’t frequent those sites either — look guys, I’m a working writer, I barely have time to sleep, AND have quality time with my husband — I know women who read AND WRITE books with the reverse scenario. I’ve been in a (neighborhood) party where middle class, normal women AND THEIR TEENAGE DAUGHTERS were discussing these books in the kitchen (yes, this shocked me. I’m a prude. Sue me.) Not only is David frequenting very odd sites, but he is unaware of what women read/watch/talk about. Worse, he thinks he knows. I’d say a frank discussion with his wife would be a good BEGINNING.
My wife and I are fine, Sarah. Thanks for your concern.
And answered my question by avoiding it.
Because I look at a LOT of porn, I’ve been paid to write porn, I know people in the industry. And what you describe in fairly heavy detail, while it does exist, isn’t “common” on any of the major fora.
So if it’s common where you’re looking–and you admit you ARE looking–then you’re deliberately looking at much more sordid sites than I am.
Which means you have zero credibility criticizing my tastes in porn.
Much less other peoples’ free speech.
I’ve made no criticism of your porn tastes.
And still not denied that you make a habit of looking at some pretty brutal stuff.
I don’t make a habit of looking at some pretty brutal stuff. If I write an article condemning child pornography does that mean I must be looking at that too?
BTW, continuing on this path you’re in violation of the commenting guidelines. Ad hominem arguments can get you blocked from commenting further.
No Dave you are not okay. You are a moral cripple with delusions of being a one eyed man in the Kingdom of the blind.
While it shames me to admit I know about this, sometimes the compulsion to view traffic wrecks keeps you watching long after your good sense gibbers “avert thy gaze.” There is a dot com site, four-letters, starts with “k”, ends with “k” and I won’t say what is “in” the middle. ALL kinds of “rough play”, featuring males and females involved in things you would probably rather not know about, but it will forever bar your tongue from saying there is any significant difference between the two sexes’ proclivities for perversity.
IIRC, I first read about the k–k.com site some years back in a NY Times article about how women are employing the internet to “explore” their own sexuality and viewing porn. I think the major difference between men and women in this area may simply be that women are more social, more inclined to be embarrassed to be “caught” consuming pornography.
We are fallen and the depths of our depravity are equal regardless of our gender.
See episode 4 of Disinformation and the work of those like Rob Black and Lizzy Borden:
http://www.amazon.com/Disinformation-Complete-Series-Richard-Metzger/dp/B00013F2ZE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348668673&sr=8-1&keywords=disinfo+tv
Also see the journalism of Susannah Breslin:
http://susannahbreslin.blogspot.com/2010/07/to-max.html
The truth about how depraved mainstream porn has become is right out there for those who want to acknowledge it.
It happens, and is in itself harmless. Where it becomes harmful is when people start seeing it as an instructio manual rather than entertainment, just like anything on the fringe.
Same is true of 1984, Atlas Shrugged, etc. etc.
For many, D/s and BDSM are a way of life they choose and are happy in. For some that includes gangbanging, humiliation (though for a submissive in a D/s relation, being led around on a leash is not humiliating, it’s often highly stimulating and an affirmation of her status she chose herself which fits her personality), etc.
Do not judge lest ye be judged. If more people were to live by that, the world would be a much happier and more tolerant place.
Internet porn is already ruining a lot of guy’s lives — sex addiction is real. Sexbots will ruin more, but it’s the SAME shit – just a hotter form of the crack.
A portion of people are always gonna be addicts. That doesn’t mean we can outlaw the product – but it does mean we need to let these people know there is treatment available. OUTLAW NOTHING, EDUCATE ABOUT EVERYTHING.
I thank all of you for explaining these things to me. I am an old fashioned type woman, who’s had a grand total of two sex partners in my whole life, my two husbands. (I divorced the first one for adultery, being spotlessly blameless in that department myself.)I thought the Pill was in itself an assault on women. It is medically unsafe for many,and it has enabled bad men and teen boys to threaten to leave the gal if she won’t go on it and have sex with him without marriage,which has severely damaged traditional dating,courting,and engagement rituals, and left too many gals who wanted to save themselves for marriage with few men/boys interested in dating them. I never thought that the sluts portrayed on TV had real life counterparts in any considerable numbers, but, golly,I was WRONG.What you said DOES explain a lot of divorces, I guess! I tend to be around other old fashioned types in my spare time, so I guess I’ve led a sheltered life.I am grateful,if not happy, to lose my naivete’.
Never fear, Dave. Vibrators are easier than lovers, but women don’t prefer them to lovers. I think many men would say that masturbation is easier than sex, but that sex is better because it’s spiritual with a person.
@ Dave:
“OK. Is this definition simple enough for you? Evil and malevolent = rape, slavery, and human sacrifice.”
Where are you finding objections to slavery, qua slavery, in the Old Testament? Some limitations on it, sure. But limitations mean that with those limitations it’s okay. What the hell does that have to do with the male sexual urge being malevolent and evil? Is rape evil? Sure. But all sex is not rape – mindless feminazi dogma aside – nor are all men, nor even many men, inclined to rape. So it’s an impossible leap, by what you have defined as evil, to the conclusions you drew before being forced to define them.
