Below is my column in The Hill on the legal and legislative actions taken with regard to increasing numbers of robotic “companions” around the world. The resulting debate is testing the limits of privacy and sexual freedom.
Here is the column:
Consider this: A brothel opens, offering “sexual services,” including “experiences” with girls under 15 years old.
Typically, the police response to such a brothel would make the Normandy landing look like a small skirmish. But this brothel, Chub AI, is a virtual brothel, reportedly “staffed” by artificially intelligent bots.
The controversy is part of a broader debate over sex bots and even sex bot brothels. Not long ago, the first sex robot brothel, Lovedoll UK, was shut down in Gateshead, England. Even individuals such as Steven Crawford have purchased a doll and then pimped it out to customers. With the rise in such sales, the number of legal and legislative actions are rising as well.
Over 50 years ago, what became known as the “sexual revolution” began in the United States with a debate over the scope of privacy and sexual freedom. We are now facing a second such debate, but liberal voices that once called for sexual freedom are now advocating bans and criminal penalties to deny the right to choose a different type of companion: sex dolls and bots.
Houston’s city council unanimously blocked a proposed “sex robot brothel” from opening in the city, which would have been the nation’s first pay-by-the-hour robot brothel.
“Westworld”-like technology is now on a collision course with long-standing privacy principles. For those fearing an “ex machina” future, there is an equal number of people fearing an ex-privacy future in the balance of this debate.
A growing market for both sex bots and dolls is fueling the debate around the world. For companies such as Kinky S Dolls, the brothels are the equivalent to road tests for prospective owners of anthropomorphic bots that can cost $3,000 each.
Sex dolls (which are anthropomorphic but not mechanical) are already widely used privately and increasingly in brothels. One Canadian brothel offered “six classy, sophisticated, and adventurous ladies; curated for the discerning gentlemen”…starting at $80 for a half hour.
Since Ovid’s story of Pygmalion in the “Metamorphoses,” the dynamic of humans and inanimate objects has been a part of our literature. In that story, the lonely sculptor created his perfect woman out of ivory, only to fall in love with the statue. He prayed to Venus to give him a lover like his statue Galatea. She did so, and “the maiden felt the kisses, blushed and, lifting her timid eyes up to the light, saw the sky and her lover at the same time.”
The robotic world is approaching its Pygmalion moment. New anthropomorphic devices are being programmed with more and more human features and lifelike responses. With breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, they can respond to questions and even display emotions from jealousy to desire. They are developing warm and reflective responses to touch.
Indeed, Pygmalian’s story captures both the fantasy and the controversy over the explosion of sexbots. While both male and female bots are available, the consumer base for bots remains largely men, and the objections have been almost exclusively focused on gynoids, or fembots. For feminists, the sexbots are allowing men to objectify women and domination fantasies.
In The Guardian, journalist Jenny Kleeman denounced new bots that can hold conversations and even joke precisely because they are “a dream woman” for men who “exist only for men’s use.”
Kathleen Richardson, a robot ethicist at the De Montfort University, wrote a paper calling for a ban on all machines, but not human-like dolls. Richardson insisted that “the development of sex robots will further reinforce relations of power that do not recognize both parties as human subjects.” A supporter of the Campaign Against Sex Robots, Richardson warned “technology is not neutral. It’s informed by class, race and gender. Political power informs the development of technology.”
This debate is different in that the fear is not how a product can harm humans, but how humans are simulating harm through a product.
From a legal perspective, these sex robots are nothing more than a ramped up toaster with a fetching name. Even the term “brothel” can be challenged. In Paris, a sex doll brothel was opened and licensed as a “game center.” The analogy is based on the fact that bots, in the view of customers, are simply machines designed for recreation.
The new bot battle is an extension of prior fights over pornography and prostitution. Some advocates long argued that pornography constitutes objectification and fuels violence against women. In the case of prostitution, many libertarians argue that two consenting adults should be allowed to contract for sex.
Our current system has a glaring disconnect, where you can get paid to have sex on camera for a movie with multiple partners, but not to have sex in private.
The bots remove the alleged victim in these scenarios. No one is being directly harmed when someone has relations with what is essentially an advanced appliance.
This issue becomes far more difficult, however, when the bots are designed to resemble children. Such devices have already been banned in some countries, including recently in the U.S. The possession or import of child sex dolls has led to arrests in various countries, including the seizure of 123 such dolls in the United Kingdom.
