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Are Dating Apps and Sex Robots Feminist Technologies? A Critical Posthumanist Alternative
Abstract
In the following, I first define what a feminist technology is, referring to the approach of Linda L. Layne, Sharra L. Vostral, and Kate Boyer. In a second step, the two examples of dating apps and sex robots—with a specific focus on embodiment and the datafied self—will be examined from different classical feminist perspectives. Finally, a critical posthumanist analysis and critique will provide an answer to the initial question of whether dating apps and sex robots are feminist technologies or if the question itself might cover exclusionary (and thus antifeminist) traits.
Robots as social companions in close proximity to humans have a strong potential of becoming more and more prevalent in the coming years, especially in the realms of elder day care, child rearing, and education. As human beings, we have the fascinating ability to emotionally bond with various counterparts, not exclusively with other human beings, but also with animals, plants, and sometimes even objects. Therefore, we need to answer the fundamental ethical questions that concern human-robot-interactions per se, and we need to address how we conceive of »good lives«, as more and more of the aspects of our daily lives will be interwoven with social robots.
Robots as social companions in close proximity to humans have a strong potential of becoming more and more prevalent in the coming years, especially in the realms of elder day care, child rearing, and education. As human beings, we have the fascinating ability to emotionally bond with various counterparts, not exclusively with other human beings, but also with animals, plants, and sometimes even objects. Therefore, we need to answer the fundamental ethical questions that concern human-robot-interactions per se, and we need to address how we conceive of »good lives«, as more and more of the aspects of our daily lives will be interwoven with social robots.
This chapter introduces the edited collection Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications. It proposes a definition of the term 'sex robot' and examines some current prototype models. It also considers the three main ethical questions one can ask about sex robots: (i) do they benefit/harm the user? (ii) do they benefit/harm society? or (iii) do they benefit/harm the robot?
This chapter argues that the right to sexual satisfaction of severely physically and mentally disabled people, and elderly people who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases, can be fulfilled by deploying sex robots. This would enable us to satisfy the sexual needs of many who cannot provide for their own sexual satisfaction without at the same time violating anybody’s right to sexual self-determination. It does not offer a full-blown moral justification of deploying sex robots in such cases, as not all morally relevant concerns can be addressed here; rather, it puts forward a plausible way of fulfilling acute sexual needs without thereby violating anybody’s sexual rights.
This chapter considers the legal and moral implications of creating sex robots that look and act like children. It does so by addressing the analogy between child sex robots and virtual child pornography. Entirely computer-generated child pornographic images are prohibited in many countries on the ground that (the majority of) people find them morally objectionable (legal moralism). If child sex robots were to be developed, they would (likely) be banned for the same reasons. Virtue ethics and (anti-porn) feminism explain why people find entirely computer-generated child pornography morally objectionable and why they would think the same about child sex robots. Both flout our sexual mentality based on equality, because they are respectively incomplete representations and replica of sexual relations between adults and children, which can never be considered equal.
Since the beginning of the so-called second wave feminism (in the middle of the 20th century), there has been a growing awareness of the urgency of a critical reflection on technics and science within feminist discourse. However, feminist thinkers have not consistently interpreted technics and science as emancipative and liberating for people who identify as women. At the same time, many early feminists criticized the structures of dominance, marginalization, and oppression inherent in numerous technologies as well as the technoscientific social structures. This is because technological development is mostly embedded in social, political, and economic systems that are patriarchally hierarchized.
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