I’m not Andrea Dworkin, as I made clear in the piece. You’re not arguing with me you’re arguing with the strawman version of me you’ve constructed in your head.
And if you think that the Old Testament says that slavery is OK then you’ve missed the whole point and there’s little possibility of meaningful communication between us.
“What the hell does that have to do with the male sexual urge being malevolent and evil?”
If God does not exist then why is it wrong to capture women and make them sex slaves in your harem?
I’m not arguing with either you or some strawman version of you. Argument requires definition and definition you have refused to provide. Hence, argument is impossible. Now ridicule, that’s certainly possible, and, frankly, your logical leaps are ridiculous.
Slavery is wrong in the OT, is it? Oh, it’s more indentured servitude for Israelites, but for non-Israelites it is genuine chattal slavery and the Bible has not a word to say against it. Or can you cite to something in it that does?
If God _does_ exist (which, by the way, I believe He does; wherever did you get the notion I did not? More of those indefensible logical leaps, was it?) why is it wrong to capture women and make them sex slaves in your Harem? See, for example, Deuteronomy 21:10-14.
None of which has a blessed thing to do with why you claim male sexuality is malevolent and evil.
We have different definitions of “malevolent” and “evil.” And yes, you are arguing with a strawman and I’ll show you how.
You think my position is this: “you claim male sexuality is malevolent and evil.” You think that I’m a self-hating man and some kind of schizophrenic Andrea Dworkin 2nd wave feminist. I’m not. That’s the strawman.
But I wrote this: “Male sexuality unrestrained is very malevolent and evil and I’m not afraid to say it.”
Operative word is UNRESTRAINED. Perhaps to understand my point you should read it more literally — I’m not talking about men. I’m talking about males — and that includes males from species other than ours. (Not all males are men. And just being over 18 doesn’t a man make. There are plenty of 50 year old boys running around today.) But here’s how shark males have sex, when human males engage in similar behavior what words would you use to describe it other than “evil” and “malevolent”:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/amyodell/shark-sex-sounds-totally-insane
‘Many scientists don’t like to talk about shark sex,’ Juliet Eilperin writes in her entertaining study of sharks and their world. ‘They worry it will only reinforce the popular perception that these creatures are brutish and unrelenting.’ In as far as we understand the subject – only a few species have been observed mating – the business is ‘very rough’. Larger male sharks have to bite or trap the females to keep them around during courtship; marine biologists can tell when a female has been mating because her skin will be raw or bleeding. The process is so violent that, come the mating season, female nurse sharks will stay in shallow water with their reproductive openings pressed firmly to the sea floor. Otherwise they risk falling prey to roaming bands of males who ‘will take turns inserting their claspers in her’ (the clasper is the shark version of a penis, found in a pair behind the pelvic fins). A litter of fifty pups will have anything from two to seven fathers. But the reproductive story gets rougher still. A number of shark species go in for oophagy, or uterine cannibalism. Sand tiger foetuses ‘eat each other in utero, acting out the harshest form of sibling rivalry imaginable’. Only two babies emerge, one from each of the mother shark’s uteruses: the survivors have eaten everything else. ‘A female sand tiger gives birth to a baby that’s already a metre long and an experienced killer,’ explains Demian Chapman, an expert on the subject.
But why not use black widow sex or preying mantis sex to explain why unrestrained female sexuality is evil and malevolent? It makes just as much sense.
When you’re dragging other species into a discussion about human sexuality you truly are setting up a straw man.
No it doesn’t make just as much sense. Humans are much more closely related to sharks than they are bugs. (And one could cite examples even closer — other mammals and primates — if one wanted.) And because women don’t behave like black widows or preying mantises while having sex. Significant numbers of human males do behave like sharks. In America today we call them pimps.
A. We’re not fish.
B. Oh, for God’s sake…you haven’t defined “unrestrained” anymore that you’ve defined “malevolent” or “evil.”
C. I’m not claiming anything because I _can’t_ claim anything. Your post is a load of verbose nonsense. It means _nothing_ – nada, zip, zilch, NOTHING – because you’ve plugged in words that you either won’t or can’t define.
This isn’t a graduate thesis where I define every single term up front. It’s a blog post and I’m not making up definitions of these words out of the blue. The words I use have the traditional meaning. Look them up in a dictionary if you don’t understand them.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unrestrained
Unrestrained=without a value system.
without a value system = the natural world that humans evolved out of where rape and murder are not evil crimes but the standard way of living
If my post meant nothing then you wouldn’t be expending effort to try and discredit it.
“without a value system = the natural world that humans evolved out of where rape and murder are not evil crimes but the standard way of living”
You may wish to consult with an anthropologist before making broad generalizations about how people used to be, or how other primates living or extinct behaved.
So your arguments are still meaningless froth without rational basis.
Forget ‘unrestrained’. Dave introduced it to obfuscate. Here’s a quote–
“Male sexuality has an evil quality to it that female sexuality does not.”
No ‘unrestrained’ there. Dave just wants you all chasing your tails.
So where’s the ‘evil’? From what I can tell, it’s a design flaw. For some reason, Jehovah designed males to want to spead their seed, to want to impregnate as many females as possible. And He designed females to want to hold on to the male that gave them children, for protection and sustinence. Now, in a world where human relationships are much more informal, this can work–and in OT times polygyny was very common. As the older wives wear out(childbirth was much harder on women then), get new ones. Everyone’s happy. Even Jehovah.
