Jim Baen's Universe

Nonfiction articles

The Future of the War Between the Sexes

Written by Stephen Euin Cobb

Because human beings are social creatures they have a highly-developed ability to observe tiny variations in personality, and so they perceive the long clichéd personality differences between their sexes to be large. The differences are actually very small, but try telling that to a human.

Women often marvel over the male obsession with physical beauty and men often marvel over the female enthusiasm for going to the restroom in groups. Both sexes seem to find the other confusing at best, and sometimes even annoying. And while it’s difficult to specify exactly how and to what extent the personalities of the sexes differ, it is possible to get a vague sense of it by looking at the differences between the magazines targeted toward each, the TV shows each find most enjoyable, and the sporting events to which each gravitate.

This indescribable divide has always existed between men and women, but in the future—sometime between two and three decades from now—this divide is likely to widen. And it may widen a lot: perhaps hundreds of times wider than it has ever been in the past.

Beyond that—in the deeper future, half a century or more from now—the split between the sexes will likely grow narrower and eventually disappear altogether, never to be seen again. The narrowing is a little bit difficult to describe, but the widening is not. It will be caused by the relationship that people develop with their robots.

Already in Japan there is a company with two principal product lines. One line is high-quality prosthetic limbs for the medical industry which incorporate a covering of soft latex which has an uncanny resemblance to the look and feel of human flesh. The other line applies the same technology developed to manufacture attractive prosthetics to the making of life-sized anatomically-correct dolls which are intended for their purchasers to use as sex partners. This particular company makes only female dolls, though other companies make an assortment of male and female models.

Admittedly, these are not robots. They do not move, or speak, or understand what their owners say. However they do resemble attractive women in shape, size, weight, texture and feel. They even offer medical grade artificial eyes. Because of all this they are not cheap: typical prices are around eight thousand U.S. dollars.

Despite their physical attractiveness some people find them “creepy.” Those most “creeped-out” are usually at a loss to explain why; others insist the problem is the lack of movement. Being romantically intimate with something that looks and feels like a human being but does not move, they insist, is too much like being intimate with a corpse—or at the very least, an artificial corpse.

Even so, the demand for these non-moving sexual partners is great enough that half a dozen companies, scattered across three continents, manufacture them. The dolls vary in technical quality, in price range, and in ethnicity.

Not moving is what they do today, but this will change. Robotics, puppetry, and animatronics are advancing rapidly. One German company has already modified one of its models to include thrusting hips and a heartbeat which races during sex. Staying ahead of the competition will force manufacturers to push for a continuous parade of such improvements.

Many who hear of these dolls snicker and imagine that only silly or socially incompetent people will ever be interested in robotic sex. But in the future these robotic dolls will not be designed to mimic an ordinary person’s attractiveness. They will mimic our species’ best: athletes, actors, models and porn stars. They will look and walk and pose more seductively than anyone you have ever lusted after. Whatever people desire most in a mate is what will be manufactured, and making a doll homely will cost no more than making it drop-dead gorgeous.

Eventually robotic dolls will smile and laugh and mimic all the natural human movements and body language so well that it will be difficult to tell them from real people without drawing them into a serious conversation. Once they are humanlike enough to be emotionally satisfying sexual partners the only thing other than reproduction that made getting along with the opposite sex necessary will be gone. Many people will gladly abandon the emotional rollercoaster of trying to find and court and keep a mate, and instead simply buy one. Others will switch to avoid sexually transmitted diseases or, to feel better about themselves, will claim this is why they switched.

The social stigma we have today will remain strong for a time. It will not fall easily, but it will fall. When the paparazzi fill the tabloids with countless images of stars of movies and TV painting the town with their beautiful robotic lovers, the public’s inhibitions will weaken. The full collapse will happen after the rich and famous realize that robots are not only sexier than their former human spouses, they do not sue for half their money. Robotic lovers will become a symbol of wealth; robotic harems, a symbol of hedonism; and a solitary robotic spouse, a symbol of restraint and moderation. But their lack of stress may be their biggest selling point. Robots will be easier to live with since they do not argue, or need to be right, or get their feelings hurt.

