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Sorayama Gynoid #9

1. TECHNOSEXUALITY

 

1.0  WHAT IS TECHNOSEXUALITY?

"Tricky..."

                                     -Deep Thought,
                                                                             "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

     Strictly speaking, the term Technosexuality is a word used to get away from the oft-confusing acronym, A.S.F.R., which refers to the sexual interest in machines, robots, androids, gynoids and other sexual devices not really occurring in real life.  And sometimes, ones that actually exist.

1.1. OKAY THEN, WHAT IS A.S.F.R.?

     A.S.F.R. was the acronym for the original usenet newsgroup, Alt.Sex.Fetish.Robots.  It was defined this way in the original FAQ by Robotdoll, and is still a fine beginning definition for those just getting started:

"The alt.sex.fetish.robots (ASFR) newsgroup is dedicated to the discussion of the concept of sex with or sexual attraction to robots and robot-like beings. This can range from metallic, non-humanoid machines to humanoid androids. Discussions can deal with specific fantasies, fiction relating to the topic and connected ideas like people behaving like/turned into human mannequins, dolls, toys, and other hypnosis and mesmerism fantasies that involve the mechanical/monotone response that appeals to the members." 

                                                                                       -Robotdoll, the ASFR FAQ, v 2.4

     Sadly, the ASFR newsgroup fell prey to online advertisers that crossposted all manner of unrelated spam.  The people who were actually there to see topic related material were driven out by the deluge to the degree that, as of this writing, the newsgroup is mostly dead.  The group's acronym however lived on far past the group's demise as any useful place to meet and exchange information and ideas.  Nowadays, it's been called Robofetish, Technofet, Technosexuality and among those that would rather things were kept simple, plain ol' A.S.F.R. 

     I refer to this as Technosexuality, or the people involved in it as Techno's. It goes far beyond a fetish for some, who may get offended if you trivialize the large and important part of their life that it plays by reducing it to the status of some fringe fetish.  And besides, anyone who's ever tried to explain to an internet newbie or a mundane what a dead usenet group is and how it applies to your sexuality knows what an exercise in frustration that can be.

1.2. SO IS THIS A NEW THING?

   Far from it.  The human race's fascination with the concept of an artificial lover dates back into ancient mythology.  How old is the myth of Pygmalion anyway? For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Pygmalion is the name of a sculptor from Greek Myth. He was aloof and cold to the women that wanted him, for none could match the beauty of the fantasy ideal he had in mind.  He started eventually to sculpt from ivory the image of Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, but in the doing, fell in love with the statue and started to sculpt her into the image of his ideal.  Letting that love guide his hands, he made her almost indistinguishable from life itself.  Moved by his efforts, Aphrodite granted the statue, Galatea (Sleeping Love), life so it could return his love.  Boiled down to its very essence, the myth tells the story of a person that created the ideal lover.

     The theme is seen in artwork through the ages. It crops up again in fiction and early automatons. It shows itself

in our theater and opera. (Most notably a comedic opera by the name of 'Coppelia', by Jean Baptiste Lully in 1681)  Though one might say the bomb that REALLY dropped and started it all in the 20th century was the early movie, Metropolis, by Fritz Lang.

     In this film, the mad inventor Rotwang kidnaps the heroine, Maria.  You see he's created a robot to be a replacement for a woman he loved.  But it needs a soul!  So when the need to get Maria out of the way in the general run of the plot presents itself, he imprints the image of Maria onto his Robot.  The scene itself is filled with the trappings of the mad scientist film before there ever was a visualized Dr. Frankenstein's lab.  (Unless you count Thomas Edison's lost version.)  The lady is in a confined little bed-thing with a big steel helmet on her head with wires coming out.  Rotwang throws switches and levers.  Chemicals boil, electricity flies, the robot on her throne is surrounded by energy and suddenly changes into the image of Maria.  Though when she opens her emotionless eyes, they seem to glow with an inner light. IT'S ALIVE!

