The Issue of Sex Dolls

Its been a big hit in the news recently. Robotic Sex Dolls are and will continue to gain external realism, more complex responses, and more complex reactions. And feminist organizations have objected to some of this, citing various reasons.

One issue is that interacting with a ‘human-like’ device, particularly when that device is purposely made as visually or reaction-wise as possible, will normalize however the users choose to interact with it. Or in short terms: If guys make rape sex robots, they might not consider consent with real women as much of barrier to getting what they want.

Now, the first thing that pops into my mind is the whole “Video-games cause violence!” controversy. But, as long-term studies showed, people who played violent video games had no significant difference from people who didn’t in terms of violent acts or tendencies. But, mind you, the argument that video games being violent ‘relieved’ the tendency of individuals to be violent didn’t hold up in the long term ‘specific individual’ studies. While the controversy of causing violence is solved, the controversy of relieving it hasn’t been.

But, lets look at things more closely and how the comparison between violence and sex to robots and video games. As should be obvious to anyone who listens to the women in their lives, sexual assault is rampant. And it mostly comes from men, who are the same demographic buying these sex dolls. Particularly, men in power, as seen in recent Hollywood revelations, use that power for sexual assault. Men in power tend to have more money as well and thus could buy these sex dolls. Would they want to? Not sure.

But, the issue of sexual assault being rampant is the case. And the issue of violence being rampant in various forms of media or our society (with sexual assault itself being a form of violence) makes the two comparable.

Now, lets look at the other end of the scale. Video Games to Robots. Video Games, while ‘representations’ of events and situations, are very much recognizable as artificial. They lack detail in most situations and are unable to be interacted with. Time will tell how the Virtual Reality setup will change such things, though at first, at least, resolution will remain in the ‘obviously artificial’ range.

Sex dolls are similar… but in some ways sex dolls have an increased reality aspect to them. When you interact with a sex doll, I presume that you touch it. Instantly this is a divergence from video games. The outer layers of the sex dolls are designed to feel like skin. And the internal sections are designed to feel like actual internal orifice cavities.

So, seeing as it is in the real world and is mimicking real world feelings other than just the visual aspect, we’re beginning to get a more all-encompassing experience. The addition of ‘personalities’ and voice to these devices only increases the realism. I wouldn’t say we’ll have ‘realistic’ sex dolls in the immediate future. But I think that the over-whelming aspect of real world interaction combined with the small increases in realism will blur the lines far further than any video game ever has. These sex dolls are given names and many times discussed by using pronouns such as “She, her, hers” which is a privilege many actual humans are denied such as transgender women.

So that danger is there, though, of course, we don’t know for sure if that danger is huge, or non-existent. The evidence just isn’t out there yet. Of course, the same ‘realism’ aspects that are present also could create some level of ‘relief’ by giving alternative outlets to a would be sexual assaulter or rapist. The evidence can’t tell us one way or another yet on that either.

So… we since we don’t have a lot of evidence one way or another, what else is there to discuss?

Instead of just walking away from this, perhaps we can take a closer look at the details that make women ‘shudder’ when sex dolls can simulate being raped.

Female sex dolls play off men’s interest in women. So the sex doll is very clearly a stand-in for a woman and is crafted in woman’s image. The personalities and responses also follow to this effect, simulating women as realistically as they can… but not entirely. So, since it is woman’s image being used and distorted by these dolls… do women have any claim over our collective image?

A quick read through of Personality rights and what they entail shows that Personality rights tend to only extend to individual persons, and vary to large degrees from nation to nation and state to state. This isn’t unexpected as the variety of nations is immense. Some discussion regarding ‘collective personality rights’ are out there, but they are not very extensive and don’t seem likely to catch on anytime soon.

However, we can evaluate some of the aspects of womankind and how it would be dealt with presuming we were trying to make a case that sex-dolls violated our collective personality rights. We have a number of factors to address as part of this process within the US system:

1. The strength of the mark, which is to say ‘how definitive is this mark as a defining aspect of the claimant’s personality’. How definitive is the personality of womankind? Well certainly aspects of our physical selves are well established. The female human body, with all its possible configurations, seems to be a defining personality aspect of womankind. And then our responses, movements, and voices also seem to be part of our collective personality. This mark, as far as I can tell, comes across as quite definitive and strong.
2. The degree of similarity between the marks. So how similar are female-simulating sex dolls to actual women? While the distance is fairly great at the moment, it will be shrinking quicker in the coming decades. Voice manipulation is practically there with how our Cortana and Siri can respond audibly without too much unrealistic variation. Movement simulation will be one of the more difficult aspects of sex dolls to deal with. But, within the contexts of which the dolls are used, that movement is far more restricted and can probably be made to model somewhat realistically the movement of actual women. Finally, we have the sensations of the sex doll, how the skin feels, the orifices, the appearance. And those in particular are being focused on crafting as closely to actual women as possible for the companies creating these sex dolls. Some aspects are similar, while others need a lot of work, but I don’t see them having any major difficulties in the long run with establishing a high degree of similarity.
3. The proximity of the product/services. That is, how close will sex dolls be to where women are? Well… women are in all realms and levels of society (though, admittedly there are still plenty of glass ceilings that restrict us from the top of the hierarchies) and while sex-dolls likely won’t be as permeating, the locations  where they are going to be will, without a doubt, be around women in-general society.
4. The likelihood the prior owner will bridge the gap. That is, how likely is it that the proximity will get closer? And I’d say pretty damn high.
5. Actual Confusion. As we discussed up above, exact confusion isn’t necessary entirely for there to be an effect. But, in terms of people mistaking the details, personalities, and responses of sex dolls as being applicable as well to real women? I don’t think comparisons or equivalencies in discussions or representations will decrease anytime soon. This is furthered from the exploitation and objectification of women already. So the difference between an objectified woman and an objectified simulated-woman isn’t that stark.
6. The defendant’s good faith in adopting its own mark. That is, how much are sex doll companies doing their best to make something that isn’t simulating women? Thats easy. Not at all.
7. The quality of the defendant’s product. While one can say that these sex dolls need a lot of work, the intense investment, capital, and resources suggest that these dolls are highly valued.
8. The sophistication of the buyers. How ‘sophisticated’ are the buyers of sex dolls? I mean, that seems somewhat self-evident. They aren’t going to be those most able to determine responses accurately to real world women. They are going to be those who already have trouble with real world women.

So overall, I’d say we have a fairly strong case of the ‘personality of womankind’ being violated through this false representation by female sex dolls. And that doesn’t even come to the fact of an incidence which could occur where one of the sex dolls has the exact likeness of a real world woman. Or, in a worst case scenario, was specifically designed after a woman without that women’s knowledge or consent. Those are actual individual personality violations.

And just looking online at responses to such developments displays a disheartening attitude. Many respond with disparaging ideas of women, and they say they already value these sex dolls more than real world people. This includes those in their everyday lives! That, however, has less to do with what sex dolls are causing, and more with the current situation of lack of value from society of women.

And when our control over our image and our value is already so tarnished and mutilated, sex dolls aren’t likely to help once thrown into the mix.