Summary: The war of the sexes has begun a new chapter, with the development of tech sex (as far beyond today’s sex toys as a horse-drawn buggy is to a F-35). It’s too disturbing for most mainstream analysts to see, let alone discuss (other than to condemn). Brave readers will read this post and its pointers to the world of tomorrow.This is another in a series about our sexbot future; see links to past and future chapters at the bottom.
The war of the sexes has entered a new era (again), as both imbalances build on both the demand and supply sides.
On one hand, the rewards for men playing the game are not what they were. To mention just two of the more obvious changes A new study in Journal of the AMA shows that 40% of American women are obese — and roughly half of marriages end in divorce, often catastrophically for men (loss of their child plus a decade or two of payments). Hence women’s magazines and websites overflow with whines about men’s “failure to commit” and the “peter pan syndrome”.
On the other side of the ledger, feminism has unleashed women’s hypergamy while men’s economic fortunes fade rapidly (e.g., women are increasingly dominating men at every level from high school diplomas to college and doctorate degrees) — leading to paradise for much-sought-after alpha males, and increasing numbers of celibate omegas.
Society would rebalance, somehow — eventually. But this instability creates an opening for technology to disrupt the game in ways we now can only imagine — with the allure of better drugs (much safer than heroin and booze), the high-voltage excitement of video games (in the near future evolving into virtual reality), and high-tech sex toys (and in the near future, sex bots). It’s the next phase of what British journalist Milo Yiannopoulos calls the “The Sexodus: Men Giving Up On Women And Checking Out Of Society.”
“Social commentators, journalists, academics, scientists and young men themselves have all spotted the trend: among men of about 15 to 30 years old, ever-increasing numbers are checking out of society altogether, giving up on women, sex and relationships and retreating into pornography, sexual fetishes, chemical addictions, video games and, in some cases, boorish lad culture…”
The biggest driver of the sexodus
Of these the most disruptive might be next-gen porn: interactive, physical (not virtual). Porn has long been a major driver of tech innovation. This post discusses its potentially large effect on society, supercharging the sexodus (it’s used far more by men than women, for obvious reasons). To see the trend, turn to people in the business of making it happen: “The Future of Sex: The Rise of the Robosexuals” by Ian Pearson at Bondara (UK online store)), September 2015 — The introduction…
Sex needs no introduction, but the ways we enjoy it will evolve significantly in coming years. Vibrators have been around for over a century but now the vibrant sex toy industry doesn’t just make standalone devices but teledildonic devices that bring all the fun and functionality of computing and networks to sex too. This will certainly include rapid spread of augmented and virtual reality technology …As well as toys and apps, we’ll also get direct nervous systems links, dream linking and even body sharing. You’ll be able to …directly stimulate orgasms by the touch of an icon, or even send someone an orgasm over messaging.
This report will look at how sex will evolve alongside the development of technology, making predictions on adoption behaviour and market growth, as well as the social impact of all these changes. Key predictions include:
- By 2030, most people will have some form of virtual sex as casually as they browse porn today.
- By 2035 the majority of people will own sex toys that interact with virtual reality sex.
- We will start to see some forms of robot sex appearing in high-income, very wealthy households as soon as 2025.
- We will start to see robot sex overtaking human-human in 2050.
- Leisure spending could grow by a factor of five, and the sex market in 20 years could be 3x bigger than today and 7x bigger by 2050. Sex toys will account for a UK market of over £1bn.
At Breitbart, Yiannopoulos says something unspeakable by mainstream journalists — the obvious: “Sexbots: Why Women Should Panic“.
But male sexual appetites are easily satisfied, despite what women will tell you. Blow jobs really aren’t that difficult, and in any case most blokes are fine with a pizza and a wank. …When you introduce a low-cost alternative to women that comes without all the nagging, insecurity and expense, frankly men are going to leap in headfirst.