In the U.S., the “Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots (CREEPER) Act” was notable in its sweeping underlying claims about not only childlike robots, but seemingly all robots. “Dolls and robots not only lead to rape, but they make rape easier by teaching the rapist how to overcome resistance and subdue the victim,” it states. Moreover, it maintains, “Dolls and robots are intrinsically related to abuse of minors, and they cause the exploitation, objectification, abuse, and rape of minors.”
There is now a push to pass a bill referred to as CREEPER 2.0, which would outlaw not only the importation and transportation of such dolls but also their possession and sale.
The vast majority of people have little problem with banning such childlike sex bots. These disgusting tools are depicting individuals who cannot consent in any context. However, the definition is vague and could raise legal questions in barring products that are perceived as having “features that resemble those of a minor.”
The legal problems are magnified in broader efforts to ban sex dolls and bots. In 2002, in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court struck down two provisions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 that dealt with virtual or depicted child pornography. That included purely computer-generated images where there is no actual child or victim. Both provisions were found to violate the First Amendment, and the court rejected the type of assumed harm claimed by CREEPER.
In the absence of a direct victim, we are left with a pure moral or social judgment on the private tastes and relations of adults.
In Paris, feminists opposed sex-doll brothels on the basis that the dolls cannot consent and allow for violent fantasies. Lorraine Questiaux of the feminist group Mouvement du Nid (Nest Movement) called the brothel a “place that makes money from simulating the rape of a woman.”
In Sweden, feminist organizations moved to ban sex bots as advancing the “objectifying, sexualised and degrading attitude to women found in today’s mainstream pornography.” They object to the right of men to create artificial women who “obey their smallest command” and “cannot say no to something that the man wants.”
For many libertarians, the answer remains the same, the matter should begin and end with personal choice.
In the series “Westworld,” “host” Annie asked a reluctant guest “if you can’t tell the difference, does it matter if I’m real or not?”
Legally, the answer is no. But as that difference erodes, the question as to whether it matters to others will grow.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.
Thanks to Professor Turley for your excellent articles on this subject and for the opportunity to comment herein. Regarding the human rights to bodily autonomy, privacy, freedom of expression and the human right to sexual freedom, anti-doll legislation endangers children and violates these human rights of doll owners. Although protecting children from child sexual abuse (CSA) is very important and is a laudable goal, the entire Florida Legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis made a horrible mistake when they passed or enacted SB 160 which went into effect in 2019. The SB 160 law criminalizes, in part, selling, giving, and even merely showing “child-like sex dolls” in Florida. This misguided, unjust and cruel law endangers children and violates the above human rights of doll owners in Florida who are not child sexual abusers. The term “child-like sex doll” sounds terrible; however, child-like sex dolls are a partial solution to the problem of CSA. Child-like sex dolls can help to prevent CSA because men who feel sexually attracted to children and have beautiful, cute or adorable child-like sex dolls can be so happy at home seeing, kissing, cuddling with and/or sexually interacting with their dolls that they would not find it necessary to seek a sexual relationship with a real child. The Florida Legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis should repeal the unjust and cruel SB 160 law as soon as possible for the above and below reasons:
1. No one should be penalized for selling, giving, showing, owning, possessing or privately interacting with a doll. It is just a doll. The United States is supposed to be the Land of the Free. Bad laws, not sex dolls (also known as love dolls or companion dolls) cause harm and threaten human liberty and welfare.
2. A reason that many men might purchase sex dolls that resemble children (or could be misconstrued as resembling children) is that smaller dolls (approximately two to three feet in length) can be easier to pose and carry than larger dolls (approximately four to six feet in length) and may be less expensive. Many modern love dolls have steel frames inside of them and are very heavy. A person who finds comfort or happiness in dolls might prefer a smaller doll rather than a larger doll because the smaller doll is easier to pose, carry and store–not because the person wants a doll that resembles a child.
3. The SB 160 law from 2019 violates the First Amendment and the human right (unalienable right) to freedom of expression including artistic freedom by prohibiting the showing of “child-like sex dolls”. SB 160 violates human rights of peaceful harmless doll owners to freedom of expression, bodily autonomy, sexual privacy and sexual freedom. The SB 160 law’s provision against showing sex dolls that resemble children violates the Constitutional freedom of speech and artistic freedom of doll owners, including doll owners who might wish to photograph their dolls and/or utilize their dolls as an eye-catching way to display political messages, slogans or other commentary. Likewise for documentary filmmakers: Surely the topic and controversy surrounding sex dolls that resemble children is worth exploring in a documentary film. However, the SB 160 law’s provision against showing sex dolls that resemble children would effectively prevent that freedom of speech and expression of a documentary filmmaker from being exercised.
