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It probably is also an expressway for the objectification of men, but it seems to be used (currently) for women - arguably the objectification of women is much more widespread with modern porn and tech than it is for men. Look at the number of female sex robots on the market versus male sex bots (and no, dildos/fleshlights emulating a single body part such as a penis or vulva by any reasonable argument is not the same kind of objectification of a whole body sex toy), or the amount of porn focusing on the female body versus the male body, nudes of female celebrities leaked versus male celebrities, pornographic deepfakes of women versus deepfakes of men, etc.

Objectification in media is common to both sexes. That does not mean to the same degree or in the same quality. (I'm making no comment as to the harm or benefit of objectification[0] here, and I don't buy the idea that programmable sex toys are a form of objectification).

[0] There is interesting research, though: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-019-01024-0 and https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ab.21719



Women are not showing demand for male sex bots.

It is far easier for a woman who desires sex to have it quickly with something higher quality than a sexbot (think tinder) than it is for men. As a result, men want to buy sexbots. Woman who want male bots likely make up less than 5% of the sexbot market and that's generous as hell of an estimate.

I'm willing to bet that this is not all social construction, and a world where men were equally as objectified would only cause slightly more demand for male sexbots. Additionally, I think male objectification is more widespread than you give it credit for. Though, much of it is men objectifying other men.

You're right about your other points though.


Women do purchase more conventional sex toys than men do, however. This suggests that women, even when they can get sex, are not as satisfied. If we go with the idea that dildos/fleshlights are not necessarily objectifying, it still leads to the conclusion that both men and women are dissatisfied, but they deal with it in different ways, with some men buying sex robots. An alternative hypothesis is that women on the whole simply don't objectify as much, and would not be in the market for sexbots. Yet another hypothesis is that these women feel as though the technology for male sexbots is not good enough yet (and an associate hypothesis for that would be that women look for other features in sex which cannot be so readily emulated by a robot).

I do think male objectification is widespread, but it differs in quality and scale. If male objectification is big, then female objectification is huge. The hypothesis relating to sex robots supports that, but I'm willing to accept it is only one of many.


So while this is off on a downvoted thread, I'm gonna leave the Buttplug Mission Statement here, which wraps up our core philosophies in relation to objectification and usage of our technologies:

--

Buttplug is committed to the safety, autonomy, and human rights of people using it as a sex technology standard, and stands in solidarity with the many intersectional rights of all individuals to be sex positive. As such, Buttplug encourages individual empowerment through self-directed education, and responsible behaviors which are also respectful of the needs and the choices available to everyone.

--

Note that sex robots is a... linked field to what I do but still kind of its own thing. I interact with a lot of the researchers there but it's really had to figure out whether the theory stops and any actual, real productization begins.


Shoe on the other foot, there's way less stigma around females using toys, see the proliferation of devices reaching back to mail order catalogs and ancillary mediums like romance novels. The argument with content or lack there of sounds like there's a huge undertapped market that's waiting for someone to fill it? Otherwise wouldn't the argument be that the demand is met? In practice it appears that there are different interests (males being visual, women cerebral) and stigmas at play.




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