He, the robot: Why women do not need sex dolls
THIS YEAR REALBOTIX PLANS TO RELEASE THE FIRST sex robot - a man, in the appendix to last year's Harmony sensation - the first sex doll with artificial intelligence. The ethic of the very existence of sex robots is already a difficult question. The next round of objectification, dehumanization and new problems with the principle of consent are only the most obvious consequences of the transition to cyber partners. Many researchers go further and paint a truly dystopic picture of the empathy and the death and death.
Another problem is gender bias. Despite the innovations RealBotix, sex robots, however, like sex dolls, are interested in women many times less than men. We understand why women have no place in sexual cyber-revolution and how the consumer basket in the sex shop is associated with the struggle for equality.
Toy for boys
Sex dolls were invented by men - the first, by and large, was Pygmalion with his love for the statue of Galatea, who replaced him with a real woman. A similar trick described the ancient Greek writer Athenaeus: one of his contemporaries allegedly managed to have sex with a statue of Cupid. Before the advent of sex shops, French, Spanish, Dutch and Japanese sailors made sex dolls from the scrap materials, and the first commercial sex doll appeared in the 1950s in the Federal Republic of Germany. Doll for a long time
Remained the most popular sex toy for men - from the very beginning women were offered fundamentally other devices.
The first vibrator was invented back in the 19th century - though not for women's pleasure, but to treat "hysteria", which was diagnosed to girls right and left, writing off many mental problems for gender-related features. The invention was successful - so the development of the sex toy industry for women somehow still refers to the first invention.
Despite the fact that the origin of the vibrator does not fit in with the emancipation, now women are primarily interested in sex toys. According to various sources of commercial companies, it is vibrators that time and again become the most popular product in the line of sex shops. At the same time, women are not thrilled with dolls: a study by Tufts University in 2016 revealed that two thirds of women surveyed did not want to use sex dolls, while the same two thirds of men had nothing against it.
Although one of the few women who described her experience with a sex doll, Vice reporter Carly Sayortino thought it was a good idea - she tested one of the Sinthetics dolls, the price of which starts from seven thousand dollars. "Almost not to distinguish from real sex with a man - unless you are in complete control of the situation and can fantasize as much as you like," said Sayortino.
Progress and new needs
From the description of a sex robot for women it is clear why he would be interested in a very small audience. The doll promises to continue penetration "as long as you want," which gives producers who haven't really gotten into women's needs, even though they promise that the robot will work "better than a vibrator." But why pay such fabulous money for a doll, if a decent clitoral stimulant can cost a reasonable hundred dollars? Only 10% of RealDolls Sales
(a mastodon of expensive and most realistic sex dolls, its founders launch Harmony) are male dolls. “As an artist, I have always been fascinated by female bodies - they have become my muse,” explains Matt McMullen, head of RealDolls, on gender bias.
A sex doll is a legacy of the times when the only sexuality that played a role in culture was stereotypically "male." “The masculine, dominant logic of sexual desire is associated with possession, appropriation, penetration,” says Nadia Nartova, a researcher at the Center for Youth Studies, HSE. Therefore, it is believed that men, when it comes to sex, they only want to have, and women - to find pleasure in obeying their desire. Suffice it to recall the standard plot from porn, where at first a woman resists harassment, but after a while she starts to get pleasure - not because she feels sympathy for a particular man, but from the fact that his desire itself brings her pleasure.
It was against this order of things that women demanded sexual freedom. Sex doll is the best illustration of the approach where one side always remains in submission. To love sex dolls in the form of men would simply mean to turn the hierarchy upside down - to demand the onset of matriarchy instead of patriarchy, Nadia Nartova believes. However, the struggle for equality does not work this way: if we abandon the vulgar objectification, then this applies to everyone.
In addition, the modern assortment of sex shops is already talking about breaking this approach. Instead of a dildo, women are increasingly buying contactless devices, while men pay attention to prostate massagers. Masturbators are gradually replacing the dolls - however, many of them continue to copy the vagina, anus or mouth externally. But there are nice abstract toys that do not attempt to portray a woman or her body parts - for example, ironic masturbators in the form of a transparent egg.
Archaic, not innovation
In this situation, it is just men who continue to buy dolls in the position of retrogradov - and it does not matter whether the latter have artificial intelligence and a self-moisturizing vagina. "Male sexuality over the past decades has not reflected as intensely as female sex. So the sex doll can be considered more likely a sign of uncertainty in the face of new women who have ceased to be objects and require dialogue," says Nartova.
The popularity of sex dolls today is often associated with atomization of society and awkward male attempts to overcome loneliness - however, women face the same challenges. In Japan in recent years, girls are increasingly renting boyfriends, while their fellow countrymen are buying sex dolls to go fishing with them, go on picnics and go on trips, - there is a comic out of sync. Women refuse to be objects obviously not to buy robots instead of boyfriends - however, not everyone is ready to accept them in a new capacity.
Photo:kozlik_mozlik - stock.adobe.com, Ruslan Gilmanshin - stock.adobe.com, alexm156 - stock.adobe.com
