 |
| Japanese sex doll Veronica |
The joke, as originally told by Segun Adeniyi, was
explicit, if not apocryphal. In-laws summit had to be convened at the height of
a cold war between a new couple.
After the husband was acquitted based on oral
submission, it was the wife's turn to be cross-examined. At the end of what
turned out a tortuous probing, the truth finally emerged: she was simply no
longer able to cope with her man's libidinous fire-power almost round the
clock.
Exchanging knowing glances at this juncture, the more
experienced in-laws put it all down to the usual youthful adrenaline. The
wife was then persuaded to take it as a demonstration of the intensity of
her husband's faithfulness.
Going forward, a new conjugal time-table was mutually
agreed, phasing out such coital activities on a sustainable basis, even while
making generous allowance for the husband's prodigious energy.
The new template however collapsed even before it
started the next day. By afternoon, prolific Romeo had already exhausted the
agreed daily ration. Long-suffering Juliet's eruption could therefore only be
imagined when the husband later tapped her for more at bed-time.
Reminded of the day's agreed quota, he had a ready
solution: "Then, let me borrow from tomorrow's".
Well, if we plumb deeper, we will find a parallel
between the referenced tale and the latest craze in town: hyper-realistic sex
robots enabled by artificial intelligence.
By pushing the limits of human endurance, mankind would
also seem to be drawing dangerously from tomorrow already. Welcome
to the age of mechanized or automated sex - a chilling fulfillment of the 2006
prophesy by Henrik Christensen, the chairman of the European Robotics
Network at the Royal Institute of Technology, University of Stockholm, of
man/machine intimacy.
More and more, perversion encroaches humanity.
 |
| ODION |
By the way, such carnal mindset could also be adduced
for the corruption of the idea of Valentine from the pristine chastity it
denoted in the beginning to the hedonism it connotes today.
The original Valentine was a Roman priest who, in
the throes of war, defied the emperor's decree to perform the sacrament of
marriage for young men the king thought were better engaged at the
battlefield at that material time.
Valentine's defiance was out of a deep conviction that
marriage was consistent with biblical injunction. His beheading was
ordered by Emperor Claudius II.
Two centuries later, in appreciation of his
martyrdom, Pope Gelasius I declared February 14 St. Valentine's Day.
Romanticization of the day started many generations later by great
writers like Geoffrey Chaucer and Shakespeare in their works.
Today, we hardly view Valentine anymore in its original
sacrificial lights, but now more as invitation to debauchery - the feast
of conquest and forbidden seduction.
Now, rising from a conference at the University of London recently, researchers
predicted that within the next few years, robots will be our sexual
partners of choice.
The manufacturer- Sinthetics - had unveiled the female
doll named Roxy in 2010.
Variously nicknamed Rocky, Gabriel, Akira or
William, the male version joined in 2015. Responding to popular demand, the
U.S-based firm is reportedly now contemplating putting heat in the
synthetic phallus to make it feel more real.
Already, Barcelona has beaten the rest of the world to
it by welcoming the adventurous to a brothel sizzling with sex dolls squeakily
scoured with special antibacterial soaps before and after each service.
Elsewhere in China, Touch, a sex toy maker, has
developed an App called "Shared Girlfriend" that enables
customers to customize the dolls they want before renting them for a few
nights, with the suggestive payoff: "With one touch of a key, you are no
longer single!”
The rise of sex dolls has led to another provocative
proposition by David Levy, an artificial-intelligence expert, that by 2050,
robots “will have the capacity to fall in love with humans and to make
themselves romantically attractive and sexually desirable to humans.”
Levy's prophesy may, in fact, have come to pass rather
prematurely. In Botswana recently, Paellas Mohule, a wealthy car dealer
reportedly divorced the mother of his four children to be left alone with a sex
doll he imported from the United States.
Claiming to be sick and tired of women
jostling after his money and giving him diseases on top, he said his
wife is no match to his import from US in "the other room". As
penance, he offered to support his ex-wife and kids financially if they
let him be.
Taken together, the idea of sex dolls or
"digisexuals" could only have been inspired by man's instinctive
greed, the dark quest to rig perfection against the law of nature, drained
completely of humanity in an increasingly materialistic world. Also, some
women now hunger for cosmetic surgery to make up for perceived
physiognomical inadequacies.
Of course, with the rise of "digisexuals",
long-held epistemological principles are inevitably being challenged with dire
implications for existing psycho-sexual norms, potentially signaling the
redefinition - if not the end - of humanity.
With "digisexuals", Segun Adeniyi's
hyperactive Romeo hardly needs to waste time negotiating with the
hostile spouse anymore. When Levy's species enter the mix, the human
equation will only get more complicated.
The concept of polygamy and polyandry may also have to
be redefined. Future couple may no longer have a choice than happily
accept "digisexuals" as the "shadow hubby or wife" under
the same roof.
Of course, machine will go farther, but with no
soul, shorn of emotion; its touch is cold, kiss tasteless.
There precisely lies the real danger. Addiction to
such devices would breed maladjustment from unrealistic
expectations in real-life situation. When machines take the place of
lover, what happens the divine protocol for procreation? Can the
machine-lover comfort the broken-hearted? Can it shed tears of joy or
pain? What hope remains for the perpetuation of mankind till the
expected Judgment Day?
Machine is certainly incapable of compassion without
which life is misery. Robots imply the freezing of human labour in the
production process. "Digisexuals" will also mean filling homes with
zombies and draining community of humanity. The more romance
gets automated, the lonelier life then becomes. It is impossible to be in
love with machine and still have space left to form normal
relationship with other humans.
Could this be the apocalypse foreseen by Mahatma Gandhi
when he warned against the advance of science without humanity?
No comments:
Post a Comment