And malevolent? Wqell, if I’m understanding this, that comes from the fact that some animals don’t understand that it takes a ring and a covenant before God, and a ‘yes’ before you’re getting any. Because of this, X amount of men like rape, which Dave seems to have spun out into all of us liking rape, just a little, and having to keep it in check. But I don’t like rape, even a little, Dave.
I’ve said nothing of Jehovah.
Oddly, Dave, we Buddhists don’t have a bit of trouble working that out.
Then perhaps you could enlighten me on how you work it out.
Oh, no; anybody who can try to make a binding moral analogy from Man to fish _must_ put his definitions up front. If only for the comic relief.
Are you also willing to abide by Webster’s definitions of malevolent and evil? (You may not be aware of it, but it’s similar to a multiplication problem, where malevolent = A, evil = b, and unrestrained = c. If you are not willing to provide or abide by a definition of all three, if any one of them is a zero, then your claim is a zero.)
I’m not trying to discredit anything; that you’ve done yourself. If you’re feeling the pinch, it’s the pinch of realization that you haven’t a clue about what you posted. Besides, I do this for the sheer fun of it.
I’m not feeling the pinch, sorry. That you choose not to try and understand the point being made doesn’t bother me.
That you choose to believe you made a point is the problem here. And it’s one any credible writer needs to acknowledge and learn.
Here’s what I’m bringing out of here, Dave:
Tom Kratman is opposing your attempt at “conservatism.”
If you don’t grasp the conceptual boggle that creates, you may wish to actually read some of HIS stuff.
The problem, Mike, is that his approach seems unsound and illogical. And, frankly, that shark analogy is something I might expect from an agent provocateur from the Atheist Liberation Front, if there were an Atheist Liberation Front. (And, who knows, maybe there is.)
This is the problem — you’re still not dealing with me. You’re dealing with your preconceived notions of me. So of course my approach “seems” illogical — you’re bringing your own cultural baggage to my arguments as many ideologically-driven baby boomers do. First you thought I was Andrea Dworkin. Now you’re accusing me of being an atheist. If you’re going to just make this an ad hominem attack on me instead of actually engaging with my argument you should at least know who you’re dealing with. I’m not an atheist. pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/06/08/7-reasons-why-the-right-should-not-seek-to-convert-the-left/
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/08/05/the-waiting-for-superman-of-the-new-atheists/
My argument is that male nature has an inherent violent quality to it. And to be a MAN instead of an adult boy is to learn how to restrain and control this nature (generally through marriage and some form of moral code or religion.). Not “hate” this nature.
If I’m wrong about male sexual nature as the dominant source of violence today then perhaps you’d like to give me a more sound, logical explanation for why males are 10 times as likely to commit murder as females. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/gender.cfm
What does sexuality have to do with murder?
Certainly, SOME murder is related to sex, but if you believe all murder is related to sex, we come back to both misandry, and a question of what type of porn you’re watching…
Both sex and violence are impulses men feel that, if uncontrolled, cause terrible damage, but if channeled properly are life-affirming.
If I’m wrong about male sexual nature as the dominant source of violence today then perhaps you’d like to give me a more sound, logical explanation for why males are 10 times as likely to commit murder as females.
Testosterone, which doesn’t necessarily equate to “sex.” While testosterone is a sex hormone (if only in that production of testosterone in utero is one of the factors in making a boy a boy and is, of course the male hormone as estrogen is the female) it does mean that men tend to be larger, more agressive and — yes — violent. But it takes a prodigious logical leap to say “sexuality” makes men rob a convenience store.
Moreover, women who choose to commit violent crimes (and this is anecdotal from my years covering the court system) are far more likely to use surrogates and are rarely caught when they do because men are reluctant to admit they’ve been duped by a woman into doing something stupid.
So no, logically, male sexuality is not behind most violent crime. The only way you can get there from here is to have a distorted view of male thought processes and motivations.
Contrary to what the feminist professors taught you Dave, not everything evil a man does is about sex. That you think it does, speaks more to your particular world view than reality.
Testosterone = male sexual nature unrestrained.
So what you’re saying is the armed robbery at the liquor store is really about sex.
Yeah that tracks.
It does when you read the Bible and understand why in the 10 Commandments the prohibition against idolatry comes before the prohibitions against theft, murder, and adultery. And why the Law was needed to begin with.
Oddly, I read the Bible every day, and have yet to see that interpretation. Is this your own work or do you have some backup?
I’d like to see something from a noted theologian in particular.
Do you have any understanding of the relationship between idolatry and sex?
I certainly have my own opinions, but that’s not what I asked. I asked you for YOUR theological and doctrinal documentation.
I asked you to do something we’ve all been asking you to do, back up your assertions. Something I was taught in J school was required, even in a column — or a blog post.
What assertion have I failed to back up?
Let’s start with your assertion that the Old Testement prohibitions on Idolatry are synonmous with sexual restraint. You have asserted this is so. I have asked you, not to give simply your opinion, but that of noted theologians.
