At Loser City, friend of the Gutter Nick Hanover has some thoughts on the new HBO show, Westworld. “Have you ever noticed that the most advanced sexual pleasure technology is designed for women yet the bulk of sci-fi featuring any kind of “pleasure bot” centers around men’s pleasure? Taking that further, have you noticed that the best sex tech for women usually doesn’t look much like a penis (or any body part for that matter) while things like the FleshLight and love dolls make their creepy “realism” a selling point? These aren’t unique observations but they’re the kinds of things I can’t help but dwell on whenever some new work about human-like robots comes along, internally counting down the moments until the work smirkingly shows off its twist on the pleasurebot phenomenon. In the case of the new HBO series Westworld, I didn’t even get a chance to begin that countdown as the show literally begins with a battered, naked woman robot, and while the show tries to make itself stand out from its pulpier peers, the unsettling nature of its view of women (both human and robot varieties) is the only part of the show I am driven to think about one way or another.”
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