4. Erotic use of a love doll, statue, robot or computer bot does not preclude having loving relationships and friendships with real people. Using a little imagination or fantasizing with dolls/mannequins/statues/robots/bots is healthy as is using imagination when reading a book of fiction, listening to a fictional radio drama or watching a fictional movie or play.
5. The SB 160 law should be considered legally insufficient because it does not even define which dolls are considered to be “child-like sex dolls”. Whether a doll is “child-like” is in many cases open to interpretation, and an abusive cop would perceive it differently than the doll owner to whom the doll is not child-like. Does a doll that is designed to look like an adult or even ancient fantasy figure resemble a 500 year old elf, an eternal angel, a female adult anime figure or a female adult space alien? Or does the doll with its young-looking face resemble a less-than-18 underage girl? People may possess dolls that they understand to represent adult or even ancient fantasy figures, not a child; however, if an abusive cop sees the doll and misconstrues it as “child-like” then they may tragically find themselves in handcuffs because of this unjust SB 160 law.
6. A positive aspect of the use of dolls, robots or bots by lonely people to meet emotional and sexual needs is that this would not involve the spread of any venereal diseases.
The Florida Legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis should repeal the unjust and cruel SB 160 as soon as possible for the above reasons. Likewise, anti-doll legislation should be rejected or repealed across the nation at the federal, state and local level. Such unjust and harmful legislation violates human rights of doll owners and endangers children via its prohibitions against child-like sex dolls which are dolls that can help to prevent CSA.
With respect to the human rights to bodily autonomy, privacy, freedom of expression and sexual freedom, I am writing to explain that anti-doll legislation such as H.R.73 – CREEPER Act 2.0 would endanger children and violate the above human rights of doll owners who are not child sexual abusers. The H.R.73 – CREEPER Act 2.0 (introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2021) and any bills similar to it should be rejected. H.R.73 – CREEPER Act 2.0 would make it a crime to import, transport, buy, sell, distribute or possess a child sex doll. Although the term “child sex doll” sounds terrible, child sex dolls can help to prevent child sexual abuse (CSA). Child sex dolls can help to prevent CSA because men who feel sexually attracted to children and have beautiful, cute or adorable child sex dolls can be so happy at home interacting with their dolls that they would not seek a sexual interaction with a real child.
No scientific evidence exists to support child sex dolls being harmful or causing a real child to be abused. Rather, for some users of such dolls who live with an abnormal sexual interest in children, the doll can be an essential tool in the management of that condition so that they do not act out against any real children.
Modern sex dolls or love dolls, whether they resemble adults, teens or children, can be so beautiful or cute that, with a little imagination, they can substitute for a real companion for some people and meet human needs for companionship, intimacy and nurturing without CSA. The above legislation would cause unnecessary harm to doll owners who are not child sexual abusers. It would also violate the First Amendment.
Beautiful modern love dolls, including smaller, not-very-heavy dolls that could be misconstrued as child sex dolls, can bring comfort and joy to millions of lonely people, safely. They should not be illegal.
Check out Law & Order SUV from two weeks ago. They had a 15 year old girl kidnapped because she had a sex doll in her likeness and some perv wanted the real thing. The SUV was arresting all those that bought a sex doll modeled on a minor.
“[T]hey can respond to questions and even display emotions from jealousy to desire. They are developing warm and reflective responses to touch.” (JT)
You left out the best part: They cannot, some 30 years later, sue you for “morning after” regret. Can they?
The ick factor of child sex bots is really disturbing to me.
But in the end I have to say – so long as you are not F#$King real children and I do not have to watch, I have no right to limit what you can buy and what you do with what you buy that does not actually harm others.
OT, the French reincarnation of Shirley Temple, known as Karine Jean-Pierre, has now stated that the three servicemen who died in the Iran-proxy strike in Jordan were “military folks who were fighting on behalf of the this (Joe Biden) administration.”
Is there any doubt left that she’s incompetent, and that this is an object lesson in why diversity hires are simply not going to perform very well as someone hired based on merit? And are diversity hires really who we want flying airplanes and performing surgeries? Are people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities who we want controlling the skies at the FAA? The “Joe Biden” administration is more ridiculous than anything that could be invented by a fiction writer with a wild imagination.