You answered my question with a question. When you make blanket statements, and then insinuate anyone who disagrees with you is immoral — and yes, you’ve done that to me on more than one occasion — you must expect that people demand you defend your statements as if this were a master’s thesis.
So I demand once more: Support your assertion about idolatry or admit you made it up in order to support your other blanket assertions.
I don’t need to quote a “noted theologian” for it to be obvious that “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is synonymous with sexual restraint.
I asked you “Do you have any understanding of the relationship between idolatry and sex?”
You refused to answer the depth of your knowledge about the subject, just saying that you have your opinions. I don’t care about your opinions. I care about the depth of your knowledge and understanding. Let’s try this again. Do you know what temple prostitution was? Do you know why in the Old Testament they had to go through and make so many laws about who you could and couldn’t have sex with?
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+18&version=NIV
18 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.
6 “‘No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord.
7 “‘Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.
8 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father.
9 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere.
10 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter; that would dishonor you.
———————–
If it was not innate in male sexual nature to do these evil things then why would there need to be laws against them?
*sigh* All of which I agree with and none of which has anything to do with the link between idolatry and sex which you allege.
Either answer the bloody question, with cites as to your sources and no bible verses don’t count — or admit you’re grasping at straws. I want to know which credible theologian agrees with you. And no, I don’t have to tell you what my beliefs on this are. You’re the one making the link between idolatry and sex not me. I don’t have to defend squat.
This passage from Leviticus makes explicit the link between idolatry and sex. What “credible theologian” would disagree? And that you’re asking me to produce a theologian indicates that you don’t understand that I’m not making a theological point. This is a point about values — not theology.
I ask again: Do you know what temple prostitution was? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_prostitution#In_the_Hebrew_Bible
Sex = murder?
You really have been drinking femorrhoid Kool Aid.
Certainly, SOME murder is related to sexuality. But ALL murder?
This is most definitely an unsupportable leap, misandrous, and again calls into question the type of entertainment you watch.
And how would this explain most male murder being against other men?
Is everyone queer, too, Dave?
yes Michael, in Dave’s ideal world all men are homosexuals, castrated, and undergoing lifelong forced hormone treatment to keep their testosterone levels under control so their “malevolent, evil, unrestrained” sexuality is permanently suppressed.
Nonsense. I had no notions of you whatsoever, preconceived or otherwise, until I saw this post. It’s hard to have a precoceived notion of someone you do not even know exists. I’ve acquired some notions of you since, however.
You’re mistaking as an ad hominen on you the attack on your utterly silly lines argument.
And more nonsense: Violence, like the tools of violence, is morally neutral. It may be used either for good or ill. It is not immoral to shoot an enemy soldier on the battlefield. It is highly moral to shoot someone breaking into your house. It is morally obligatory to fight in defense of our values, of freedom, or defense of the innocent.
Where did I say violence was not morally neutral?
In just about everything you’ve written here you have implied it. Then, again, silly me, who knows what you meant? Anyone who can analogize from fish to men is obviously reasoning at levels to which I am simply not priviledged.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Understanding the leap from fish to man isn’t anything complicated. You too can grasp it. I recommend “The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History” by my friend Howard Bloom
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0871136643/pjmedia-20
Howard spends 466 pages arguing the thesis that evil in man has its roots in nature. It’s just a scientific reinterpretation of the traditional Judeo-Christian understanding of where evil comes from. He expands on this these in the 3 books he’s published since this one — all of which I’ll be writing about more at PJ Lifestyle soon.
Oh, I’m sure you will and I can hardly wait.
But what happens when the robot isn’t a woman but a child?
- Then perhaps we save a real child from being molested.
What happens when the sex being simulated isn’t erotic and intimate but violent and destructive?
- Then perhaps we save a real woman from rape and abuse
What happens when the sexual simulation ends like a combination video game and snuff film?
- Then perhaps we save a real woman’s life.
What happens when a bunch of teenage boys pool their money to buy a robot prostitute they can gang rape?
- Then perhaps we save a real prostitute’s life.
And what happens when that is what 13-year-old boys experience as their first initiations into a sexual life?
- Then perhaps we should get involved with our sons and teach our daughters a) situational awareness and b) proper firearms handling.
There is nothing in this invention that is any more dangerous than a boys right hand and his imagination already are.
More than that, it’s a tool you can take to hand or not. It’s a moral nullity.
Ain’t no such thing as an immoral machine, or a machine which genuinely changes what is right or wrong. People like Swindle who don’t know what is right and wrong, but who want to be good, they are dependent on very detailed rules being eternally true–and such rules are contextual instead of eternal. The development of such technology changes their context–deathly threatening to them and they imagine to society.
Ignore their prattling except when they threaten to have success making law, then take then out at the knees whenever possible. Since 1775, that’s been shown to be what’s best for society, and for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. It’s a trifecta. Liberty in fact can never have a contiguity with libertine.
” they are dependent on very detailed rules being eternally true–and such rules are contextual instead of eternal.”
Incorrect.
Then respond to your critics instead of claiming they are attacking strawmen.
You wrote this:
“Male sexuality has an evil quality to it that female sexuality does not.”
What you have written is incorrect and indefensible.
