
The UK to open its first sex doll brothel - rmason
https://mic.com/articles/175784/the-uk-to-open-its-first-sex-doll-brothel-because-men-need-more-ways-to-objectify-women#.UngNWckoa
======
TulliusCicero
Huh, this is the kind of silly moral outrage I'd expect from far right
religious conservatives.

The arguments here that

> While certain sex doll manufacturers have argued that their products might
> act as an outlet for customers' aggression or criminal predilections,
> sparing potential human victims, experts worry that those behaviors could
> easily bleed into real life.

remind me strongly of the old, tired lines about how violent video games are
"training our kids to be killers". And it sounds just as specious here.

> For sex workers, 45% to 75% of whom experience violence during their
> careers, the possibility that their customers' conduct with dolls might be
> transferable is very real.

Okay, but a) does any data show that that _actually_ happens, or is this just
the pearl-clutching it sounds like, and b) do we ban activities because they
might cause our attitudes to change in a negative way? If a study showed that,
say, eating Doritos made one more likely to rob a bank, would we then start
banning different brands of tortilla chips?

> It's also real for any woman whose partner might be sneaking off for sex
> with dolls, which raises yet another pertinent question: Who asked for this?

Lonely dudes, presumably?

~~~
MrQuincle
I remember a heated debate between someone from the union of sex workers in
the Netherlands and the woman behind
[https://campaignagainstsexrobots.org/](https://campaignagainstsexrobots.org/)
Kathleen Richardson.

From the industry there was little opposition namely. The main argument was
this: "The job of a sex worker is much more complicated than you think. It's
not just sex. It's about human contact. It's about communication. It's so much
more that to confuse a human sex worker with a robot doll is demeaning to what
it constitutes to be a sex worker."

It's still a taboo. That's what's the issue here. That on itself means human
trafficking, no pension, no support from police, etc.

Of course, when robots can sentient, we have an interesting situation. It is
rather weird that people quick to pinpoint discrimination issues between male
and female (which seems irrelevant) are so slow in pinpointing discrimination
issues between human and artificial beings. If anything, it is important not
to wait to long with establishing the rights of the latter.

~~~
etiam
> Of course, when robots can sentient [...]

But what sort of proclivities would go with the sentience? Not necessarily the
sorts of things we'd expect in an evolved animal. I'm reminded of a scene from
Douglas Adams' "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe".

Excerpt from Chapter 17:

A large dairy animal approached Zaphod Beeblebrox's table, a large fat meaty
quadruped of the bovine type with large watery eyes, small horns and what
might almost have been an ingratiating smile on its lips.

"Good evening," it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, "I am the main
Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my body?"

It harrumphed and gurgled a bit, wriggled its hind quarters into a more
comfortable position and gazed peacefully at them. Its gaze was met by looks
of startled bewilderment from Arthur and Trillian, a resigned shrug from Ford
Prefect and naked hunger from Zaphod Beeblebrox.

"Something off the shoulder perhaps?" suggested the animal, "Braised in a
white wine sauce?"

"Er, your shoulder?" said Arthur in a horrified whisper.

"But naturally my shoulder, sir," mooed the animal contentedly, "nobody else's
is mine to offer."

Zaphod leapt to his feet and started prodding and feeling the animal's
shoulder appreciatively.

"Or the rump is very good," murmured the animal. "I've been exercising it and
eating plenty of grain, so there's a lot of good meat there." It gave a mellow
grunt, gurgled again and started to chew the cud. It swallowed the cud again.
"Or a casserole of me perhaps?" it added.

"You mean this animal actually wants us to eat it?" whispered Trillian to
Ford.

"Me?" said Ford, with a glazed look in his eyes, "I don't mean anything."

"That's absolutely horrible," exclaimed Arthur, "the most revolting thing I've
ever heard."

"What's the problem Earthman?" said Zaphod, now transferring his attention to
the animal's enormous rump.

"I just don't want to eat an animal that's standing here inviting me to," said
Arthur, "it's heartless."

"Better than eating an animal that doesn't want to be eaten," said Zaphod.

"That's not the point," Arthur protested. Then he thought about it for a
moment. "Alright," he said, "maybe it is the point. I don't care, I'm not
going to think about it now. I'll just ... er ..."

The Universe raged about him in its death throes. "I think I'll just have a
green salad," he muttered.

"May I urge you to consider my liver?" asked the animal, "it must be very rich
and tender by now, I've been force-feeding myself for months."

"A green salad," said Arthur emphatically.

"A green salad?" said the animal, rolling his eyes disapprovingly at Arthur.

"Are you going to tell me," said Arthur, "that I shouldn't have green salad?"

"Well," said the animal, "I know many vegetables that are very clear onthat
point. Which is why it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled
problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable
of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am." It managed a very slight
bow.

"Glass of water please," said Arthur.

"Look," said Zaphod, "we want to eat, we don't want to make a meal of the
issues. Four rare steaks please, and hurry. We haven't eaten in five hundred
and seventy-six thousand million years."

The animal staggered to its feet. It gave a mellow gurgle. "A very wise
choice, sir, if I may say so. Very good," it said, "I'll just nip off and
shoot myself." He turned and gave a friendly wink to Arthur. "Don't worry,
sir," he said, "I'll be very humane." It waddled unhurriedly off into the
kitchen.

