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Designed by men, for men: Why sex with robots does not have appeal among women
(english.elpais.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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Technology
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I guess a vibrator isn't a type of sex robot?
Just saying that these sort of toys were way more normalized for women long before they were for men.
A man with a fleshlight was a gross weirdo, a woman with a vibrator is a strong independent woman taking control of her sexuality and not settling for the weakness of flesh in men.
This was my thought. Its the same way all our technology has grown. Honestly I think brain interfaces could eclipse robots like this before they are that great. As scary as that is.
Colloquially, the word "robot" always implies a certain amount of anthropomorphism. So no, I don't think a vibrator would count, as basically no vibrators on the market try to look human-like.
But that definitely is a weird difference between male and female sexuality - the sex toys women buy most are the very effective and utilitarian ones: Vibrator wands, Rabbits, Air pulse Vibrators etc.
While the most popular tools for men tend to focus on "realism"(?): Fleshlights, Sex Dolls, things like VR and POV porn. And I guess sex robots would fall into that category too in the future.
I can absolutely see the weirdness-factor of someone who is desperately trying to emulate a partner rather than just accept masturbation as a solo activity and optimize it from there 😬
A robot doesn't need to be anthropomorphic, an assembly line robot is still a robot. It does however need to be able to perform some actions autonomously, for which a vibrator hardly qualifies.
Fuck Machine has entered the chat
An assembly line robot (like welding or material handling, I've worked with ABB, Fanuc, Motoman, Panasonic) are still called robot "arms" with the end portion often called the "wrist" so there is a degree of anthropomorphizing even if it's not the whole body. And they do resemble an arm, however with 6 axis motion the motion is more like from your hips to your wrist than shoulder to wrist.
Overpriced pornstar-branded fleshlights aren't the only masturbators in town and it's not like there's no life-like dildos either. The long and short of it is that the mechanics of a lubed hole are superior to that of a hand and you're not looking at the entry point all the time so noone actually cares what they look like.
Yes, the branded stuff does exist, humans, male female, doesn't matter, enter parasocial relationships news at 11. Can you imagine how well Justin Bieber dildos would sell.
Probably not as well as the Edward Cullen Twilight dildo (NSFW, obviously)
Of course this is a thing lmfo.
Dildos and vibrators were first a medical devices for hysteria.
Dildos have been around a lot longer than that. https://allthatsinteresting.com/history-of-the-dildo
My understanding is that "hysteria" legitimized the use of the vibrator (not unlike how "weight loss" was used in the 1980s to prescribe fentanyl), but they were around before that, and probably would have found another way of entering the mainstream.
Vibrators, too, if you count the hollowed out wooden dildos filled with angry bees.