Your admiration of the OT which Christ’s sacrifice obviated, your use of Leviticus as if it has relevance–you are a Pharisee, updated but the same, a creature of form and seeming. Of a martinet’s rules.
I cannot find any appreciation of right and wrong in you. You would not have written what you have written if you were able to see it.
“Golly, what happens when your son learns to masturbate? Dave, you’ve just discovered that men can masturbate with a toy.”
Mr. Martin’s shot at you is exactly en point.
What do you think you are saying with this post which is worthy of being said?
You haven’t managed to come to a point in writing which amounts to more than being an objection to fact that people masturbate with toys, an activity people of both genders can and many do enjoy.
Dave..”Sorry, but I can’t think of an evil act that women can do with their vaginas that is any way comparable to the evil act that men can do with their penises (gang rape.) Maybe you can”
*headdesk, headdesk, headdesk*
you are forgetting…IGNORING actually one of the most heinous ways that a woman can use her sexuality Dave. By pussy whipping some idiot, generally a YOUNG idiot, into killing her husband, father, brother, etc for one reason or another. Then there’s another type of evil. A woman who is turned on by blood…so she uses her sexuality into getting two idiots into beating each other senseless or even unto death. I call them kind of women firestarters…the sight of blood makes them very sexually aroused. They enjoy their power over men.
Are you serious? Women somehow hypnotizing men with their vaginas and making them kill another man? You’re equating that to gang rape?
So what you’re saying Dave is rape is worse than murder? How about war? I’ll refer you to a classic tale about a woman using her wiles to cause numerous deaths, its called the Illiad. You might also want to look at a certain famous queen named Cleopatra.
I see the comment about a woman “being leashed and led into a room” and raise you “guy leashed and being led into a room full of women with strap-ons”.
Dave,
You are objectifying women. Stop it.
FYI, there was something similar to this called the “Accujack,” IIRC, in the 1970s.
The Japanese have had sex androids for well over a decade.
A huge variety of silicone toys exist, as do inflatables and a brand called “real doll” which use Hwood mannequin technology, and are probably working on animatronics right now.
So any surprise and outrage over this is either from ignorance, or manufactured.
Also, tusk and wooden dildos are documented AT LEAST 5000 years back. No one complains about women objectifying men to impossible standards, though.
Nothing to see here.
Nothing to see here until we’re no longer able to tell the difference between sex with a real person and sex with a machine. Call it The Turing Test for Tarts. That’s the whole point I’m making.
There’s nothing to see here at all, except watching a fool indulge in premature moral panic*. Things change all the time, there’s nothing conservative in trying to stop it.
What’s conservative is not letting government, the supposed common will, be a driving force in the change–because the common will is Rousseau’s myth, and not real, and no moral force at all.
What will happen when these things pass the Turing test is, not much, although prostitution will become the province of almost solely the poorer classes, at least for a while.
*Hint, moral panics are always premature, there’s no excuse for them, especially when they inevitably attempt to make enforceable policy.
Forgot to mention, when they really pass the Turing test, they’ll want the franchise and alimony.
The real schadenfreude here is watching anyone cite Harold Bloom, the pet idiot of the chattering classes. He’s the man who once decried the interest in space flight on the part of our nation’s youth, because, as he put it, “There’s nothing out there.”
It’s not Harold Bloom. It’s Howard Bloom. Totally different person.
Now that’s very sad. A correction which improves nothing.
If anything it calls into question a congenital deficiency on the part of the Bloom patrimony, since the one wrote the first and if you are right the other has written something backing this up.
“Male sexuality has an evil quality to it that female sexuality does not.”
It’s simple abject misandry on your part and his. It’s no recognition of reality at all. Women have raped, even grown men. It’s distinctly less likely, but that’s a matter of plumbing not of virtue.
It’s not attacking any straw man to call you on it.
Latter you restate it as if it solves any problem for you to say “unrestrained” male sexuality is an evil thing, but you are still saying that as if unrestrained female sexuality is less evil. It’s not.
“Male sexuality has an evil quality to it that female sexuality does not.”
I feel sad and ashamed enough for you, Mr. Swindle, that the predictable entertainment value of your post–I’ve read the whole thing–is almost overwhelmed.
Dave Swindle @ September 28, 2012 – 9:01 am
If you should have a child at all I pity them.
Good lord, Dave, how dare you criticize anything even remotely relating to males, sex, and the holy porn industry?
Don’t you know men are the latest victim group? And here you are, trying to spoil their fun, and make them feel bad!
You mean ol’ meany-face, you!
/Sarc.
(Considering some of the comments here, I’m beginning to think a robo-doll industry would actually be a good thing for flesh and blood women; it would keep some very creepy men away from them.)
No one of the sex that made “50 Shades of Grey” a runaway bestseller has any right to use the word “creepy” to describe any male sexual activity, no matter how depraved.
To all who run office swear jars: “Creepy” is a $5 fine at minimum.
Dave, agree or disagree, you are to be commended for your willingness (dare I say courage?) to speak forcefully for the new “love that dare not speak its name” and defend your views. To those who disagree: men and women are different; male and female sexuality are very different things; and it’s impossible to grasp a large part of the damage that the leftist war against reality has done to us if you can’t grasp that.