Wait…there are feminists still around???? I thought they were all gone after Biden abandoned women in Afghanistan to the Taliban, and after men started invading women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and sports, and after the Democrats and their Supreme court nominee/justice couldn’t define “woman.” Must be a Democrat political group, not really a women’s group.
They were fine with Bill Clinton objectifying women because, hey, he’s a D and they wanted their legislation passed (as Gloria Steinem admitted, thus inadvertently confessing she has no principles). They were very slow to say anything bad about a whole lot of innocent women being gang-raped on kibbutzim in southern Israel, perhaps because the victims were Jewish women (they love to rhyme about their antisemitism, and so their slogan is “me too unless you’re a Jew”). And as you point out, they are very slow to say anything bad about women being erased in the name of “trans rights” (code words for giving men license to invade women’s spaces and their sports).
OT, a new archeological discovery has recovered a previously lost portion of Article II of the Constitution. It turns out that the Take Care Clause, as we know it, is missing some text. As originally framed and adopted by the States, it said that the President
“shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, but he is excused from this duty unless Congress passes his preferred pork-barrel bill with funding to enrich Ukrainian oligarchs and continue a pointless war with untold bloodshed in which the United States have no vital interest. Absent such measure by Congress he is not under any obligation to enforce immigration laws or prevent the invasion of the United States.”
Who knew?
“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
___________________
Private property and privacy are constitutional.
Presumably, citizens may preclude offensive public behavior by code and statute.
In a society of laws, the laws must be obeyed.
That one does not like the law does not bear; that one does not like the Constitution does not bear.
Lincoln totally subverted, voided, and violated the Constitution because he didn’t like it.
Lincoln referred to it as a moral imperative.
Lincoln was a criminal of high office who violated the law.
Reprehensible slavery must have been appropriately, legally and legislatively abrogated.
Lincoln was wrong.
It would be wrong to deny the privacy and private property in the case of AI.
The inclusion of the picture of Dr. Smith and his “life partner” is a nice touch, if a bit nauseating.
🙄🙄🙄
This may seem like an harmless topic, but it isn’t. We all have desires and there’s nothing fundamnetally wrong with that, but to whit:
We would not even be discussing this if parents were raising their children in the West instead of iPhones with Tik-Tok. Asia has been ‘weird’ in this regard for a loooong time (I guess we all forgot the guy that married a pillow). That you are seeing it here means you have paid attention to virtually nothing for nigh on 30+ years. This is not a new, 21st century thing. Your kids considering it IS. The guilty party is in the mirror.
My wife is a teacher, at a public school, she has taught in districts across several states since 2011, and I honestly don’t think anyone looks into those mirrors anymore except to see how realistic their plastic eyelashes are, with a requisite selfie, or how tight their abs, or how the boob lift took; and that applies ESPECIALLY to modern parents that carry around cans of beer in innocuous cups (yes, this is a thing) while trick or treating with their kids. It’s YOUR fault.
The day you can accept the blame and make amends and course correct is the day something will be better. That would require you to grow up *yourself*. I think it’s a fat chance. But anyone under 40 at this point thinks that’s too much trouble; effort is anathema, because they were raised to believe the entire world, if not the entire universe is their nanny or genie granting wishes (the granting of wishes comes from mom and Dad, and that cannot survive into perpetuity); and barring that, the credit card or the trust fund will fix it, into said perpetuity, at least to them. Let me tell you: without encountering a single thing, the ‘universe’ would rip your body apart in literally seconds. you’d be dead before you even knew you were out there. The earth is the only place you can be such an idiot, and that, only with the extraordinary privilege to do so. People protesting for Palestine are an idiotic joke with the understanding of sawdust.
Again, they have always been different in the East; they copy the West, they imitate, and often what you get is a weird filtering because our cultures do not align 1 to 1, and that isn’t even to say that their interpretations are without merit but this isn’t about them; in the West, take a damn look at yourself. Stop pretending that there is no such thing as demarcation in life, because there is, and it is especially true individually. Robot, masseuse, cam girl, stripper, affair, swipe in a certain direction; if this is your daily consideration, your soul is pretty much already dead. To a phone made of metal and glass. 😂 How sad are you?
