Calico Rudasil is a feature columnist for Sssh.com, the award-winning porn site for women & couples. With over 18 years’ experience under her belt, writing about and for the adult entertainment industry, Calico qualifies as something of a Web Porn Dinosaur; similar to a tyrannosaurus, only with far more attractive arms and a less pronounced overbite.
It’s never a bad idea to get out ahead of things, especially if you happen to be someone whose job includes planning for the future development of your town or city.
At a time when the global human population is becoming progressively more urban with each passing year, it’s also sensible for planners in what are no suburban areas to think ahead about how the ever-forward march of urban sprawl may someday impact their communities.
That said, were I a member of the city council in Bryan, Texas – a city with a population currently estimated at 84,637 – writing new zoning ordinances pertaining to robot brothels might not be very high on my list of priorities.
Not in My Backyard – Or Front Yard… Or Side Yard, Or…
To forestall the seemingly not-so-imminent possibility of robot brothels showing up in Bryan, the city’s Planning Administrator Martin Zimmerman said it was important to add such brothels to Bryan’s existing zoning regulations, in advance of some robopimp showing up with a business plan.
“If we don’t define it (“it” being a robot brothel) as part of this (“this” being the adult entertainment business designation), then somebody could argue that this (robot brothel) might be OK in other districts,” Zimmerman said.
I suppose that’s true. Of course, it’s also true a forward-thinking entrepreneur could come along offering flux capacitors for sale, but I don’t hear Zimmerman or anyone else talking about restricting the resale of customized DeLoreans.
At any rate, the message Zimmerman and the Bryan city council is clear: “Not in My Backyard” – or front yard, or any other yard, if what you’re looking to sell is hookups with robotic approximations of human sex workers.
Houston, We Don’t Want Your Problem
So, why is the Bryan City Council taking up the issue of robot brothels now?
According to local media reports, the inspiration behind the Bryan City Council’s move to include robot brothels in its existing zoning regulations restricting the location of adult entertainment businesses was the fact a Canadian company, Kinky S Dolls, was “targeting Houston as the first market in a planned U.S. expansion.”
That idea didn’t go over too well with the Houston government though, with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner saying a sex doll brothel is “it’s not the sort of business that I want in the city of Houston.”
Sylvester isn’t alone in not wanting sex doll/robot brothels in Space City, of course – there’s also the group “Elijah Rising” an anti-human-trafficking organization which believes use of sex dolls, sex robots and/or porn encourages human trafficking.
“We’ve been seeing a lot of people on social media say this is going to solve the issue of sex trafficking,” said David Gamboa, a staff member of Elijah Rising. “That is not our stance. We saw it as going to actually encourage men, or at least create that proclivity in men, to go out and purchase a woman.”
Are These ‘Robots’ Really a Viable Replacement for Having Sex with Human Women?
While I can understand why someone might cast their gaze into the future, imagine a Blade Runner-level of realism in android approximations of humans and conclude that hyper-realistic sex robots are an eventuality we need to consider, I must ask: Are we truly so close to that day arriving?
In the same article which quoted Gamboa from Elijah Rising, we’re told a “company in California has produced a prototype hyper-realistic sex robot that can tell jokes, quote Shakespeare and remember birthdays.”
I don’t know about your husbands, sons and fathers, but with respect to my own, I’d say the ability to quote Shakespeare and remember their birthdays don’t rank particularly high on their respective lists of things that make them want to have sex with a woman.
My grandmother was a Shakespeare scholar (seriously, I’m not making that up) who reliably remembered to send my older brother a birthday card every year – and not once do I recall him ever trying to hire her to perform sex acts on him.
All told, I tend to agree with those who say our fear of sex robots is irrational – or not until they create ones which know how to convincingly flatter a tubby 40-something and persuade him they’re paying their way through med school with the tips he gives them, at least.
Calico Rudasil is a Sssh.com (@ssshforwomen) columnist and Sssh will be on Peeperz for fun times again in the near future, meanwhile why not check us out:
