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It’s happening for real. Doll brothels are already operating in South Korea, Japan and Spain, and the first robotic oral sex coffee shop opened last year in London, according to a report from the Foundation for Responsible Robotics (which sounds like something out of an Iron Man film).

To my surprise, I’m feeling totally non-judgmental about the phenomenon. I say “surprise,” because I am pretty judgmental about other sex-bottish stuff like sperm donorship, which sadly eliminates actual fathers from children’s lives, and yet arouses no indignation in the general public. But in the case of controversial sex bots, which seem to me a victimless fetish, I find myself remarkably unoffended, even somewhat boosterish at their potential for alleviating human distress.

In Utopia, everyone will be vegan and prefer chastity to all but emotionally-engaged sex. For now, realism must accommodate our carnivorous and carnal weaknesses. As with all weakness of the flesh, harm reduction is the best we can do. Even if a more conservative approach to sex were to reclaim our culture’s high ground, there would still be many people who don’t have much, or even any, opportunity to achieve the sex-love nexus on a regular basis. Some of them are committed loners; some socially inept; some disabled or disfigured; some denied sex at home, but principled enough to forego adultery. Sex bots would be a blessing to them, and in the process would cut into the sex trade, which is harm reduction, no?