This has really horrific.

Anyone remember the Victorian doctors who treated hysterical women with...erm... orgasm relief? Read down past the advert. Psychology Today is a bona fide publication.

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201303/hysteria-and-the-strange-history-vibrators

I'm placing my order for a young Gary Oldman robot.............

I think one of the problems we face when thinking about robots is that they may in fact do things better than humans. So they may provide better care, better sex and be cleverer. It is one of the reasons people fear them. On the other hand when electricity was brought into homes there were people who thought it would harm their health and worried about where it went when you turned things off. It is just a question of adjusting.

Iam64..at what point did I say I have no time for experts,that I dismiss or fail to recognise qualifications or that I undermine dedicated years of studying to learn a subject in-depth?

You have no knowledge of me or any comprehension of the qualifications within a field of expertise I may, or may not have.

What I did say was that having the relevant qualifications does not necessarily make a person the right one for the job.
Not all parts of a job can be learnt from a textbook no matter how erudite the reader.

Thanks Nightowl, I suspect 35 years working with people of all ages and with differing needs influences the way I look at this kind of issue. What is known about sex offenders is that they begin by fantasising, then move on to satisfy themselves in ways that are more exciting for them. If masturbation was enough and offenders were prepared to contain their more dangerous fantasies, we'd have far fewer children or other easily exploited groups being abused.
As well as staff in residential care being more at risk if resident males are encouraged seek sexual satisfaction from a robot, what about other, more likely female residents?

I share your feelings Iam. I think it could be even more confusing for someone with dementia and could indeed lead to even greater disinhibited behaviour. In the case of sex offenders, surely it will only encourage the depersonalisation of victims, and in my opinion is unlikely to reduce their need for more victims to control and subdue. We all know that abuse is not really about sex but about power, will that need be satisfied by a doll?

Maybe I'm focussed on negatives here but if say a man with dementia/alzeimers becomes focussed on sex, becomes disinhibited, how s providing him with a robot to assault going to make the lives of those cRing for him any easier. If, as has been said, these patients wouldn't know the difference, surely encouraging the behaviour is likely to result in increased sexual behaviour towArds the cArers.

I'm sorry about that, chicken. It is a bona fide link.

Hang on a minute. What if a care home resident requests and pays for such a robot or device. How could anyone actually
deny this request.
Is there that much difference between a robot who could theoretically be programmed to offer sexual gratification to a resident at their request and a member of staff buying someone in the care home a vibrator at that residents request? I don't think there is.

It was discussed on the Radio 4 Today show last week with a clinical phsycologist...she seemed to think it is the way to go.

To take this to the extreme is indeed horrible but if it was possible for my in-laws to get a realistic robot to take care of MIL I'm sure it's what they'd choose.
If MIL thought that there was a lovely attentive person living with her to keep her company 24-7, prepared meals and cleaned up after, gave her medication, listened and responded to her chatter she'd actually be quite happy if she couldn't tell the difference.
BIL and SIL aren't natural carers and then they wouldn't have to make an effort as long as they could afford to pay for a robot to do this for them. All rather sad really.
OTOH if I could afford an 'Odie' robot like in the TV series I'd like it to drive me places, take care of home/car maintenance, nothing else and wouldn't need to 'get a man in.'

Watch out if you click on the link! I did. and almost at once got a message from Microsoft warning me about suspicious activity on my account.

Read Super Toys Last All Summer Through ( by Brian Aldiss, British writer) made into a film (AI)
Or watch Humans on tv.
Or read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

Most science fiction becomes fact at some point.

Ilovecheese . There may well be some interesting visits to A&E in the future.
A long time ago I realised that once seen/read some things sully ones brain for life. On this basis, although I had read somewhere that this was happening, I will avoid reading any of these articles. I'm not burying my head in the sand, just don't need to know the full details.

I have never seen an orange in glasses!
I may never want to eat fruit salad again.....

Child sex robots aside (no evidence to suggest they would prevent real peadophile behaviour), I have no problem with sex robots. Men can already buy plastic vagina toys and many use oranges in glasses or melons. The robots are less cringe making to me than the fruit. People are entitled to enjoy sexual satisfaction that causes no harm to others. Some people find interpersonal relationships very difficult for all sorts of reasons. Live and let live, I say.

Mymm, ok you have no time for 'experts. You dismiss qualifications. What positive alternatives would you suggest ?

I have no words struck dumb

this might not be what people want to hear but I can't help wondering if it would be a worse alterantive than the great big lard A***D person who watched my old friend slip away
My friend was supposed to be on a high fluid intake and the "care assistant" (alledged)went by her room, the drink was on the unit 6ft away from the bed
Never once was she encouraged to drink and how did the dozy 'apeth think that she could help herself
My friend was 90 and an amputee
If I'm going to spend my dotage being looked after by a robot I think it just might be preferable to the scenario I have relatrd above

And that call it progress!

(Lighthearted) Husband and me were just talking about this yesterday. if we had to have a robot carer We decided we would never know how to programme the bl**dy thing and would have to keep phoning our grandchildren to ask.

I am a 3D illustrator and sometimes use 'base' models that are ready-rigged, etc for my palaeolithic people. I change their shapes, faces, etc to be, eg Neanderthals or Homo Erectus. I have also created my own from scratch. It's a lot of work.

More and more the base models you can buy are coming with full genitalia. I am under no illusion that many customers/artists of these products produce animated films and stills that are pornographic. Even for the amateur modeller, as they provide all kinds of makeup options and facial features. You can move mouths, etc for speech and it's all state of the art... like Avatar. And we all know that 3D actors that often look more real than actors and are inserted into films or TV series.

The modellers I know in the forums are just creating for proper entertainment or, most of the time, for education or advertising products (think of those crazy things that cars and people do in TV adverts). Porno modellers do not publicly participate as I have not seen any questions or posting of their work. It would not be permitted by the manufacturer of the software.

Still....

"Do-gooders"? - of whom do you speak? Please be specific, rather than throwing in some sort of blanket condemnation of unidentified people.

In my experience those working in the statutory services want nothing more than to protect children. Just because they might understand what might motivate an abuser does not mean that they cease to have the protection and well-being of the child uppermost in their minds.

There is no real way of knowing whether these robots might satisfy a potential abuser or arouse him/her in ways that cause him/her to seek out real humans to abuse. It is an unknown area, as the article is pointing out.

It is indeed sad to think that there are people who would rather interact sexually with a robot than with another human being, or indeed than a DIY job. But I guess there are those who see no other choice, and that is indeed sad.

Iam64 ... Why do you think that someone reporting to the courts is well versed in assessing risks? Passing an exam, gaining a qualification, completing a Course does not necessarily mean that a person is any good at doing that job.
Too many times the so-called 'rights' of the abuser are put above the needs of the victim usually by the do-gooders who want to bleat on that it isn't the abusers fault that they (e.g.)raped the woman/child.
There is NO excuse for sexual abuse no matter how the do-gooding Judy's try to justify it.

The mind boggles!!! Oh Vickya, I love Issac Assimov, his books are amazing!!!