Image of a female android

Lately, I have seen the subject of sex robots appear in my feeds on social media with increasing frequency. In addition, there have been discussions about sex dolls, both adult and child, but almost universally of the female kind.

The discourse has been divided, as you might expect. Some say it’s a deplorable idea, and others rationalise that since there aren’t any human participants, willing or otherwise, it’s a happy medium to mitigate harm.

Since I fall into the former category, I wanted to make an attempt to justify that. The difficulty, I think, is that my position comes in no small part from a visceral rejection of it. It feels so deeply wrong, and I don’t particularly need to deconstruct it to understand why. That said, I think it is a worthwhile endeavour, because I really do not believe that this is a situation where live and let live can apply without causing harm. And I suppose, at its root, that is my argument here: if the primary position of my philosophical opponents is that no harm is done, then it is my responsibility to refute it.

I think the answer, or at least part of it, lies buried in a statement I’ve already touched on here: these dolls and robots are primarily aesthetically female. Whenever we discuss matters pertaining to the female sex (or representations of it) whether in film, media, or otherwise, it is unwise to separate those representations from women’s position as an oppressed group. The shorthand for what I’m referring to is objectification, and if it were that simple, I could end this piece here. As it is, there are a couple of other questions to be answered. What does objectification mean in this context? Does it matter that women and girls are not directly harmed by men purchasing and utilising these products?

The difficulty in parsing this out is that the dehumanisation that makes this uncomfortable is the very same dehumanisation that mitigates harm in the minds of those who are supportive. It’s not easily deconstructed because it isn’t a clear-cut case of a live human stripped of her humanity for the sake of male titillation. And yet, it is exactly this dehumanisation that is still problematic for women and girls.

The crux of the issue is that attributes commonly associated with a particular state of being — a marginalised state of being, no less — are itemised on a menu, packaged up, and shipped out to consumers. The attributes become commodified, in service of men. As well as depicting biological realities that often justify inhumane treatment of female people, they also quite commonly use attributes thrust upon women as part of the gendered package they’re shoehorned into from the second the antenatal scan shows a vagina. She will wear pink, and she will play with dolls. Somewhat restrictive, but seemingly benign, right? Except those are the mildest examples of gender. As adults, those same girls will be expected to defer to men. Not cause a fuss when their co-workers sexually harass them. Take responsibility for sexual assault and rape. Allow her husband to use her body as a sex doll when she’s not in the mood. Wait a second… maybe we’re getting somewhere here.

We live in a culture that makes femaleness (and female sexuality) available to men 100% of the time. If his wife isn’t interested in his sexual advances, he has a smörgåsbord of options available to him. He could badger her until she relents. He could force her and get away with it. He could use porn. He could purchase the services of a prostitute. Female sexuality is always available, and always for sale. We could diverge from this path and talk about the problems with the sex industry, but this piece would be twice as long, and then some. Instead, what I want to focus on is the entitlement produced by ubiquitous female sexual availability. Because this isn’t wholly consenting sexual availability. This is availability in its most literal sense: present for use. If she doesn’t want it, cash turns a no into a yes, desperation permitting. We live in a capitalist culture; desperation is not hard to find. Capitalism requires a hierarchy of financial means. By definition, it produces hoards of people (and most commonly, women) who are prepared to go the extra mile so that they can eat.

So how does all of this relate to sex dolls and their robotic counterparts? Put simply, they contribute to this pervasive culture of availability. They perpetuate the idea that the sexuality of women (and in some cases, girls) is and should be universally attainable by men. They fuel entitlement to women’s bodies; to the attributes of femaleness. They exist in answer to the argument that men need sexual gratification, and that it should come at the cost of women and girls. Further, they continue to sexualise attributes of femalehood that have a right to remain neutral. When men purchase products in our image for the purpose of sexual gratification, they fetishise women’s neutral state — and children, of course, which is never acceptable. These dolls legitimise the idea that there are times when it is appropriate to sexualise the attributes of children. There isn’t. And they remove the requirement for consent, just as we’re trying to impress upon men the importance of it.

Lastly, I would argue that lesser harm is not synonymous with acceptable harm. I could throw someone off a cliff, or I could pay someone else to do it. I haven’t directly harmed anyone if I take the latter approach, but that doesn’t negate the harm I have contributed to. It’s still an unacceptable thing to do. These men aren’t directly harming women and girls when they purchase sex dolls for consumption, but they are contributing to a culture that expects complete sexual availability from women. That culture causes direct harm.

It’s more than a doll if you need it to look like something that you, as a heterosexual male, want to fuck.

It’s an emblem of entitlement.