------
flukus
I'm somewhat skeptical on the cleanliness. A real vagina is somewhat self
cleaning (STD's aside). Anyone that's owned a fake vagina (or a george forman
grill) can attest to how hard they are to clean.

~~~
dannybirch
Disclaimer: Not a good idea to put body parts in a george forman grill

~~~
flukus
I meant the ribbed nature of both devices...

~~~
Pica_soO
We meant the problem of prolonged burns on body parts, although the crust
smells delicious.

Someone ordered a hotdog?

------
RichardHeart
This article is oblivious to the concept of a male sex doll. It is also
oblivious to humans treating objects as well or better than they treat other
humans. I wish I could downvote this, it appears to be flamebait.

------
likeclockwork
"because men need more ways to objectify women" .. But they're objectifying
actual inanimate objects, not women.

~~~
Chris2048
I know - If this is objectification, is a woman buying a dildo in the shape of
a penis objectifying men?

If fake sex objects are fine for one, they are fine for another.

------
TulliusCicero
This reminds me of the Robosexuality episode of Futurama:
[http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Robosexuality](http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Robosexuality)

It seems like these sex dolls are basically the (extremely primitive)
precursor to the sex robots that are likely in the future.

------
joe_hoyle
Read title: "The UK to open its first sex doll brothel, because men need more
ways to objectify women"

...instantly close.

------
Pica_soO
The usual organizations trying to protect the long fallen mono-drug supplier
monopoly with shoddy arguments.

The usual attempts of the well meaning, to prevent what they presume as self-
destructive behaviors.

Nothing in this brothel, which doesn't happen every day in a thousand homes
anyway.

So carry on while the caravan wails?

------
Sacho
I think this article is a prime example of the things I hate about advocacy
journalism.

It's clear that the journalist started with a narrative in their head - the
second sentence is _" It's a creepy concept that cues an avalanche of
questions"_. I don't think pursuing an agenda is bad per se, but it's not
really reporting work, and I think it must follow different rules -
specifically, it needs to have argumentation for its assertions, provide
evidence for factual claims, and analyze alternate explanations.

> "I think we know enough about human psychology that if you can get yourself
> to mistreat a very lifelike, human-like thing, then it's probably just good
> rehearsal to doing that to a real human," Pizarro added.

The quote from the "expert" is illustrative - it is an appeal to authority
with no further investigation, no sources to back it up, etc. While that might
be the standard formula for a news report, it's not enough for an
argumentative article. Is David Pizarro a leading scientist on this subject,
does he have publications and research to link to? Who knows, it's not
presented in the article.

There's a pathetic attempt at presenting the "counter-argument" but the link
is to a site that is debunking it(and also advancing the same narrative) -
this doesn't give me much confidence that the counter-argument was presented
fairly and not just straw-manned.

The proliferation of sex dolls and sex dolls brothels may be an interesting
topic worthy of a discussion. "The previous Mic article" hints to one
interesting issue: _" When I tried to find a sex robot for straight women
online, options were scarce."_ However, it then immediately tries to shoehorn
the discussion into the narrative with an 'explanation': _" That is likely
because not only is the tech industry dominated by men, but also because
companies founded by men are more likely to get funding. "_ (How about the
'likely' explanation that women aren't looking for sex dolls? How would that
not possibly cross your mind?)

This article and the ones it links to are just poorly written agenda pushing.
They are what you would look for in an evangelism blog, a strongly opinionated
presentation with very little research and argumentation, no thought put into
alternate possibilities.

The big question that pops up in my mind is, "of what use is this to me"? I
don't know who Claire Lampen is, why I should respect and value her opinions.
She doesn't really present any serious argumentation for her position. She
doesn't even seem to be concerned with the actual consumers who are seeking
out this product, just how this will "negatively affect women"...which reminds
me of this quote from Hillary Clinton:

 _" Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their
husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat..."_

It's hard to take the pleas for subscriptions from magazines and "newspapers"
such as this one seriously. With this kind of low-effort advocacy journalism,
Mic competes with every opinionated blog on the subject, and it will always
come short - I can at least develop some kind of emotional connection and
relationship with a blog writer by following their writings; the online "news
media" still treats them mostly as replaceable cogs.

~~~
Chris2048
It's not just that the quoted expert doesn't really flesh out their assertion,
it's that the premise "" comes from nowhere in the first place:

> There's no lack of male disrespect toward women already, and those might be
> the men who are most drawn to sex robots.

He's suggesting that men may be drawn to robots in order to abuse them, like a
kind of self-initiated sexual abuse training. Here's a thought: most most that
use the brothels will just _have sex_ with the things!

------
JetSpiegel
Sex doll brothels, SpaceX making it cheaper to go to space... When will the
Rastafarian migrate to low earth orbit?

~~~
beaconstudios
around the time Tessier-Ashpool start constructing Freeside, if my watch is
accurate.

------
timwaagh
i think its an improvement over real prostitution for sure. also it kind of
negates some of the power women have over men.

isn't it better if women are not put at risk of stds, no human trafficking et
cetera? i could buy a sex doll or even go to such a place but i would never go
to a whore.

------
squozzer
This is the United Kingdom, right? The nation with the highest concentration
of videocams per unit area in the history of humankind, right? No way this
development won't turn into blackmail on a national scale.