I think you bring up an interesting point. There is a similar thing that happened for women. Back in the day, women would go to the doctor to be “treated” for “hysteria”. Well, the doctors got so tired doing the treatment manually, that they invented the vibrator. I’m not sure what the long term effects have been on female sexuality, but I’m sure someone has studied it.
From reading the comments, though, it strikes me that what most people are taking issue with is your point that male sexuality is inherently evil. Even with the qualifier of unrestrained, I just really have a hard time agreeing with you. I understand what you’re saying and why you’re saying it. Rape is certainly evil. I would say instead that male sexuality can be many things – beautiful, evil, and everything in between. And rather than assume the worst, I think it’s important to focus on teaching young men (and women) about personal responsibility and self control. I would go so far as to say that good men are that way not in spite of but because of their sexuality. It’s just another part of what it means to be a man.
Little boys at a certain point, start to notice little girls. This happens before they have any real definitive concept of sex. They’ll poke at them, and maybe make fun of them, and be deliriously confused when they pay any attention to them at all.
Likewise little girls. With them it’s not poking–it’s kissing. And you should see the boys run.
But the great dance starts long before little boys are thinking ‘sexbots’, Dave, they’re attracted to little girls, not disembodied vaginas.
It really does look like you have some serious problems with your own sexuality, Dave, and that you’ve generalized these problems out onto all men. The responses you keep getting should be telling you that we’re not hearing the same voices you are. Please, seek help.
Oh, and thank you for the quoting of my posts, I hope I’ve been some help.
“The responses you keep getting should be telling you that we’re not hearing the same voices you are.”
I know that you and a half dozen or so commenters are not hearing the same voices that I am. The voice that you’re hearing emanating from my post has little resemblance to the voice that’s actually on the page itself. You’re still arguing with a strawman you’ve assembled, not actually me.
When you have to resort to ad hominem arguments against me then that reveals I’ve delivered an argument you don’t know how to rebut. So I appreciate your contributions.
Dave, you REALLY need someone to explain ‘ad hominem’ to you.
This(the only part of that post that refers specifically to you) is not ad hominem–
“It really does look like you have some serious problems with your own sexuality, Dave, and that you’ve generalized these problems out onto all men. The responses you keep getting should be telling you that we’re not hearing the same voices you are. Please, seek help.”
It refers to what you’ve said, what you appear to be doing in your posts, how I and others have reacted to what you’re saying/doing and suggests seeking help. While these statements do point to you, and call your POV into question on personal matters, you invite that when you say such thing as ‘there is something inherently evil in male sexuality’(that’s a paraphrase). At that point those of us who question this stance are obliged to find out where this comes from and what you’re talking about, so personal questions and comments can be made without being ad hominems.
Like many others, I consider this response avoidance–as I consider your ‘I didn’t mention Jehovah’ response avoidance. Replace ‘Jehovah’ with ‘God’ and re-read it. Try to respond, not avoid.
Most of the people responding–not just some of them–are having a hard time seeing where you’re coming from. When you make such wide, damning statements about things–like your stance on male sexuality, it is up to you to back up your stance as clearly as you can.
“Dave, you REALLY need someone to explain ‘ad hominem’ to you.”
If I’m so dumb that I don’t know what ad hominem means then why are you even bothering trying to communicate with me?
“Replace ‘Jehovah’ with ‘God’ and re-read it.”
Maybe we just use words differently. You don’t see that “Jehovah” and “God” are not synonyms. Just as you do not realize that “male” and “men” are not synonyms either. “Male sexuality” does not mean the same thing as “men’s sexuality.” We speak different languages. That’s why you’re not understanding what I’m saying.
“Maybe we just use words differently. You don’t see that “Jehovah” and “God” are not synonyms. Just as you do not realize that “male” and “men” are not synonyms either. “Male sexuality” does not mean the same thing as “men’s sexuality.” We speak different languages. That’s why you’re not understanding what I’m saying.”
I am of the school of thought that takes the One God at His word. He is the God of Abraham, which gives him access to all the names that god goes by. Let us avoid theology, yes?
You are correct though, we speak differently. I speak clearly, and you speak obfuscatorially. You flit from definition to definition to try to find something that will make your flawed points correct. In your male/men’s sexuality obfuscation, you are attempting to suggest that you did not mean that there is something inherently evil in ‘men’s'(restrained, controlled) sexuality, but only in the damaged sexuality of those you refer to as ‘males’. Unfortunately, you used the word ‘inherent’. The inherent sexuality is the undamaged one.
Dave, I begin to suspect that the damaged sexuality is your own. I have no idea what happened to you, but men–even males–are not creatures for whom rape is a desired thing. Rapists are damaged.
“If I’m so dumb that I don’t know what ad hominem means then why are you even bothering trying to communicate with me?”
Because I think you need to seek help.
“Because I think you need to seek help.”
And who should I seek help from? Where do I need to go so I can become a healthy person who thinks about sex and God and gender and the Bible exactly like you do?
“Dave, I begin to suspect that the damaged sexuality is your own.”
How might my sexuality have been “damaged” (and by whom?) to cause me to make these arguments? What evidence do you have of this just by reading words I type on the internet?
