SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Country's first 'robot sex brothel' set to open in Texas prompts backlash: report
The first so-called 'robot sex brothel' in the U.S. slated to open in the Houston area this month has prompted a massive backlash from residents and activists who say it will ruin the neighborhood. The company opened its first location last year near Toronto, where $60 buys a half-hour alone with a robot sex doll, according to the Washington Examiner. The dolls start at $2,500 to buy.
Update: Houston officials halt plans to open first US 'robot brothel'
Houston city officials have ordered at least a temporary halt to a Canadian company's plan to open a so-called "robot brothel" in the city. The Houston Chronicle reported that building inspectors ordered the halt after determining that the company, Kinky S Dolls, lacked the permits required for demolition and construction at a former 2,500 sq ft hair salon in the Galleria area of the city.
takyon: Change.org petition aiming to "Keep Robot Brothels Out of Houston".
Also at ABC7.
See also: 'Robot sex brothel' slated to open is not wanted, Houston's mayor says
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Monday October 01 2018, @08:27PM (20 children)
The main opposition here appears to be liberal feminist anti-prostitution campaigners, not Bible thumpers. Take a look at the Change.org petition [change.org]. Houston is basically a liberal oasis within Texas.
I'm sure there are plenty of social conservatives who will come out against these, saying they will lead to the destruction of the traditional family or whatever. But many of them could secretly become paying customers. At a minimum, they could be convinced that using a robot is consistent with abstinence, and there is no chance of pregnancy so abortion doesn't even come into the picture.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday October 01 2018, @08:41PM (2 children)
I thought that was Austin.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 01 2018, @08:47PM
There can be more than one. And given the size of the state, they are oasisesssss.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @12:19AM
Remember, one man's "liberal oasis" is another man's "open air loony bin".
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday October 01 2018, @09:17PM
Maybe they saw Westoworld [hbo.com] and thought it was a documentary?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday October 01 2018, @09:30PM (6 children)
I had a look at that Change.org petition, and you seem to be right.
The little ticker showing the names of signees rolled about 30 names while I watched, and only one name looked to be a man, which seems odd to me.
They have decided sex robots are a bad thing, and are basing that opinion on what looks like one researcher's work. I am not convinced by the assertions they make, but would like to see more evidence.
Well, no. Actually I don't want to see more evidence, because sex is such a basic human motivator that there is no way any research (either for or against) will be anything more than awful people on both sides of the debate shouting across each other.
I suspect the best solution is for people who want a sex robot to get one and shut up about it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Monday October 01 2018, @10:06PM (5 children)
The only researcher they cite, Kathleen Richardson, is a co-founder of the Campaign Against Sex Robots.
Maybe there are legit hygiene reasons to skip going to a "robot brothel". But if you treat it as a "sexbot showroom", you are left with very weak arguments from a motivated crowd.
Sex bots encourage sex trafficking and violence against women? "Child sex bots" will cause people to rape kids? Yeah, right. And if they publish some "peer reviewed" research showing harm, I still wouldn't care, because robots don't have rights. Restricting what someone can build or use because it might encourage bad behavior towards an unrelated party is a non-starter.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @01:08AM (4 children)
The reason feminists are so up in arms is that sexbots break the status quo and reduce the number of rubes out there who will get caught up in the scam of getting a few months of sexual joy, followed by a decade of being taken advantage of, and who then have half their working life stolen in the courtroom when she decides to cash in.
All that crap about sex-trafficking is just marketing to cover up the real agenda: prostitution by marriage law.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 02 2018, @01:46AM (2 children)
Don't worry, sweetie, you're never gonna get married...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @03:00AM (1 child)
AC above. I speak from experience. I get that some people win the relationship lottery, but for all of those there are others who ostensibly made a good choice at the outset only to find that spouse simply quits contributing despite a high level of qualifications, and then spends years whining and complaining relentlessly about things while you go out and bust your ass to make up the difference. If that freeloader happens to be a woman, you're fucked.
Don't get married to anyone unless you have 5+ years of proof that the person is going to be an even partner and bail the second you even guess that person has jumped on the "I'm married so I can sit around and watch youtube all day and bitch about how you don't buy me enough crap" train.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:47PM
Okay, fair enough, but you don't get to generalize half the human race from your own experience. I'm actually with you on this; my first really serious partner, whom I very nearly married, went absolutely rat-boinking nuts about 4 years into the relationship. Being a woman AND dating them lets you see some really awful sides of us. And you're definitely right about not rushing into marriage!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday October 02 2018, @03:47AM
Well, you know, the bottom line is: marry a rich guy and have a big check written.
My family is generally happily married, so I'm not one that loves the concept of divorce. In fact, just the opposite. I hate the concept of divorce. I hate everything it represents.
There's nothing really nice about it. But in our world, with the long courts and with the vicious lawyers, and with all of the problems, if you have money or if you think you're going to have money, you have to have a prenuptial agreement. Today you have to have a pre-nup. It’s a hard, painful, ugly tool. But there comes a time when you have to say, "darling, I think you’re MAGNIFICENT, we're gonna live our lives together forever, and I care for you deeply, and by the way, sign this sucker or we're not getting married, right? If things don’t work out, this is what you’re going to get." I'm a big pre-nup believer. Even though they're nasty, terrible documents. I mean, I'm a big believer in that stuff. You pay a little up front for the lawyer. And the accountant. But you save TREMENDOUSLY on the back end.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 01 2018, @11:58PM (7 children)
Figured I might as well peek in to this thread and am surprised it's not a train wreck. I'm very anti-3rd wave in the sense that I'm opposed to identity politics--have moved on from capitalist libertarianism upon realizing the inherent failings of capitalism--, and the direction 3rd wave (or is it 4th wave now?) is headed it's become obvious it's become infested with capitalism. Some MGTOW¹ have had interesting things to say about that, mostly the perverse incentives it creates that result in the embrace of right-wing reactionary patriarchy-affirming sentiment because it can financially benefit women in the petty bourgeoisie, while leaving women in the working class, who are the vast majority of women (and increasing in number given the backdrop of wealth stratification), worse off than ever. This leads to an abandonment of the principles of second wave feminism among women of the working class. (I believe this to be not completely different from Trotskyist sentiment and analysis we can read on World Socialist Web Site, but they rarely go into detail. Perhaps best to avoid the minefield.)
