Several sexual revolutions ago there was something called the Sexual Revolution – free love made possible by new social attitudes and a new pill that decoupled sex from propagation. That was fun for a while but not forever because nothing is, and collectors of old Spa magazines, if there are any such, might thumb back to a 1998 issue that introduced a 33-year-old trading company employee who asked, “If we love each other, what do we need sex for?” To which 46 percent of 115 young men the magazine polled replied in effect, “Exactly.”
Along with post-sex came a plethora of sex substitutes, notably the life-size, lifelike dolls known as “Dutch wives.” “But you know,” a magazine now defunct called Dacapo heard in 2004 from Hideo Tsuchiya, president of the (now defunct) doll manufacturer Orient Industry Co, “a Dutch wife is not merely a doll, or an object. She can be an irreplaceable lover, who provides a sense of emotional healing.” One thing is sure: she’ll never betray you.
It was only a matter of time before sex revolutions begot a gender revolution and the liberation it brought from male-female stereotypes. Our current location along a road still largely unpaved, in fact unmapped, is designated LGBTQIA+: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (or questioning), intersex, asexual (or ace) – plus.
Reality’s turn virtual turned sex virtual – not entirely of course, but new possibilities opened up which would have boggled the minds of our not-so-remote ancestors – as our own minds are being boggled even as we live, and a hint of what lies not very far ahead – it’s upon us already, in embryo – is offered by Shukan Post (Jan 17-24). The new component, or sex aid, or sex substitute, or however it turns out, it’s still too soon to say, is artificial intelligence. The magazine’s immediate concern is what AI will do the AV (adult video) industry. But the implications ripple far beyond that.
The article is in the form of a dialogue between retired AV actress Sora Aoi and journalist Chiwawa Sasaki. “AV is so different now than when you debuted 20 years ago,” Sasaki observes. Very different indeed, agrees Aoi. She recalls the scouts who thronged Tokyo’s Shibuya amusement area. She herself was scouted. They’re a vanishing species. Now, she says, aspiring actresses scan opportunities online and thus, in a sense, have seized the upper hand.
Can they keep it, she wonders. Because there’s new competition on the block – AI-generated “perfect beauty.” Aspiring actresses have always gone to great lengths to make their own faces and bodies fit for the trade. But even the most skilled plastic surgeons must work with the material at hand. AI, on the other hand, is no more bound by biology than are Dutch doll makers, and much less bound – in fact scarcely at all – by physics. The question once posed more or less sardonically about dolls recurs now without a trace of irony: how can a living, breathing, flawed woman rival flawless beauty? By living and breathing? That doesn’t get you far these days!
Perfect, ideal beauty as the ultimate quest of art goes back thousands of years. Pygmalion, legendary sculptor of ancient Greek myth, carved his ideal woman of ivory, and loved her as he could no living woman, so unsatisfactory were they in comparison. Times change, and then again they do not.
© Japan Today
19 Comments
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Moriah
and turned sex into a transactional commodity void of meaning and intimacy.
starpunk
In Every Dream Home a Heartache. I remember the movie 'Logan's Run' featuring hologram 'women' lovers, maybe men to. This has been written about and forecast in sci-fi so many times, it's been the focus of the awful movie 'Mannequin' from 1987 and its sequel 4 years later.
There are sexbots out now such as Roxxxy and similar ones. They are programmed to 'say something' when a hand is squeezed, or something else is done. It can Be Your Girl and you can make it your wife. You can call it 'Sally'. Lenny Kravitz wrote about the 'Black Velveteen' for all those yuppies who are too 'busy' trying to make a zillion bucks.
No intimacy, no meaning, no humanity at all. No thank you.
Cephus
"and turned sex into a transactional commodity void of meaning and intimacy."
Brutal, but absolutely true!
"No intimacy, no meaning, no humanity at all. No thank you."
Totally agreed!
OssanAmerica
I thought we no longer used the term "actress". Both genders (et al) are now called "actors".
Of course in Japan, they still use 女優.
Zaphod
Absolutely. If they thought they were immune from the job transfer to robots and AI, they were deceiving themselves.
falseflagsteve
Time to ban all this filth that corrupts society in a vulgar and coarse manner.
Peter14
Sorry to break it to you but sex has been a transactional commodity since the invention of barter, changing to money when that was introduced. It is the oldest profession along side hunting and soldiering. It (consenting sex, imagery and movies for payment) will continue to exist for as long as humanity exists.
TaiwanIsNotChina
You know you can just move to Saudi Arabia. The porn is probably still there but they will hide it better.
Zaphod
Peter14
That is true as far as it goes, however broadband internet and smartphones add a new dimension that humanity never had to deal with before.
In regard to this topic, unlimited access to hardcore porn in every childrens room is a gigantic social experiment the result of which is still unknown.
Khuniri
The commonly held view of not so very long ago, both West and East, is that sex is rightly restricted to marriage and is not simply an appetite, a form of recreation. My guess is that the majority of JT readers have no use for such thinking and thus give thumbs down to anyone who dares to suggest that pornography is anything but morally neutral.
kibousha
I thought we're all for "women empowerment". If women can no longer sell sex, they can focus on whatever else to achieve their dreams! Best part is, as society we no longer need to "police" it.
AI will finally free women!
commanteer
That has pretty much never been true for men. Not in practice, anyway.
Zaphod
Khuniri
Sex is a biological function (nature's incentive to procreate) and is a heck of a lot more complex than "an appetite, a form of recreation". Especially for human females; it is pretty safe to assume that you are a young male. Introducing unlimited on-demand hardcore porn via internet plus now even robot sex via animated dolls and AI is guaranteed to add even more complexity to the thing. I have no idea how it will play out, but I am dubious that it is all games and sunshine.
Khuniri
Both commanteer and Zaphod miss my point—and the larger picture, the moral, human question…Yes, left to their own amoral devices, males will bed as many females as they can. That is why rules are needed, including one to a customer. The “sexual revolution” was not liberating; instead, it brought neo-barbarism. I am an old man, with children and grandchildren, and I remember it all...I fully expect to get thumbs-down, because this is an unwelcome message from the real world.
TaiwanIsNotChina
There were no brothels in Europe and Japan? Fascinating.
So there are customers paying for a service?
1glenn
Recently went to an Apple Store, where I saw they now have a headset computer for sale, about 3,500 USD. Thirty years ago portable phones were very rare, and today we can buy headset computers. I for one do not know where technology is headed, but one thing is for sure, change is inevitable.
Khuniri
To TaiwanisNotChina
You make my point for me...Running or working in a brothel was never regarded as morally equivalent to running or working in, for example, a restaurant. Prostitution has been (fatalistically or cynically) tolerated, but it has never been considered to be anything but a vice. That was true of ancient Rome. It was true of Edo-period Japan.
"One to a customer" is a reference to monogamy.
Zaphod
Khuniri
I think fundamentally you are right, although there are interesting outliers, such as the temple maidens in ancient Greece or the wife-sharing with visiors among traditional inuit. Human society is complicated.
Monogamy is a different concept. I would think historically it is rarer than e.g. polygamy, which is practised in e.g. the islamic world.
1glenn
In movies and dramas, whenever an artificial human is part of the plot, they have always, so far, been portrayed by an actual human actor. So, what this article is talking about is only a possible eventuality. When someone is finally able to make a movie where a fake human is portrayed by a fake human, wake me up.