That became a rant, sorry. I am just beyond fed up with the fools that pay attention to nothing but call themselves progressives because they are sheltered in a particular way. To a slight extent, that applies to our host. This is what we are dealing with. Take it seriously and accordingly or not. Most of the people here will still be alive in 20 years, and that’s enough time to wish they weren’t still alive, the way things are going. 😐 and most do nothing. nothing whatsoever. Make Barbie best picture. That is the priority of the moment. 🤷🏻♂️
James,
Great rant!
Turley: “For many libertarians, the answer remains the same, the matter should begin and end with personal choice.”
+++
Agree. I don’t care what someone does with a machine. I do care if he is allowed to poop on a public sidewalk. We need to get our priorities straight.
Professor Turley somehow neglected to add a major factor into the debate about Bot lovers: Their impact on population growth, now heading toward 10 billion by 2100.
The WEF apparently has not yet focused on the benefits that bots will have on its goal of reducing global population. As reported in May 2023:
Dennis Meadows, “A celebrated member of the globalist World Economic Forum (WEF) has called for a staggering 86 percent reduction in the population of humans. Meadows argues that most of the world’s population must be wiped out so that the survivors can “have freedom” and a “high standard of living.” He insists that a “benevolent” dictatorship could accomplish the mass de-population “peacefully.”
For obvious reasons, bots will also help reduce population “peacefully,” even more than benevolent dictators. Globalists should be embracing them as an effective tool for de-populating the world of us nasty, carbon-emitting, unmanageable humans.
WEF should place promotion of bot love high on its priority list and probably will, arguing for no limitations from moral, ethical or any other concerns that retard their use. After all, what’s the difference between a robot 12-year old lookalike and a pretty Gucci handbag, when measured against the imperative to reduce by several billion the number of us dirty polluting humans? (sarc).
Are you brain dead?
What developing nation is reproducing at a high enough rated to grow their economy. The poor nations are reproducing, but they struggle to buy cooking oil. So buying $expensive sex bots in not the issue.
But “the Population Bomb” has proven to more of poof than bomb.
Iowan2 – I think you two agree. Anon’s entire comment was sarcasm – at least that’s how I read it, and he has “(sarc)” at the end.
Global population was projected to peak at 11B, it is increasingly doubtful it will reach 11B – which is not a noticable increase over current populations.
Already China, Japan, most of asia, Russia most of Europe and the US are in population decline – In the US and france the rate is low and can be coped with – in the other nations mentioned it will be devastating economically. The effects are already hitting China and Japan.
If you are still worried about population growth you are ridiculously ill informed. The Population bomb was garbage in 1965 when it was published. Rising global populations have universally lead to prosperity not poverty. Declining populations on the other hand are a catastrophe.
Why do they weaponize Sex by making such a big deal about the physiological hormonal urge to ‘pop’.
Now we have a machine to facilitate the routine. Now even the Sex Workers are seeing a Lay-off (pardon the pun).
Do you really feel threatened? Is you pubescent Son really going to be damaged by a life-size Taylor Swift doll? Will the Nursing Home Staff be upset if you go on a conjugal date with a Hillary Clinton doll? I don’t think so. We live in a ‘Disposable World’, you can see that there will be a heap of Used Dolls out there in time, that will open up new sources of revenue, New & Used Doll Lots, Junk Yard Dolls, Bot Parts, Pick-N-Pull Body Parts, and Mod Aftermarket accessories. It’s the ‘Evolution of the Human Race.
There is one adage that’s still out there that is worrisome, It has to do about getting something caught in the Ringer.
From the looks of things, tens of millions of Americans have already discovered that pleasure can be had, disappointments assuaged, and urges satiated by the large mechanical companion that beckons from the kitchen and brightens up upon every entry.
I hate my species.
You must be a radical environmentalist.
Far from it.
Specious sexual relations are socially progressive and politically congruent (“=”) in a minority of our species.
Mama, don’t let your boys… girls grow up to be brokeback.
I’m not shoving my junk into a Cuisinart, thanks.
Then don’t. That is how freedom works.
No one is required to use a sex bot.
I want to have your baby.
I guess my thought would be “what are you going to talk about”. Some people probably have no desire for talk but others might. You could then ask for conservative, liberal, progressive, reactionary etc. dominating or submissive. I like to think of the sexbot of Mr Universe in “Serenity”. Of course she did not show good judgement and spilled the beans on Mel and nearly got him killed. What secrets could be spilled at the ultimate moment?