Slashdot Mirror
'Call For a Ban On Child Sex Robots' (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader shares a BBC report: There should be a ban on the import of sex robots designed to look like children, the author of a new report into the phenomenon has said. Prof Noel Sharkey said that society as a whole needed to consider the impact of all types of sex robots. His Foundation for Responsible Robotics has conducted a consultation on the issue. Only a handful of companies were currently making sex robots, said Prof Sharkey. But, he added, the upcoming robot revolution could change that. The report, Our sexual future with robots, was written to focus attention on an issue barely discussed at the moment, he said. The report acknowledged that finding out how many people actually owned such robots was difficult because the companies that made them did not release the numbers. But, said Prof Sharkey, it was time society woke up to a possible future where humans and robots had sex. "We do need policymakers to look at it and the general public to decide what is acceptable and permissible," he said. "We need to think as a society what we want to do about it. I don't know the answers -- I am just asking the questions."
First find out if having childlike sex dolls are a stepping stone to abusing real children, or if they are a good substitute so that less children are abused. Depending on the answer, either allow or ban them.
Take someone who is attracted to children and willing to channel that into fucking a childlike doll (robotic or otherwise) and ban their only harmless outlet. Oh yeah, that's thinking of the children all right.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
In Switzerland, they consider loli manga to be childporn.
And I must ask, what exactly do they expect happens when they ban every single outlet a pwdophile might have that doesn't involve actual children?
Never mind that most child abusers aren't even pedos but that's different kettle of fish.
This is yet another non issue a politician want to use to make his name on. Of course people should be able to buy child looking dolls to stick their cocks into (and whatever women would do with them), they are pieces of metal, rubber, silicone, they are not children, nor are they human nor are they alive. If a guy puts a picture of a kid on a plastic vagina and fucks the plastic does he belong in prison? In a circus maybe, but certainly not in prison. This society has no perspective. Personally I believe that government officials should be castrated and imprisoned, but I suppose some people disagree but I can really make a good case for it (it is my sincere belief that government is inherently and intrinsically evil). So at least that s would limit the evil. A guy fucking a doll?????? That is just lonely but not evil.
You can't handle the truth.
Why don't we just instead destroy Noel Sharkey instead? It's cheaper to just destroy one pointless human than bother with its attention seeking behaviors.
Being a pedophile is not illegal (in sane countries, anyway). Like being gay, it's just the way you are. Masturbating with the aid of a robot is not illegal. Masturbating with the aid of a robot that looks like a child should likewise not be illegal.
sex with a robot is just masturbation, nothing else.
If pedophiles are people who CAN'T control their natural impulses to have sex with children. Maybe we should 1) accept that they exist. and 2) advocate for safe outlets that allow them to deal with their "urges" without actually banging our children.
Are child sex robots disturbing? Probably. But what's more important? Not having to "think" about something disgusting, or actually stopping pedos from banging children?
I don't agree with Dog-Cow's take on this... But Anonymous, are you also going to call the FBI and have them investigate everyone that saw the Twilight movie? You know, the one where the 400 year old fart was trolling a high school for an underage girlfriend? Yeah, Bella was only 17 years old. And no federal law enforcement agency gave a crap about that.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
I spent a number of years observing and dealing with pedophiles in a Federal prison setting, and I assure you I know a lot more about the behavior of pedophiles than you or most of the other people who use Slashdot.
Bottom line : the only way a pedophile won't be a threat to children is if that pedophile is dead. As long as the pedophile is alive, people who are charged with the safety of children who might be victimized must be eternally vigilant. A person who has any history of pedophile behavior must never be trusted with a child, PERIOD.
Best way to get to screw your dataset. Federal prison inmates aren't the best data set choice. The majority outside has far better self control. That's why they are outside and not inside the prison. You can work with the pedophiles outside. But that usually involves that they come to you before taking action. That needs a working conscience and ethics on their part. I doubt the prison inmates have the latter. I also doubt they tried to get help early.
That's some kind of reverse survival bias? Kind of like thinking that every vegetarian, vegan, religious person, atheist, liberal, conservative and so on is an obnoxious person who wants to dictate how you have to live your live, because the only times you're consciously aware of their alignment is when they catch your attention. All while the rest of the iceberg may just lives their lives without standing out.
In the end not every paedophile is also an actual child abuser. A large subset of them may have a strong enough conciousness that prevents them from ever touching a real child in a harmful way. And without being able to read their minds or check their electronic devices you may never know what is going on in there.
Being a pedophile is not illegal (in sane countries, anyway). Like being gay, it's just the way you are. Masturbating with the aid of a robot is not illegal. Masturbating with the aid of a robot that looks like a child should likewise not be illegal.