You could of course try reading the posts I write that don’t have words about sex in the headlines. http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/06/08/7-reasons-why-the-right-should-not-seek-to-convert-the-left/ http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/04/17/the-hatred-of-derrick-bells-afrolantica-legacies/ http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/08/05/the-waiting-for-superman-of-the-new-atheists/ http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/09/23/why-this-election-year-america-is-carmela-soprano/
OK, I readily (happily actually) admit that I didn’t read past the title and caption of the photo. My first thought is, why the hell the Chinese who limit pregnancies need sperm banks.
Skipping to the comments though, I’m quickly reminded of how painfully twisted some peoples’ perceptions of sex are, especially with a religious veneer applied. A recent WSJ article said we libertarians lack empathy, but it just isn’t true, I really do pity some who post here about their fear of masturbation, birth control and male sexuality.
Dave Swindle says in response to my comments:
“God is not Yahweh. People who worship God like adults don’t think that God is some bearded man up in the skies.
“Of course my position sounds ridiculous when you distort it.”
And yet the religious laws you cite as admirable are those of barbarous primitives who DID believe God was a bearded man living in the sky, and who also believed he occasionally came to Earth to walk around and show his backside.
This is the god with whom they supposedly made a covenant that he repeatedly broke for the next several thousand years, so if you’re going to idolize the imaginary contract, you should at least acknowledge the make-believe signatories.
This is what, the 4th or 5th article on sexbots and the like? Dr. Helen Smith raised this topic and I thought it was kind of disturbing and said so. Then one or 2 more articles, and more articles on other sites… what’s going on?
If Mr. Swindle has anxiety over what future his children are being born into, well, welcome to parenthood, Mr. Swindle!
Anyone with kids who is an involved parent (you know who you are)has to deal with this challenge daily. You learn that the larger culture is antagonistic to your values and will seek endlessly to deprive not only your children, but their parents as well, of positive and supportive influences which sustain a healthy and balanced life.
It is a challenge that many of us meet every day. When we fail, we get up the next day and do it again.
Do you think that the world is going to run out of ways to block your influence or demean your efforts? Relax and get used to it. Nobody cares. Parenthood will absolutely lay you bare. All the bad and the good. Parenthood, if you’re doing it right, is a trial by fire.
Seriously, I hope you save this article and the responses for however many years down the road and your children of a certain age. Match your then-current-concerns to the subject of this article and I can assure you that they won’t even exist in the same universe.
The paradox of parenthood is that you never know what’s coming, yet you are required to see around the corner. Count on looking around the wrong corners, often.
To fisk your post then (that’s not a brutal sex act, Dave, but you may find it brutal).
“In the recent debates…next ten or fifteen years?”
The overarching societal reason the poster was so interested is the same reason this was in the headlines recently.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2012/09/sex_selection_in_babies_through_pgd_americans_are_paying_to_have_daughters_rather_than_sons_.single.html
Your misandry helps lead to such things as the above, it is part and parcel of the same trope. Your writing betrays a tendency on your part to be unable to imagine having a son on a morally equivalent basis as having a daughter. This post of yours emphasizes the supposed negatives of having a son, whom you are certain will in his heart be more depraved sexually than a daughter would.
” Because I’ve set a standard…goal with their swimwear. [...]”
In the same paragraph where you say you’ve set a standard, you express a pre-emptive concern your standard may not be where others would draw one, you worry more about outward seeming than your internal moral compass. One hint Dave, for girls of the age you spoke about, they should be able to be naked without attracting male sexual attention, the swimsuit in without relevance to the question. This should be clear to you.
” “you’re very focused on the … to both boys and girls.”
And yet you’ve consistently imagined girls in an idealized fashion and male children solely as creatures of rapine want.
” Because my wife and I…father to both boys and girls.”
It’s disgustingly weird that you are visualizing your experience with your children as an extension of your experience with a pet dog. I don’t know what to call that except damaged.
” “in the San Fernando Valley?”
If we’re still living here when they’re born then of course.” – too short to excerpt, really, and irrelevant to the post.
” “Do you think your one man…to think about things differently.”
So you want people to think of men this way?
“Male sexuality has an evil quality to it that female sexuality does not.”
Or even this, to paraphrase.
“Unrestrained male sexuality has an evil quality to it that female sexuality does not.”
Neither statement is defensible, Mr. Swindle. They are the claims of a dark and twisted soul which does not understand humanity in any sense I can recognize as true. The “original sin” of men is not different or worse than that of women, and that original sin and what is eternal to human nature is the same as well. Biological gender brings a context common to the genders, but not a difference in right and wrong, or in the dip to a tray on the scales of sin and sanctity.
“There’s more to why I worry more about raising a son rather than a daughter, though.”
A son is more likely to do exceptionally good or bad, seen only in the abstract–males unquestionably have more outliers–but there is every bit as much good as bad overall. Why are you only concerned, to see you write, about the bad? It is because you have an unbalanced, misandric view of masculinity.
“First, understand that when …raise my brother-in-law.)”
Not enough context to know why you put this in, but if you’re worrying about explaining masturbating and it’s general inappropriateness in 10-to-15 years to a child you will have in 10 to 15 years, I suspect your information about the schedule of childhood development needs updating.