     The mad scientist theme seems to perpetuate itself through all sorts of movies and shows later on.  There's the Bride of Frankenstein.  Any number of pulp serials full of hypnotized femmes.  Early TV series (Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, My Living Doll, Etc...)  Around the 60's however it seems that the people making the films and shows are starting to drop all the trappings of what Issac Asimov once called 'The Frankenstein Complex'.  The robot men and women are no longer trapped by programming gone awry, sending them out of control to wreak havok on an arrogant humanity who shouldn't have tried to 'Play God.' We see now the advent of artificial beings that are just as 'alive' as their organic makers.  And as we progress into the 70's and 80's, we see more and more instances of 'The Pinocchio Syndrome'  That is to say, benevolent and sometimes not so benevolent artificials that want to be 'real live' people.

     Of course we're still seeing the Frankenstein Complex.  (Blade Runner, Westworld, The Stepford Wives, The Borg in Star Trek) but now there's the added tone of eroticism. We all know sex sells. But in the aforementioned movies, the robot is no longer just an artificial creation meant to carry out the labours of a man.  The robot is now a receptacle for the affections of an increasingly alienated mankind.  In Westworld and The Stepford Wives, we see mechanical targets for a misogynist backlash against women by an ever more emasculated male population in the wake of the sexual revolution.  Priss (Darryl Hannah) is even cited as 'Your Basic Pleasure Model'.  But in Blade Runner... Here we see more and more mature themes showing themselves.  Here the machines aren't simply malfunctions. They've evolved thoughts and feelings of their own and want the respect due them as sentient beings.

     Move forward Ten years and we begin to see explorations of interactions with more sentient artificial characters.  Most notably Data (Brent Spiner) and Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) in Star Trek: The Next Generation.  They were notably 'Intimate' by Data's own description. More and more eroticized images of female machines are introduced by the Japanese airbrush artist, Hajime' Sorayama, who coins the term 'Gynoid'. Replacing the latin root Andros (male) in Android with Gyne (Female). And of course we get the resurgence of the Pygmalion Meme with movies like 'Mannequin' (Kim Cattrall).

     And now we have the Internet. And then we start to see ASFR start to manifest itself as a cohesive whole.  People who have been aroused by all these ASFR type concepts start putting together homepages that others stumble onto. They got themselves a FAQ together and eventually made themselves a chatroom and all sorts of message boards and galleries to share ideas and fantasies with one another.  Erotic Fiction started showing up.  And as image-altering software made it to the masses, altered photos of women (mostly) and men started to show up. This small and vocal group of fetishists, unsatisfied with the tidbits of erotica that suited them started to produce their own materials for sharing.  Nowadays, we have people producing audioplays and videos SPECIFICALLY targeted at Technosexuals.  Although rare, they are starting to get noticed more and more.

1.3. WAIT, WAIT, WAIT.  YOU WANT
TO HAVE SEX WITH A ROBOT???

     There's a question you may never get the same answer to twice.  For my own part, yes and no.  Do I look at that old robot on 'Lost In Space' waving its tentacular arms around and get all hot and bothered?  No. Not hardly.  Now when I look at the image of a polished chrome and flesh woman as painted by Hajime' Sorayama, or Jeri Ryan playing the infamous borg, Seven-of-Nine on Star Trek Voyager?  You better believe it, gentle reader.

     Am I indicative of the general mindset?  Who knows? Different concepts float different people's boats.  The idea of a person opening some access panel and showing circuitry and hydraulics underneath is enough to set some of us on fire. For some, it's seeing the supposed mechanical person damaged or malfunctioning in some robotic way. Some people only want the implication that the mechanical of their

dreams is an artificial life-form, seeming completely human in every way, as in The Stepford Wives, Austin Powers, or The Terminator.  The other extreme may be the streamlined jet-age art-deco look of Rotwang's 'Hel' robot in 'Metropolis', a completely inhuman, but stylized and sexually identified machine. And for still others, it's seeing said mechanical person being powered up, or running down. For some, the desired being may not have a physical form, existing as artificial sentient code in a computer mainframe. 