I'd much rather a pedo fucked a robot that looked like a kid rather than an actual kid.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Completely agree. Why ban something that does no harm? Why ban something that does no harm to anyone else? What's the reasoning: It's bad because it reminds someone of something that is bad? It's bad because it would be bad if a key aspect was different? It's bad because the words, used another way would be about something bad? It's bad because all sex is bad? If I want to dress up as Mohammad and fuck a lump of plastic that looks like a 12-year old girl, why can't I? It's not like I'm doing anything that's actually bad, like fucking a 12-year old girl, or founding a religion.
Sex robots do not exist, and likely will not exist for quite some time. Child sex robots are a hypothetical niche in a field that is entirely hypothetical at this point. This guy is trying to stir up a hypothetical moral panic about a hypothetical niche in a hypothetical genre that does not exist. The whole debate is as far removed from reality as it could possibly be. It's science-fiction at best, purely made up bullshit at worst. Don't these guys have anything else to do? Makes you wonder what the real agenda is.
This is a bit harder than it looks.
Allowing pedophiles these robots could be enough for those urges and so they use this instead of attacking real children.
But there could allso be a trigger to go from this to go over to real children ie "gateway drug" i dont think that every pedophil today let there urges play out and attack children but maybe a such personn could take the step after using robots like these.
If we allow child like sex dolls i suspect that we will se cases from both groups the question is would this sex doll stopp more attacks than it creates if it does allow it.
While this is funny, chances are that most violently anti-pedos are indeed closet-pedos. It works this way for every other sexual orientation. Sure, a pedo must never do it with an actual child, but what is the harm in doing it with a piece of silicon? Preventing that is just punishing people because of something they have no control over.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
And in the good ole USA it is always "Think of the Children!"
I am telling ya. Whoever bought Slashdot has some really WEIRD agenda. It isn't true pedophilia if it's an inanimate object, it's rather similar to jacking off to "underage" hentai. It's always going to be weird for the majority of the population.
But this is JUST the kind of article that Mrs. Mash would post.
How do you go from a fundamental assumption that 'sex with children is wrong' to 'sex with robots that looks like children is wrong'?
- Sex with children is wrong, therefore sex with robots is wrong? Fail.
- Sex with robots is wrong, therefore sex with robots who like like children is wrong? Fail.
- Paedophilia is wrong, therefore paedophiles should not have sex with robots? Fail.
- Robots are children, and sex with children is wrong, therefore sex with robots which look like children is wrong? Fail.
- People who have sex with robots which look like children will become paedophiles? No evidence.
- Paedophiles who have sex with robots which look like children are more likely to have sex with real children? No evidence.
- The thought of having sex with child like robots makes me uncomfortable, mmmkay? Bingo.
Human Rights, Article 12: Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
There are always plenty of people who simply crave power and one way to do so is to create situations where permission or approvals are required. Who knows how many hundreds of millions have been wasted fighting pornography with zero good results. now we will have courts tried up with cases in which the judge and jury debate whether a blow up sex toy looks too similar to a child. Is there even a shard of proof that suggests that rubber doll users re made more likely to molest children? For all we know using those blow up dolls may be enough to keep them from reaching out and actually harming a child. We need to think in terms of the cost of passing some laws and the positive consequences that such a law causes to exist.
If only people could get past their middle school snickering when ever sex is brought up.
Western society is currently expanding its view on sexuality and acceptance of different forms of sexuality as legally and socially acceptable. We are now realizing that sexual preference is not a choice but part of the person.
Now we have the problem with pedophiles. They have a sexual attraction to kids. There isn't much we can do about that, we can't change them. But unlike many other sexual preferences this leads to dangerous behavior. Because the children who are the object of their affection are not in a position of power to consent, and haven't learned or even considered learning stradigied to avoid unwanted attention. That is why any action can get them in jail and labeled as a sex offender for life.
However there are a lot of these people who are not in jail, and due to their moral compass they choose to repress their sexual tendencies as they know the harm is in it.
But that is where the problem is sexuality is a core instinct. We can will off an instinct however it is a lot of work, and a lapse could cause a problem.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
From the summary:
"We do need policymakers to look at it and the general public to decide what is acceptable and permissible,"
The society, policymakers and who ever have no reason, right whatsoever to decide what a human is doing with himself in a bed room. Using his hands, or what ever tool he wants, a vibrator or a bigger thing, the "fucking robot" is a machine. Who cares how it looks, what it does?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
England is just the failed version of America.
What if I build a robot that looks like a child, and then wait 18 years to fuck it?
What if I build a robotic donkey to fuck? What if I build a robot that looks like Fifi La Fume?
What if I build a robot that doesn't resemble any creature in particular, but has plenty of vaginas? What if those vaginas look underage?
What if my "child sex robot" has the voice and personality of a 35-year-old smoker?
Banning imaginary abuse is silly. It's only going to get more silly the more you look into it.
A rubber doll is not a person. It doesn't have feelings, or pain, or sex organs. It's a piles of plastic. This is like banning soda bottles because someone probably put their dick in one.
But why ban a robot that looks like a child?
I'd certainly rather have a person having sex with a robot than a child.