“For me it’s also…coming in the next decade.”
If you’re waiting for a secure time to have children, you may as well save your self the waiting and get yourself cut now.
“What’s going to be…the same today?”
It’s unlikely to be AI, but out of simple domestically sourced energy independence, Polywell, thoria/breeder, or just being rational about PWR fission just that alone would do it. A good Mach effect GI non-local reaction engine would put paid to almost every concern we have.
“So here’s the deal…isn’t a woman but a child? ”
Someone who wants to do that is satisfying the urge, but not with a child. The downside here is hard to find, since such have always existed, but in your hypothetical, no child is harmed. If you mean to say you think they won’t stay satisfied with robots, and such robots will enlarge the number of such predators, and increase such predation–say so. At least you’ll have come to a comprehensible point that is not misandry in and of itself–except one wonders if you aren’t afraid the existence of such robots will excite your own son to perversion, because he’s only a male afterall. And then we’re back to your misandry, and of necessity back to your own self hatred.
You are after all just a male, like the other half of us.
Bless your heart.
“What happens when the sex being simulated isn’t erotic and intimate but violent and destructive?”
You buy a new robot.
“What happens when the sexual simulation ends like a combination video game and snuff film?”
You make sure people know they need to keep it fake, and appropriately penalize people when they don’t. The death penalty is underutilized, in my opinion.
“What happens when a bunch of teenage boys pool their money to buy a robot prostitute they can gang rape? ”
Their parents catch them and there’s hell to pay? They discover real girls are far more intimidating, because they are people, and most boys aren’t predators, e.i., your theme–”male sexuality has an evil quality to it that female sexuality does not”–is utter bullshit.
“And what happens when that is what 13-year-old boys experience as their first initiations into a sexual life?”
They get a lot more practice for real life than their hand can give them? Where’s the downside there? You really lack specifics, and seem to emphasize only the potential downside of change, without acknowledging improvement happens when the individuals in society are free to change of it’s own accord as opposed to change imposed from the top down. You pretend your being dominated by your fears is conservative, it isn’t, it’s just your pathology–in this case, misandry.
“What will our world be when people lose their virginity to a machine?”
It won’t be different from from it is now. The hand is also just a tool…
…with the exception that unlike the tools in my garage, the kids don’t put it back in the wrong drawer, or leave it out to rust.
” “Pornography” is a much more…they an inevitable personal apocalypse”
Most do regard it as harmless in and of itself, while knowing any obsession can become a personal apocalypse.
” The diversity of porn needs…tears running down her face.”
Since the woman in question is getting a paycheck and likely needs onions to cry, don’t you think you are being overly dramatic here? Such porn exists because the fantasy of being forced permits the fantasizer to not be responsible for what they are fantasizing, they can scapegoat the “other” who in real life would have the “safe words”. If there are no “safe words” then a crime is being committed and should be punished. Where’s the moral complication?
“It’s like comparing a…“monster thickburger” from Hardee’s.”
MMMMM. Monster burger…
…Sorry. I’m on a 1800 cal a day max diet. What were we talking about?
Oh yeah. Whether someone goes for the monster burger or a single slider is up to them, unless your the sort of totalitarian Bloomberg is. With whom I frankly feel you have much in common. Neither of you should be allowed near the levers of power.
“We’ve come to know…Madonna-Whore complex.”
Except, revealed by the line I must repeat yet again, “Male sexuality has an evil quality to it that female sexuality does not.”, you show you’ve certainly adopted the idea women are relatively Madonna’s. When really, they more relatively Madonna, the performer.
Complete with the occasional yielding to an urge to strip off.
“In spite of the technological advancements…fantasizing can have on one’s brain.”
And this still won’t be a brave new world.
“I think I could probably…today have managed it.”
It’s a near certainty, your concerns are entirely unfounded. Indeed, they are not worth mentioning.
At all.
But the development of…could simulate sex acts?”
You might have gotten some practive, I hope with no one watching. Eww.
“What happens when 10 year old boys start learning about sex with machines like China’s “sperm extractor”?”
Given it’s looks, they won’t have learned anything except they can make their weener sneeze, and that feels good. No different from today at all.
“What transformations will happen to human sexuality when the sex provided from machines can be more exciting than with real people?”
The consensual, mutual performance art of sex will always, I am confident, retain the cachet required for procreation.
“What does a father say to his 10-year-old son when he comes home with stories about how all of his friends are wanting him to “try out” their robot girlfriends?”
Make sure you wipe it with Chlorox first, and know that unless they are really passing the Turing test, it’s nothing like sex with another person. And again, you’ll know it’s passing the Turing test when it wants to graduate, have some autonomous, future-to-be-co-eval subroutines, and settle down.
Which will not be the excitement you fear.
We’ve come to know this because three generations of American men have managed to survive the widespread availability of porn without all devolving back into ancient Canaanite barbarians worshiping Baal and Astarte.
Two months ago, the Democrats booed God. Jusy sayin’.
Do you make money with this drivel? I think your rambling article qualifies as masturbation. Self-stimulating, but with no real benefit. Hey, whatever makes you feel good.
I couldn’t decide if you were being funny or were really getting yourself all worked up over this nonsense – you are in California after all.
A Boy and His Dog