If a robot can become a financial planner, (Blog 4/15/15) can other robotic services be far behind? House cleaning is a candidate. A personal secretary is likely. Maybe even a cook. How about emotional needs where touch is so important?. (Blog 4/22/15). Yes, I’m alluding to sex dolls. The Japanese have been making them for years but the plastic skin feels like a plastic and the bodies have visible seams where the joints come apart or fit together. Not much room for allusion here.
Thanks to new technology, silicone models are now available, a product of Matt McMullen’s new company, Abyss Creations. For $5,000 and up, a doll can be assembled giving the customer a choice of breast size, nipple size and vagina size, which is silicone filled. As to pliability, Dr. Henrik Christensen, chairman of the European Robotics Network at the Royal Institute of Technology observed, if “people are willing to have sex with inflatable dolls,…anything that moves will be an improvement.” (“Dawn of the Sexbots,” by George Gurley, Vanity Fair, May 2015, pg. 157.)
As if in response to Dr. Christensen’s point, McMullen’s dolls come with moans or screams, depending on the buyer’s preference. He tried undulating hips but stopped production because of technical flaws. Nonetheless, given advanced robotics and artificial intelligence, his models are bound to improve. McMullen doesn’t imagine his sexbots will replace human partners, but the likelihood of finding one in a bedroom closet is getting more likely. (Ibid. pg. 158.)
To defend of his industry from sly smirks and salacious jokes, McMullen points out there’s no harm in curing loneliness. Some of his customers are grieving over the loss of a spouse and can’t fathom dating. Others are perhaps “disfigured, disabled or so terrified of women they can’t even look at them in the eye.” (Ibid pg. 159) Others of his customers are parents, making purchases for their adult autistic children. Some are art collectors. Even the Department of defense uses his dolls, male and female, to teach soldiers how to tend the wounded. What’s more, his creations have popped up in over 20 movie and television programs. He does not, he points out, supply images of children or animals.
McMullen has a point about his product. Maybe a smile shouldn’t come too readily to the lips. Who’s to say what’s the best way to cure loneliness? As for me, I have only one curiosity about the new sexbots. If a model breaks, ”who ya gonna call?” A doll repairer? A techie? Or a doctor?
sexbots Courtesy of www.dailymail.co.uk