Not everyone will own them, of course, in the same way that not everyone owns a car or listens to the radio. However, enough people do own a car and listen to the radio that these things have radically altered our civilization. So to will sex with robots.

Some might suggest that it is only men who will find robot lovers pleasing, since men pick lovers mostly by their physical appearance, which should be easier to mimic than the features women look for in their lovers. Women—according to the popular clichés—are more interested in long meaningful conversations, a friendly personality, a good sense of humor, honesty, reliability, responsibility and a nice little butt. Of these, only making the butt will be easy. For the rest, sophisticated artificial intelligence will be needed, and that could take an extra decade or more.

In truth, however, it's not going to matter if the women like the robots. Once a lot of the men are no longer pursuing fleshly women in bars and dance clubs and church socials, no one is going to ask the women if they find the robots appealing. A lot of women are going to be on their own. They can either partner with robotic men or partner with one another. Either way, humanity will be divided into two camps.

Granted, some men will chose women because they want to have children. And some men will continue to prefer live women no matter how homely they are when compared to robotic perfection. Lucky them; they’ll have plenty to pick from.

If the number of men and women who mate only with robots rises high enough—perhaps above 60%—the reduced interaction between the sexes will allow them to develop separate subcultures which will reflect the personality differences in the two sexes. And the longer these two subcultures remain separate, the greater they will diverge.

An existing example of two such sexually-based completely separate subcultures is that of gay men and of lesbians. Their divergence has been complete for decades. In the future the divide created in the general population by several decades of robotic lovers could become just as great.

During the period when this divide is strong, the developed countries will go through an era in which their populations shrink. People will continue to die of accident and disease and maybe even aging, but because robots don't get pregnant the birth rate will drop. Longevity will probably be increasing during this time so the death rate will likely decrease, but this may be too small to compensate for the sudden and radical drop in births.

The divergence of the two subcultures, however, is unlikely to last forever. Transhumanists anticipate a day when our technology becomes so advanced that we abandon the traditional bodies we were born with—bodies able to become sick and old and tired and die, for bodies that can not. When our microscopic organic cells of protoplasm can all be replaced one-by-one with equally microscopic artificial cells which mimic the old cells so well that the replacement is indistinguishable, it may be time to move.

And if this unstoppable advancing of technology seems too much for you to believe, relax, because you are in good company. The highly regarded governor of New York, wrote the following to the president: As you may well know, Mr. President, "railroad" carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of fifteen miles per hour by "engines" which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed. The governor was Martin Van Buren and the year was 1829.

The agonizingly slow march of technology during President Andrew Jackson’s lifetime has long since accelerated into a hard run. And it shows no sign of pausing to rest. The run will continue, and it will continue to get faster. He did not live to see the rise of the electrical grid, or of TV or radio or computers or the Internet or cell phones or laser surgery or breast implants or artificial hearts.

If it someday yields us bodies which mimic all life processes but are artificial, we will be able to alter our bodies in any way we wish. We will be able to change our height or weight or facial appearance completely, and at a moment's notice. We can be as beautiful as we like, in any way we like. We can look like Britney Spears at breakfast and Beyoncé at lunch. We will have all the shape shifting abilities of the character Mystique as portrayed in the X-Men action adventure movies. We can resemble anyone, any time, and change race or sex at whim. And it is this that will bring the end of the divide.

When anyone can be any sex, the divide between the sexes will slowly close until—for the first time in human history—there will be no divide. Not because everyone will change sex frequently or even rarely, but because they will have the perpetual option to do so, and because some will take it.

Complete morphological freedom will also bring a final end to all the popular prejudices of our current time period: such as racism and ageism. New prejudices unimaginable today may be invented and grow popular, or we may develop the wisdom to avoid such traps. Only time will tell.

****

You can learn more about Stephen Euin Cobb here, or here.

And more about his podcast: The Future And You here, or here, or even here.