     And still the list goes on. Some are aroused by the artificial idea of a living toy or doll that can give or recieve affection. Others are aroused by transformations from or into robots. The transformation can be radically physical, from Borg-like implant installation, to a purely mental thing, as with intense brainwashing. It can be as subtle as nanotechnological conversion on the cellular level all the way to a brutal snuff-film-like chop-shop atmosphere.

     The conversion, whether consensual or not in concept, into a machine is all some people need.  Some need it to be very consensual or it crosses into rape fantasy. Others need it to be really non-consensual, or what's the point?  For some consensuality never enters the picture, since robots don't think or feel, but simply perform their programmed tasks. For others, the idea of consensuality never enters the picture because hypnosis is a mental state that by it's very nature is consensual, otherwise it doesn't work.

     For some, the fantasy is STRICTLY a fantasy only, the reality of which would never ever satisfy. For some it's the other extreme, being an ideal they would strive to achieve if given the chance, either in having the companionship of an artificial lover, or to actually become artificial themselves. And for still others, it's a chance to indulge in erotic roleplay and a rather specialized form of dominance and submission play. For some it's a chance to indulge in some arousing escapism by dressing the part in costume play or acting robotically.  As many variances and combinations of those differences as you might ever expect to find in more mainstream erotic genres and communities, you'll find just as many in Technosexuality and its related cousins. The idea seems to be that on some level, mentally or physically, the person or object of desire is artificial and programmable. That's the only real constant. After that, all bets are off.

1.4. SO HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO
PYGMALIONISM OR MIND CONTROL?

     The related cousins to Technosexuality I mentioned before are genres in their own right nowadays.  Pygmalionism & Mind Control have their own followings in such a way that people into them might not ever look at a robot story or picture.  But the concepts are quite similar in a lot of respects. 
     A fascination with control seems to be a constant between the three main areas. There's usually the constant of someone being in control; The User, Mad Scientist, Hypnotist, Sculptor, Master/Mistress, Programmer, Gorgon, Space-Alien, etc.  And of course where we have the controller, we have the controlled; The Android or Gynoid, The Statue, The HypnoSlave, The Living Mannequin, etc, etc...

     For the Pygmalionist, the control seems to involve quite a bit of the Startup/Shutdown sort of behaviours as well as the immobile and posable aspects of the Controlled. Whether the controlled person is a posable plastic or fiberglass mannequin, a tranced down living model serving as a mannequin or statue in a state of posable catalepsy (Hypnotically Frozen), or someone that's been petrified into a shiny gold or polished marble statue, toy or doll, the idea here is that someone has exerted a control over the controlled person's body or mind, rendering them into an artificial seeming being or object.

     For the Mind-Controller, the idea of stripping a person of their will or personality, rendering the controlled into a mindlessly obedient and programmable 'Robot' person is a common theme in Mind Control fiction and pictures.  Often in overtly robotic themed Mind Control media, there's the presence of all the trappings of transformation stories, turning the free-willed person into the object of desire mentally, and sometimes physically as well.  Usually there's all sorts of technosexual-themed methodologies to bring this conversion about.  The Mad Scientist's Lab, Slave-bot Nanites (Sub Cellular Sized Machines), An implanted, worn, or attached device. The methods by which technosexual themes can be applied to Mind Control erotica seem only limited by the imagination.

1.5. SO WHAT SHOULD I LOOK FOR IN A GOOD TECHNOSEXUAL FANTASY?

   If you ARE technosexually inclined, you already know what pushes your buttons. *AHEM!* This section I suppose is for those looking to understand some of the big turn-ons and turn-offs to do with technosexuality.  And like I said before, the interests are as varied as the imagination can run sometimes. And no two people will say the same thing. But there are some very common themes.

START-UP & SHUT-DOWN: In this regard, the Technosexual will percieve the imagined person to be activated or deactivated in all sorts of ways.  Some examples include:

In the classic movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the character of Truly Scrumptious is dressed in an Austrian Dirndl, and made up to look like a wind-up doll. Benny Hill, the toymaker, winds her up and she proceeds to do a little song and dance number, after which she slows to a stop when her mainspring winds down.

