TechSex

Exploring the Philosophical and Ethical Implications

May 9, 2023 – 14:00-17:00 (CET)

Aud 3, Dunant 2, Campus Dunant

Ghent University

 

!!! Registration now open !!!

 

Registration is required and free but avaliable places are limited.

Please note: students of the Sexual and Relationship Ethics course need not to register!

 

Workshop Theme

 

Sexuality and technology are historically intertwined phenomena which raises questions about the nature of our sexuality, and our relation with sexual technologies. Our engagement with sex-oriented technology has been a matter of enhancing sexual appeal, sexual activity or pleasure or compensating for sexual partners. Technosexual objects, practices and procedures include, among others, biotechnology, drug manufacturing, medical interventions, sex toys, VR technologies, etc. AI Sexbots are the latest development in this wave of technosexualization.  According to Tanja Kubes (2019), they form the pinnacle of the materialization of ideas about gender and sexuality.

New sexual technologies have the potential to change the way we engage in sexual activity, potentially leading to novel forms of sexual expression, experimentation, sexual subjectivity and sexual identities. McArthur and Twist (2017), e.g., have argued that we are currently living in an age of ‘digisexuality’, and that many are becoming “digisexuals”, sexual beings whose primary sexual identity is intimately linked to the use of sexual technologies. Instead of being a technology that mediates between humans, the sextech involved itself becomes the intention and focus of the sexual activity, transforming it into a form of what can be called ‘techsex’.

All this calls for thorough but also nuanced reflection and evaluation. Most philosophical and ethical work on these topics has focused on questions relating to the proper use, the moral evaluation and the legal regulation of the sexual technologies involved. Questions are being raised about the impact on society and culture, on how all this might upset or reinforce existing gender-relations, on questions of privacy and autonomy, etc.

In this workshop, however, we want to move beyond this regulatory and evaluative scope and explore the implications of the technologization of sex and sexualization of technology for the philosophy of sexuality and sexual ethics more broadly. We want to explore new ways of philosophically and ethically thinking through the ways these new technologies (might) impact and transform our sexual lives, practices and subjectivities, and perhaps, human sexuality itself.

 

Workshop programme & timetable

 

14:00 - 14:10  Welcome, Introduction & Housekeeping

14:10 - 15:00  Keynote Adress & Discussion – Prof. Lily Frank

Title TBA

Prof. Lily Frank – Eindhoven University of Technology – Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Abstract TBA

15:00 - 15:50  paper session 1: Techsex and Agency

Should I Trust My Robot Lover?

Germán Massaguer Gómez – Universidad Carlos III de Madrid – Madrid, Spain

Trust is one of the most basic and crucial concepts that appear in loving relationships. In the present, as sex robots (and social robots in general) become more common, studies show that humans develop attitudes of empathy, attachment and even love towards their artificial companions. We will explore how the notion of trust may apply to a loving relationship between a human and a sexual robot. Therefore, we will explore the philosophical account of interpersonal trust, distinguishing it form mere reliance – the kind of attitude commonly adopted towards artifacts – and if it is applicable to human-robot interaction. The notion of trust emphasizes on the features that the trustee should have in order to be considered trustworthy by the trustor. These features, which include capability to make commitments, good-will, responsibility or freedom, imply that the trustee needs to have (at least some degree of) agency and consciousness – characteristics that present robots lack. Nevertheless, if, as it seems, a human can have the subjective experience of love towards a robot, we must ask a series of questions: can we talk about trust? Is there a vulnerability, a readiness to be betrayed? What role do loyalty or commitment play?

Sex Requires More Than Consent – Sex Robots and the Problems of Permissive Agency

Andreas Bruns – University Hospital Heidelberg – Heidelberg, Germany

Robots built for sexual purposes (‘sexbots’) are already a reality. While ethical concerns exist also where sexbots are mere masturbation devices (e.g., with regard to their appearances), serious issues arise where sexbots could be AI-driven, functionally autonomous agents. Here, debates have focused on the question whether sexbots could ever be expected to provide meaningful consent or if sexual activity with sexbots would always amount to rape.

This paper goes beyond these debates by looking closer at our common understanding of the connection between sex and consent. Setting off from diverging intuitions about the wrongness of sexual activity with humans, sexbots, and child-sexbots, I argue that sex requires more than the kind of ‘narrow agency’ one exercises when giving or withholding consent; sex requires ‘full agency’, the kind of agency one exercises when acting as the driving force of a situation. I then show what we can learn from this alternative understanding of the moral basis of sex, not just about the issue of sexbots, but also about human sexual interaction. In particular, I suggest that the strong focus on narrow rather than full agency can itself be understood as a conceptual artifact of the ‘rape culture’ it aims to resist.

15:50 - 16:10  Break

16:10 - 17:00  paper session 2: SexTech: Opportunities and Dangers

Sex Machina: An Ethical Analysis

Steven S. Gouveia – University of Porto – Porto, Portugal

Artificial Intelligence technology begins to be present in all aspects of our daily life, including human pleasure and intimacy. A sex robot (SR) is a technology that, at its base, uses an anthropomorphic design and is used to recreate sexual pleasure. The goal of our talk will be to evaluate the positive and negative arguments in favour or against the development and use of (SR). The positive arguments are:

(1) (SR) should be used since they will lower the sex trafficking of real human beings;

(2) (SR) should be used since it allows people in general (and those that cannot have human partners for contextual reasons such a mental diseases) to fulfil their sexual desires and fetishes without causing any ethical harm;

(3) paedophilia argument: (SR) that recreate children with specific characteristics can help reduce child sexual abuse by real victims.

Against these positive arguments, the negative arguments will follow:

(4) feminist argument: (SR) hypersexualize women in general and reinforce a sexist view of women and should be ban;

(5) the anti-paedophilia argument: other alternatives exist (psychotherapy, chemical or physical castration, imprisonment) that should have priority;

(6) (SR) can create diminished sexual interaction between humans and this can be a threat to human relationships and for human procreation in general.

The goal of our talk will be to show how the positive and negative arguments can help to offer specific ethical standards for the development and use of this technology in specific cases.

Positive TechSex

Nathalie Violette Kiepe – Università della Svizerra Italiana – Lugano, Switzerland

TechSex alters human sexuality. While a broad and blind use might bring about issues of normativity and reinforce gender oppression like pornography did, I argue that we can also use it another way: as a tool for liberation from sexual oppression. To do so, I suggest different strategies: first, more people from underrepresented groups ought to be included to define sexual desire from an inclusive perspective: for example, their help would be crucial in the elaboration of sex toys to ensure representation diversity and meeting needs and expectations. Then, I suggest using TechSex in a therapeutic sense, for example, VR as a tool in sexual therapy to discuss and have new ways of discussing sexual desire within, say, a couple, or use VR to treat sexual disorders. Ultimately a crucial step to positive TechSex is its inclusion into sex education as a means to discuss and reduce sexual oppression and discuss human relationships more generally. If anything, TechSex is the opportunity to discuss what human sexuality is: a bridge between purely carnal desire and desire for physical (and sometimes emotional) intimacy with another human being, and contrast it to the limits  and opportunities of TechSex.

17:00 - 17:15  Concluding Remarks 

 

Workshop Organised by

Prof. Tom Claes, CEVI, Ghent University

Prof. Lode Lauwaert, Chair Ethics and AI, KU Leuven

Drs Laurent Voet, CEVI, Ghent University

 

Hosted by Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry – CEVI

Ghent University