Smutty Buddies
A Plea to Sex-Robot Makers
Dear Manufacturers of These Sex Robots I Keep Hearing About,
Apologies for this interruption as you’re no doubt sculpting a vulva, spank-testing a patch of silicone, or some other very important work. But, look, we need to talk.
It looks as though your pervy puppets may soon take over the world. Once the stuff of science fiction, humanoid sexbots become more lifelike with each engineery iteration. (Feel that realistic skin, fellas. Now how much would you pay? But wait! There’s more: She comes in 50 flexible positions!)
According to Newsweek, nearly two thirds of men surveyed on the subject last year said they’d get down ’n’ doity with a droid — and 86 percent believed that one could satisfy them sexually. As if in response, a brothel “staffed” entirely with rentable sex dolls opened in Germany last month.
And it’s only going to get worse, because mankind has never, ever devised a way to satisfy its most prurient urges in private — and then said, “You know what? No. This isn’t cool. Let’s pretend this never happened.”
Let me be clear: I have nothing against your salacious cyborgs. I don’t personally find them attractive; their oversized eyes, O-shaped lips, poofed-out chests, and rigid, unnatural posture make me think of seahorses. Degenerate seahorses with daddy issues.
But hey, the world’s a better place when everyone’s getting their needs met, and as long as nobody’s getting hurt — or, you know, developing silicone rashes — I have no moral objection to machine-sturbation. If you want to rumba with a Roomba, be my guest.
I do have a selfish request to make, though, and it has nothing to do with seahorses that resemble Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Although if you make one, I’d obviously like to see it.
No, I want to know if your anatomically enhanced automatons can satisfy my most secret desires. I’ve been doing some Googling (and now ads for Roxxxy, the TrueCompanion™ with customizable eyeliner, will stalk me online forever), and it seems your bionic babes are about to acquire programmable personalities. They’re on the cusp of being able to respond to users’ touch and voice. And one, apparently, can already “orgasm.” I mean … science! Right?! So all I want to know is this:
Can she make a decent waffle?
Selling for between $5,000 and $15,000 a model, these smutty buddies ought to be able to provide rapture in various forms. For some of your customers, that’s a size-zero waist and spherical boobs that seem to repel one another; for me, it’s not having to wake up early and sling breakfast pastries after my kid’s weekend sleepovers.
So I ask you, the Pygmalions of Porn, can you help? How long before your bawdy bots can stand in for us at farewell happy hours for departing coworkers — or make weekly phone calls to near-deaf relatives who we really should talk to more often? (I know: This sounds cold. But given that these appliances are manufactured with hinged jaws and alpaca-fur pubic hair, I’m pretty comfy with my relative spot on the “creep” spectrum.)
If you’re as devoted as you say you are to enhancing people’s romantic lives, then you’ll stop trying to replicate authentic-sounding moans and start trying to program these gals to check off the tasks on our mood-killing chore lists. Never mind Alexa; I’d much rather have Roxxxy checking the chemicals in my hot tub, filling out field-trip permission slips, and taking out the recycling on Wednesday nights. Damn if I’m not getting hot just thinking about it.
All I’m saying is human sexuality is complex and mysterious — and you’ve just about solved the puzzle! You’re practically a god! So by god, don’t stop now. If you can give a doll a G-spot, surely you can give us a seahorse that’s good for more than rides.
Starshine Roshell is the author of Broad Assumptions.