 In the late 1970's series, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the character of Buck Rogers is captured by the Draconian Princess Ardala, who copies his form and creates three android versions of him,

subservient to her will. These android copies, she activates with a TV remote contol-like device, which causes the still and blank-looking Buck-bots to be illuminated around the eyes for a moment and come to life. And later when she decides that the artificial Bucks couldn't possibly satisfy her like the real one she can't have, she shuts them down again JUST as mercilessly, returning them to a still and inert state.

VOICE: The mannerisms of speech can create the impression that the person speaking is an artificial being.  Sometimes the words spoken can be the source of arousal, speaking in long and drawn out over-technical descriptions of any given thing.  Sometimes all that's required is a nonotone and clipped delivery, pausing for a brief beat between words or syllables.  Or the person could just speak and refer to themselves AS a robot, every now and again making reference to their inherent robotic state of being, but in the dynamic tone of voice that someone as human as you or me might speak in.  Some examples include:

     In the early to mid 90's television series, Star Trek the Next Generation, Lt. Commander Data spoke in somewhat verbose and overly analytical terms, leaving emotional inflections for the most part recessed.  However he spoke in normal fluctuating tones of voice and not in a monotone. The same delivery, in a colder and more emotionally delivered fashion at times, was given to us by Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine in the later series, Star Trek Voyager.  Seven of Nine spoke in more coldly technical terms as befitted a race of emotionless drones and machines. Where Data was attempting to find and experience human emotion, Seven of Nine seemed to resist the onset of her own recessed emotions until she hit a sort of critical threshhold, and then leapt in with both feet. The same delivery is given its own spin by the actress Lexa Doig as Andromeda Ascendant in yet another Gene Roddenberry related series named for her character.  In which she plays the artificial intelligence residing in the gigantic starship, and a humanform gynoid.  As well, the actress Yancy Butler provided another take on the delivery as the gynoid, Eve Edison in the ill-fated series, Mann & Machine.

     More monotone examples might be the way Majel Barrett performed as the ship's computer in the old Star Trek series with William Shatner.  ( "WOR.KING." ) Any number of science fiction series wherein a person spoke in clipped monotones could be cited.  Think of the old stereotypical hypnotic fantasy, where someone might have both arms out in front of them, staring blankly ahead at nothing in particular, saying, "I.HEAR.AND.I.O.BEY.MAS.TER."  In some more well known Technosexual literary fiction, that brand of speech seems to be represented with the uses of periods breaking up the syllables as in the above example.

     Still another form of how the mannerism and content in the speech can arouse is when speech is delivered in the opposite extreme. Like the classic stereotype of the 'airheaded bimbo', here the innocent, or vacuous mode of speech can denote an empty-headed toy or living sex-doll. As with the fembot at the beginning of the movie, Cherry 2000, or the Barbies in Toy Story 2.  Or to drop into the example, "Dollies can't think silly! We just get to be pretty and be played with! Why would I need a head full of silly ol'  thoughts to do that?"

     And finally, the quality of voice can reflect the idea of being a

robot. This idea is usually limited to audio or visual media where special effects can be added to the voice, like reverberation in the case of Andromeda Ascendant in Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.  The concept of Startup & Shutdown is also reflected here. How else can you create the low to normal, and normal to low sound effect in someone's voice? Like with a record player suddenly unplugged, and the singer's voice lowering and sssllooowwwing to a stop...

MENTAL STATE: There's an inherent submissive or dominant quality to the robotic. All too seldom are the instances in which the mental state is like that of your everyday Dick or Jane.  The idea that the mindset of the controlled can be made to fit that of a fantasy lover is seductive and very close to that of the Mind Controller genre. Instances include:

     In the second Robocop movie, the cyborg Alex Murphy is controlled by prime directives in his operating system that prevent him from acting out on his own in certain instances. There's even a scene where a lovely computer scientist has Murphy connected to her Computer Terminal, typing his thoughts in on the fly, programming him to believe he's very lucky to not have to think for himself, Murphy repeating the words as she types them.