Feminists have begun to worry. Some describe the trend as a problem (the users of the tech see it as a solution): “Sex, love and robots: is this the end of intimacy?” by Eva Wiseman in The Guardian — “Can’t find a partner? Don’t worry, the ‘sexbot’, programmed to meet all your desires, is on its way. Eva Wiseman explores the troubling world of sex robots.” Some respond with the traditional response to technology — it won’t matter. “Who’s Sweating the Sexbots?” by Julie Beck at The Atlantic — “While sex robots do reflect troubling gender dynamics, they hardly doom humanity to a future of exploitation and empty relationships.” Some feminists have moved to the next stage, condemnation: “From Siri to sexbots: Female AI reinforces a toxic desire for passive, agreeable and easily dominated women” by Jennifer Seaman Cook at Salon. The BBC chips in with “Call for a ban on robots designed as sex toys“.
The bottom line: the technology will soon become ready for the mass market. Rhymer Rigby in The Telegraph asks “Will 2016 be the year of the ‘sexbot’?” If not, then 2017, 2018, or 2020. They are coming.
Looking at the future
The media attention tends to avoid the large questions, focusing instead on picture of women with robots (less alarming than robots with men?), and difficult ethical questions — such as “Should this man go to prison for buying a child sex doll?” at Fusion.
A few people studying this field imagine the future with an open mind, such as David Levy in Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships
“A leading expert in artificial intelligence, David Levy argues that the entities we once deemed cold and mechanical will soon become the objects of real companionship and human desire. He shows how automata have evolved and how human interactions with technology have changed over the years.
“Levy explores many aspects of human relationships — the reasons we fall in love, why we form emotional attachments to animals and virtual pets, and why these same attachments could extend to love for robots. Levy also examines how society’s ideas about what constitutes normal sex have changed — and will continue to change — as sexual technology becomes increasingly sophisticated.”
See the book reviews at the New York Times and The Guardian. David Levy is an expert on AI and author of Robots Unlimited: Life in a Virtual Age
Journalists and tech gurus gush over the prospect of new cars — driverless, perhaps even flying. Sex tech is to those as heroin is to coffee.
Background Information
“Inside the factory where the world’s most realistic sex robots are being built” at Fusion.
Stay tuned for more news from the Second International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots, to be held on 19-20 December 2016 in London. The first one, scheduled for 2014 — then Nov 2015 — was cancelled when Malaysia declared it illegal.
“Why Are Women So Unhappy?” by Steven D. Levitt — about the research showing women’s reported happiness has declined since the early 1970s (when the victories of second wave feminism began). Levitt can’t accept the obvious explanation — the convergence of men’s and women’s lives has brought women’s happiness closer down to men’s. More competition from sex toys and sexbots probably will make them more unhappy.
For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about women and gender, and about the 3rd Industrial Revolution now under way, and especially these…
- A look ahead at the New America, after the gender wars.
- Books to help us see the strange new world following the revolution in gender roles.
- Love in the new world, after the gender wars.
- Taylor Swift shows us love in the 21st century.
- Men are “going Galt”. Marriage is dying. Will society survive?
- When marriage disappears: rising inequality as the threat to the family.
- About sexbots: Tech creates a social revolution with unthinkable impacts that we prefer not to see.
- A look at sexbots, prototypes of a radically different future for society.
I wonder how this sort of thing will affect population growth, especially in places like Africa, where the UN projects huge growth by the end of the century.
With much of the continent still relatively undeveloped, most of us wouldn’t imagine Africans making full use of high technology. The same might have been said about East Asia around the early 20th century. A lot can change over that many years.
Todd,
I’ve not a clue about Africa’s cultures, but the high-end population forecasts are quite unlikely (they’re purely probabilistic, not forecasts in the usual sense of the term).
But I suspect the effect will be large on western population change. Combined with the development of a “male pill“, fertility might crash again.
It is all good, I think. I cannot wait to try out sexbots. You can program women to be exactly how you want them to be, and this will mean men will be happy. Women can also have male sexbots too, so I don’t see how this negatively impacts on women. Technology will help us immensely in the future. It is a great time to be alive to see all the innovation in this world. That population will inevitably decline is also a positive since the world is overpopulated, and fewer people on the earth can only be good for the environment.