Last
year I wrote about how watching the actor Gemma Chan play a robot on the TV
show Humans had piqued my interest in the subject of having sex with beautiful
robots. I debated whether it’d count as cheating on your partner. I thought
that it wasn’t cheating. My wife disagreed, saying it was and that she would
divorce me if I did it.
But
she is wrong. Sex with a robot is not cheating because a robot is not a person
(even if it made to look and react exactly like one). It’s a machine.
I
took a straw poll and it seemed that generally women were less keen on the sex
robot revolution than men. Which is ironic. Because I bet a lot of those women
have a sex toy of some kind. If you think about it a vibrator is essentially a
robot penis. But that’s OK? There’s a loophole for that is there? Maybe that
wasn’t the best choice of phrase.
Actually
the sex toy is more ethically dubious than the sex robot, because it’s as if
the user has said, “No, it’s all right, mate. You can just throw the rest of
the robot away. I just need this… Don’t get me wrong, you’ve done an amazing
job. That robot is so realistic, it looks exactly like a real person. But throw
it all in a big burning bin. This is the only bit I need.”
Despite
this kind of hypocrisy the sex robot issue has left a cloud over our marriage,
even though I never explicitly said I wouldn’t have sex with a sex robot in my
marriage vows. If you are getting married and care about this then do make sure
the service is future-proofed to include any infidelity with technology as yet
uninvented or alien species.
Luckily
for my own sacred union the issue seemed unlikely to destroy our marriage, as I
had understood that there would be no realistic sex robots for fifty
years. I was disappointed as it’s always
been a dream of mine to have sex with a sex robot. So I asked my wife if she’d
mind me having sex with the actor Gemma Chan, as long as she stayed in
character as a robot for the entire time (which I think she could do, she’s a
brilliant actor), but my wife was even more against that than the robot idea. I
just can’t win.
Then
I read in the Metro that talking sex robots with “human-like” genitals (that’s
my favourite kind – not human ones, but ones that are like human ones) will be
available next year for just £12,000. Dammit, that’s a lot of money. Some times
when I mention a company in this column they send me free stuff. I got some
cakes, a load of yoghurt and some interdental brushes. So I’d just like to say
that I think Abyss Creations make fantastic sex dolls (though I am not sure I
want one with an abyss). I mean if you send one to my house then I can’t really
send it away. And my wife couldn’t be so heartless to let a defenceless sex
robot live out on the streets.
Alternatively
I might just pitch it to my editor as a feature. “Why having sex with sex
robots is wrong – Richard Herring investigates the seedy world of human-like
genitals and the sad perverts who buy them and what it is exactly that they get
out of having sex with them.” If it’s for my job, then my wife has to agree to
it, right?
I
popped into Debenhams in Manchester to buy a belt last week. My trousers were
falling down so I put the belt on in the store. On the way out the security
guard stopped me and I thought I was in trouble, but he shook my hand and told
me he loved this column. What a relief. Especially as I had a load of
shoplifted women’s knickers down my trousers. Not really (this time).
