Design and market sexbots for older adults with disabilities, argues ethicist
Sexual fulfilment of this group important aspect of self-expression, health and wellbeing
The sexbot industry should include older adults with disabilities in the design and marketing of its products, to support their emotional health and wellbeing and help counter ageism and stereotyping, argues an ethicist in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
The physiological changes of ageing and increasing vulnerability to conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and arthritis, can interfere with sexual activity, but they don't eliminate older adults' sexual feelings or desires, maintains Dr Nancy Jecker of the University of Washington, Seattle.
She cites a landmark 2007 study of older US adults which showed that more than half (53%) of 65-74 year olds were sexually active, as were more than a quarter (26%) of 75-85 year olds.
Yet older age sex is often neglected by healthcare professionals and ridiculed and stigmatised by society in general, she suggests.
"Given ageist attitudes toward old age sexuality, it should come as no surprise that sex robots are generally not pitched to older people with disabilities. Instead, the current sex robot industry is focused on young, able-bodied, male clientele," Dr Jecker points out.
"Designing and marketing sex robots to older disabled people would represent a sea change from current practice."
But sexual desires are fundamental to a sense of what it is to be human to which everyone is entitled, she says. To enable their expression is integral to human dignity and respect.
Critics of the sexbot industry say that it merely promotes idealised female beauty and the objectification of women and endorses prejudice; that rather than solving problems, it is creating them, she acknowledges.
But sexbots for older people could not only help to generate a powerful counter narrative to pervasive societal ageism, but they could also promote and maintain good health, she suggests.
"Research demonstrates a positive correlation between general health and sexual partnership, frequency of sexual activity, good quality sex life, and interest in sex among middle-aged and older-aged adults," she explains.
"With assistance, older adults can continue to be sexual in ways they value, including sustaining sexually intimate relationships, deriving pleasure from sexual activity, and preserving high-quality sexual lives.
"Just as service robots are being designed to assist older individuals with functions such as eating, dressing and bathing, they might be designed to assist with social functions, serving as sources of affiliation and sexual partnership," she suggests.
Ultimately, sexbots could provide a vital lifeline to intimacy and connectedness and help to dispel loneliness and isolation, the scourge of many older people's lives, she believes.
"Older people suffer disproportionately from disabilities that interfere with their sexual capabilities. When this occurs, they often do not receive the support they need to maintain sexual function," she writes.
"Not only do older adults face ageism and ableism in the communities in which they live, but also healthcare professionals typically do not broach the subject of sexuality, and medicine is peppered with examples of ageist beliefs about later-life sexuality."
She concludes: "...the non-voluntary absence of sex from someone's life is not just a bad thing but also a threat to a person's identity and dignity."
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Externally peer reviewed? Yes
Evidence type: Opinion
Subjects: Older adults with disabilities
Could robots for sex, friendship improve our aging society?
Social isolation is worsening, so why does the idea of robot companions for seniors sound unseemly? A UW Medicine bioethicist addresses the issue
The current U.S. marketplace for sex robots is geared to fulfilling the needs of young, white, able-bodied, heterosexual males - a population perhaps least in need of such assistance - and simultaneously overlooks a vast demographic of potential customers: senior citizens.
A paper published today in the Journal of Medical Ethics calls out the opportunity among socially isolated, lonely people age 65 and over in aging societies, especially America. Many of them would value a robot's companionship and, yes, even its ability to provide sexual gratification, wrote the author, Nancy Jecker. She is a professor of bioethics and humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.
"We apply ageist attitudes and negative stereotypes to older adults. We assume they're too old to indulge in sex and think that older adults having interest in sex is weird or dirty," Jecker said. "We have similar attitudes toward people with disabilities, where most research has focused on protecting them from able-bodied sexual predators instead of considering their sexual needs and desires as human beings."
For decades Jecker has studied the aging of individuals and populations, as well as justice and other human traits and ideas. Robotics entered the picture, she said, when she recognized the declining ranks of workers to help care-dependent older adults, many of whom are physically disabled.
"Designing and marketing sex robots for older, disabled people would represent a sea change from current practice. The reason to do it is to support human dignity and to take seriously the claims of those whose sexuality is diminished by disability or isolation. Society needs to make reasonable efforts to help them," Jecker said.
Western cultures tend to see sex narrowly as an expression of lust, and assume that people over 65, who suffer more chronic disease and disability, lose desire for physical affection, she said. This is evident in the scads of inventions aimed at seniors, which focus on monitoring health and easing physical burdens while ignoring social and emotional fulfillment.
Sexual function, Jecker's paper argues, is an essential human value - linked to capacities for bodily integrity, affiliation, and emotions. A sexual identity can provide a basis for self-respect, not merely physical satisfaction.
But it's not all about sex, either.
"There's a whole spectrum of human desires. It's limiting to think only of sex bots or only of friend bots. Some older people want a companion that can provide both social interaction and physical affection," Jecker said.
Among people 60 and older in the United States, 43% report feeling lonely - largely a function of social isolation, according to research published in February 2020 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Published in book form, the paper described how people 50 and older increasingly live alone, in many wealthy, developed societies. It summarized evidence of the detrimental health effects of loneliness and called on healthcare professionals to try to alleviate the situation.
U.S. and other Western roboticists could take a cue from counterparts in Japan, Jecker said. There, Shinto beliefs hold that spirits (kami) embody both animate and inanimate things, allowing more receptiveness to the idea of robot companions.
"They are much more open to the possibility of pet robots and friend robots. They've been at the forefront of not just the technology but the humanities questions of 'How should we design these robots? What sort of social relationships would you want to have with them?' They don't share the Western roboticists' worry that robots are mechanical empty things that we can't relate to."
Jecker challenges robot designers to "think in terms of robots' capability rather than their utility - not focusing only on the sexual pleasure that a robot gives to an older, disabled adult, but focusing on what the robot enables the person to do and be."
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