I think the GATEWAY mentality of drugs and sex has been shown to be false. It isn't like a child sex robot is going to convert a person with no interest in children into a pedophile.
It isn't like shooting up one marijuana is going to make you drink heroin.
Wouldn't it have been sweet if that pedo screwed a robot instead?
No, you misrepresent his statement.
Being attracted to kids is not illegal. Having sex with them is.
Wanting to kill people and eat them isn't illegal. Killing people and eating them is illegal.
Do keep up.
Just wait...people who are attracted to "sex robots" will be classified as yet another sexual orientation and will insist on marrying them, parading them around in public, and demand that the robot maintenance be included in their health benefits.
More likely than that, another group of people will actively persecute them for being different and having different interests than them.
The same people that bash homosexuality, transgenderism, and other cultures will have a new group of people to hate and discriminate against.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
It isn't true pedophilia if it's an inanimate object, it's rather similar to jacking off to "underage" hentai.
That's a gray area and not one I'm going to discuss, but I will say that banning "Underage" robots (dolls, really) or hentai is as idiotic a move as was making mere possession of child pornography illegal.
If the availability of these "robots" prevents even one pedophile from seeking an actual child, they're a not positive for society; the same applies to hentai. As for photos and videos, yes, please go after the people who make and distribute them -- go after them with a vengeance -- and hold for questioning anyone caught in possession, so you can find the people who make and distribute them, so you can go after them with said vengeance.
But, society needs to consider the effect of having similar punishment for acts which actively harm children and acts which merely depict actual harm someone else has perpetrated upon children; if the guy you nab wit ha couple of photos knows he's gonna get shanked in prison whether or not he tells you where he got them, you're not getting that information from him. If those photos were what was keeping him from harming children himself, his possession of them was already a net positive; if we can turn his being caught with them (and released for cooperating) into an intelligence gathering tool to track down the people who actually harm children (and photograph themselves in the act), we can make it an even bigger net positive.
Of course, anyone caught in possession of it in the first place should, themselves, be investigated as the potential source. But mere possession should not carry the same get-shanked-in-prison punishment as production or distribution. That it does is a large part of the reason it's difficult to track down the producers and distributors in the first place.
Mind you, these people are all sick but, like we do not lock people up for having a cold, we should not lock them up for this illness. We could at least actually protect the children by not actively seeking to destroy the ones who seek help (pedophilia is an exception to patient confidentiality; therapists are not only allowed, but urged, to contact police if one of their patients seeks help to keep themselves from harming a child) and by allowing potential offenders other outlets for their urges. And, if they're caught with material depicting such despicable acts, we hold them until they give up the source (we make not doing so a felony), then we let them go. They'll find another source, they'll get caught again, they'll give up that source, lather, rinse, repeat. All the while they're not harming children because they have another outlet, and we're tracking down and locking up the people who actually are harming children. That would protect children.
To be clear, yes, lock them up (and throw away the key) for actually harming a child, or producing or distributing photos or videos of actual child harm. Use those who choose other outlets which don't directly harm children (again, the child was harmed by the abuser and whoever filmed or photographed the act) as resources to track down the vile trash who actively harm children and finally put a dent in the problem.
Enough stories of school teachers caught with child porn facing prison time; they got that porn from someone, compel them to reveal their source and lock them up if they don't (or if they lie and the source does not pan out), for impeding an investigation. They'll get the same death-by-shank punishment in prison once the other inmates find out what investigation they impeded. Police would be absolutely justified in further investigating whether he had any inappropriate involvement with students, and throwing the book at him for that; but not for mere possession. In any case the school would be right to fire them; those people need not be around children.
And that is how we protect children.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
The thing is, we are really good at getting people through the physical withdrawal when we want to be. It can even be accomplished painlessly while the patient is in deep sedation if necessary. It's only done that way for people who can afford private clinics mostly because our society has a real punitive bloodlust just below the surface.
The psychological aspects are harder. That's the part that causes the now-clean addict to shoot up again anyway. Social connection and having the sort of life one looks forward to helps that part a great deal.
Also a large amount of research suggests that porn availability etc is negatively correlated with sexual assault, and this includes child sexual assault. I'd imagine that if porn is negatively correlated with rape than sex robots will be as well. It is no less than sexual supply and demand. Of couse not all porn viewers are would-be rapists, but *some are* and by denying porn to everyone, yo'du get more unhappy people and a *few* who turn to rape. (In the same way that if the supply of a product drops, prices rise and *some* people turn to stealing to get it, yet, this doesn't imply that all users of the product are would-be thieves).
Banning unpleasant depictions runs the real proven risk of backfiring and having people live out those fantasies in real life instead. It's the general outcome of prohibition laws, or outlawing prostitution for example. It gives a nice polite facade to the issue that the problem is "gone" but it in fact drves it underground. "Think of the children" arguments are really about protecting the sensibilities of the speaker, and they general reject actual evidence as to whether children will in fact be harmed more by the policy than otherwise.