Opposition to sex robots is perfectly in line with the capitalist nature of 3rd wave feminism. Like it or not, opposition to sex robots is fundamentally rooted in the idea that one's body is capital. I've floated this idea before, and upon further reflection, I agree with the reaction I got at that time. It's a disgusting way of viewing the human body--anyone's body and especially one's own. These "feminists" view their bodies as capital. As the AC up there identified, there's an element of privilege involved which I think can be reduced to a capitalist analysis. The women protesting sex robots see their bodies as capital and thus see sex robots as competition, the automation and making redundant of their capital inherited at birth. (We can also reduce TERFs similarly in a capitalist analysis, and it makes their position rational... assuming one accepts capitalism and one's own body being capital as a rational.) They react as though they are being deprived of material wealth, and perhaps we can explain their actions by conceding that they are protesting a deprivation of material wealth.
In order to make sure I'm not just bullshitting, I think I'd need to know if the origin of these protests is within the petty bourgeoisie and how involved working class women are in the protests. I would speculate that while we will see working class women involved in these protests, they will be doing so on a completely different philosophical basis (religious/moralizing) than the women in the petty bourgeoisie who feel their body-capital threatened. Of course, the petty bourgeoisie are always eager to fall back on patriarchal ideas about the role of men in society.
(The contradictions of this approach--patriarchal gender role for thee but not for me--ultimately result in the formation of a right-wing authoritarian movement (see Altemeyer) in order to wallpaper over the cognitive dissonance necessary.)
I thought it was odd that Thexalon in particular seemed in support of sex robots. I'm curious to see our other feminists' opinions on the matter. Feel free to demolish my analysis and flame away!
¹ Beware the whiny incel MGTOWs... they miss the philosophical point of MGTOW, which is a rebellion against the demands the patriarchy places on men... it's sort of similar to proto-feminism (pre-first wave), such as the temperance movements, in that regard... and it's not like feminism in practice has been immune to misandry so it is not surprising that as men rebel against the patriarchy it involves misogyny... unfortunate but I guess it is how humans do things. The old adage that in theory, theory is no different from practice.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday October 02 2018, @12:53AM (2 children)
This group made the petition:
https://www.elijahrising.org [elijahrising.org]
Here's the broader Campaign Against Sex Robots [campaignagainstsexrobots.org] (archive [archive.fo] because they are JavaScript-ridden):
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @03:32AM (1 child)
Yeah, that's the kind of thing that launches me on long-winded rants about capitalism. Their surface motivation to oppose sex robots makes as much sense as gateway drug theory, or perhaps more specifically, as much sense as people who oppose cannabis legalization on the basis of ill-defined fears (FUD) that aren't supported by the data. However, I have learned again and again that many humans are liars and that capitalism rewards sociopaths and other manipulative liars.
There is more going on beneath the surface, and I don't think puritan sexual mores can entirely explain it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:05AM
The gateway drug theory! I knew I was missing the right words to describe the stupidity of the Campaign Against Sex Robots. Thanks, I'll have to use that one later.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 02 2018, @01:50AM (1 child)
Very nicely put. Much of what you mentioned about the unsavory ties between the third wave and the idea of body as capital is why I don't call myself a third-waver. Not sure WHAT the right label is, maybe neo-Second Wave, maybe "Fourth Wave," who knows, but it's nice to know I'm not alone in seeing how bankrupt and, ultimately, self-destructuve much of the Third Wave has become even if it didn't start that way.
Your last paragraph is another interesting one too, and one I'd been telling men for years now: the patriarchy harms men too, and most of the time, it forces them to mutilate *themselves," both figuratively and literally. Sounds weird coming from a gay woman, but circumcision of male infants horrifies me almost as much as FGM and I view it as a form of indirect sexual abuse. Men will stop harming women when they stop harming themselves, and men harm themselves and one another largely for reasons of capital and resource access, when you get right down to it...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @08:39PM
Is mostly kids keeping face with their parents.
Neither of mine were apparently that religious but they did it because their family considered it important and they'd been fed the line that it improved penis health.
Fast forward to today: I've seen how little critical thinking they use, even their 'liberal' ideals were usually put into place by someone more free thinking than them, and now they're just conformist tools of the oligarchy, unwilling to do anything other than bitch when their guy isn't in charge and ignore how bad their guy is the next time they get one of them elected.
Fucking bunch of amoral apologists on both sides of the fence, if you ask me.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @10:59AM
Come back later.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:30PM
Seems MSM loves to latch onto the whole incel thing, while ignoring mgtow.
Almost as if incel being used as the face of mgtow to discredit mgtow...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:18PM
Indeed. It does not take long to find numerous strip joints all over Texas.
So for all their yakking, those bible thumpers sure love oogling some flesh from time to time...