{"id":2794,"date":"2015-09-19T15:25:18","date_gmt":"2015-09-19T21:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2794"},"modified":"2015-09-19T11:22:14","modified_gmt":"2015-09-19T17:22:14","slug":"dear-prudence-maslow-robots-and-an-intentionally-vague-post-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/09\/dear-prudence-maslow-robots-and-an-intentionally-vague-post-title.html","title":{"rendered":"Dear Prudence, Maslow, robots, and an intentionally vague post title"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In which I talk about sex, sex robots, and \u201cneeds\u201d:<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a Q&A from a\u00a0Dear Prudence column<\/a> from earlier this week at Slate.<\/p>\n

\n

My husband and I have been married for almost two years. We are deeply in love and have a passionate sex life. He\u2019s amazing and I\u2019m incredibly blessed. There\u2019s one point of tension that pops up that I need your help with. Before we got married, he told me about his struggle with pornography. He recognized its negative influence in his life and our relationship. It was our understanding that he would work through it. There have been several \u201crelapses,\u201d if you will, throughout our relationship, but he keeps promising to do better. Recently, I discovered he\u2019d been lying about his progress for months. He\u2019d been looking every few days and would even look while lying right next to me in bed as I slept. I support him as best I can, while dealing with my own negative emotions. I do believe that he does want to conquer this, but the lies and, to me, what feels like betrayal are wrecking an otherwise wonderful marriage. Do you have any suggestions on what to do from here?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I was waiting for you to say your husband\u2019s struggled with viewing child pornography, or that his obsession with pornography was such that he downloaded it at work, thus jeopardizing his job. But your objection appears to be that he views pornography. You don\u2019t in any way explain its insidious effect on your marriage. If a husband\u2019s erotic life is pulled away from his partner and replaced with a masturbatory response to images on his computer, that\u2019s a problem. But you say you two have a passionate sex life. Some women believe looking at pornography is the equivalent of cheating. It\u2019s not. You complain he looks at it in bed, after you have fallen asleep. But if you\u2019re asleep, how do you know what he\u2019s looking at? If your objection is that his viewing porn hurts your feelings, get over it. You went into this marriage knowing he had this proclivity. As long as it\u2019s not actually affecting your life, ignore it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Commenters backed up \u201cPrudie\u201d with statements such as \u201cmen have a biological need for sex, so if he\u2019s getting his release by watching porn and masturbating, what\u2019s it to her?\u201d (I\u2019d quote a specific comment but I read these comments a couple days ago and now there\u2019s another thousand or so.)<\/p>\n

In the meantime, sex robots have made their way into the news, with Professor Kathleen Richardson\u00a0<\/strong>at\u00a0De Montfort University in the UK\u00a0making the news for voicing concern about them. \u00a0This became something of a joke \u2014 \u201cfeminists oppose sex robots because they know that if men could just have sex with robots, they\u2019d stop bothering with women, and women wouldn\u2019t be able to find anyone to take care of them\u201d (sorry, I can\u2019t find the particular blog posts any longer \u2014 this is what happens when you let an idea percolate for too long before writing about it). \u00a0But her legitimate point of concern seems to be this, though I can\u2019t find a single quote that spells it out: \u00a0men who use sex robots may come to view sex as a mechanical act, and treat living, breathing partners as property, in the same way as they do their sex robot.<\/p>\n

Or at least that\u2019s my take-away. \u00a0I admit to not having read the \u201cposition paper<\/a>\u201c, and her concern is largely about prostitutes and concerns for greater mistreatment. But it is worth thinking about, in one respect: \u00a0Prudie and her readers agree that a porn + masturbation combo is a matter of a man meeting his biological need, nothing more, and nothing that his wife or partner has any right to complain about. \u00a0(The latter is not directly addressed here, but a commenter connect this to a prior letter on that subject.) \u00a0How far does this go? \u00a0How far might<\/em> this go, extrapolating from present trends? \u00a0Is a \u201csex robot\u201d just another sort of masturbation? \u00a0Will a future letter-writer complain that her husband has been making use of sex robots, and a future Prudie scold her that she should MYOB and it\u2019s none of her business whether he chooses to do this, or play golf, with his Saturday afternoons?<\/p>\n

And this \u201csex as biological need\u201d bit? \u00a0Yes, I know it comes from Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs, although\u00a0Wikipedia<\/a>\u00a0is vague on the matter, implying that Maslow was referring to an \u201cinstinct\u201d for sex and the need for the species to reproduce; other places I looked online didn\u2019t provide any clarification. \u00a0But Prudie\u2019s readers take it as a given: first, that post-pubescent human beings, or at least men, need sex in one form or another, and, second, that this physiological\u00a0need for \u201csexual release\u201d is mechanical and of no greater connection to morality than the physiological need for food, water, or warmth, and wholly separate from human relationships.<\/p>\n

And given that mindset, will folks who get their moral thinking from Prudie even draw the line at machines, or will they also conclude that a man who \u201csatisfies his sexual needs\u201d with a flesh-and-blood \u201cother woman\u201d is likewise in the right, and the complaining spouse wrong?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In which I talk about sex, sex robots, and \u201cneeds\u201d: Here\u2019s a Q&A from a\u00a0Dear Prudence column from earlier this week at Slate. My husband and I have been married for almost two years. We are deeply in love and have a passionate sex life. He\u2019s amazing and I\u2019m incredibly blessed. There\u2019s one point of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDear Prudence, Maslow, robots, and an intentionally vague post title<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In which I talk about sex, sex robots, and "needs": Here's a Q&A from a\u00a0Dear Prudence column from earlier this week at Slate. 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