     In early and defining fiction pieces by the authors, Robotdoll and RC, there are instances of Robot Women assuming a dominant position, using implanted or installed technology to seduce, hypnotize and program people into robot-like positions of servitude. People who become the perfect servant for the one they wish to serve. In this instance, the controller becomes the ever-so deliciously controlled.

MOTION AND IMMOBILITY: In some fantasy, robots are not as mobile or as articulate as we human beings are.  They move like... Well, like a bunch of clunky robots!  Movements can seem stilted.  Measured. They can happen with great precision and machine-like grace... or clumsiness.  Immobility can denote a robot that's been shut down altogether. No power.  Flat battery. Needs to be wound up or activated. An example?

     The one example you may hear about before any other is the 'Doll On A Music Box' wind up dance from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  This movie inadvertently influenced the young minds of thousands, friends and neighbors. And more recently, there’s been a stage production in England featuring this dance number as well. The clockwork way in which the actress moves, with foleyed wind-up ratcheting noises is enough to reduce your average (if there is such a thing) techno to happy jiggly jell-o. 

    
Consider the simple act of reaching for your coffee cup. Break that down into its individual parts: Turn head to orient vision on cup, Raise Arm, Extend Arm, Extend Fingers, Rotate hand for grasping, Extand hand around cup, Close fingers around cup, Lift, and so on and so on. Breaking down movements into individual actions can seem mime-like.  And some of the best examples in media can still be found in the performances of mime artists like Shields & Yarnell.

     Shields & Yarnell were regulars on the now infamous Donny & Marie Osmond Variety Show in the 1970's. They were quite well known for their portrayal of 'The Klanks' a robotic husband and wife that moved robotically, with typically blank expressions on their faces.  Later, Darlene Yarnell has been used in all sorts of robotic parts in which she moved in the same stilted mechanical fashion, most notably as the character 'Dot Matrix', voiced by Joan Rivers in the Mel Brooks movie, Spaceballs.

     As of this writing, the best examples CURRENTLY viewable of this kind of robotic movement (At least in the author’s opinion, let me know if you find better. ^_^)can be found at www.mannequeen.com, where you can download movies of women acting in a robotic or toy-like fashion.

     Another example may be that of jerky, erratic, or nonsensical movement, as with a robotic malfunction. These can be as innocuous as adding salt instead of sugar to coffee, bumping into things as though your guidance mechanisms and spacial orientation circuitry or programming were malfunctioning, to grand-mal seizure looking jerks, twitches and spasms.  All three examples of this kind of movement can be seen in the series of movies based on the Ira Levin novel, The Stepford Wives.

MALFUNCTIONLet's face it folks. Robots can seem perfect. But when they go wrong, it becomes VERY obvious what they really are.  A twitching, half melted, stuttering, limb-detached, smoking, or erratically behaving robot calls attention to the fact that they ARE a robot.

     Some folks are very much into the idea of severe damage to a robot person. The exposed metallic skull peeking through Arnold Schwarzenegger's flesh leaves no doubt that underneath that cloned skin, there's a Cyberdyne Series 800 Combat 

Endoskeleton, Model 101.  The same can be seen with some of the aforementioned examples of Commander Data, Seven of Nine, and Andromeda Ascendant.  Battle Damage or catastrophic systems failure, as with the fembots in 'Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery' twitching, smoking and exploding in a pile of sparking sexy parts can be a big turn on for some.

     Others see malfunction as a purely mental thing. A fault in one's program or operating system can cause a robot to stutter like Matt Frewer's digital character from the 1980's, Max Headroom.  Indeed, Playboy Magazine took the idea a step further in the creation of their own playmate parody of the character, 'Maxine Legroom' as portrayed by the playmate Sandy Greenberg.  Stuttering, random words or erratic speech patterns, speech slow-down or speed-up can all be indicative of malfunction and have been explored several times over to arousing effect in popular media for the Technosexual.

     Then you start venturing into more obviously robotic people.  The golden-skinned Commander Data for a start.  The subtly implanted and corsetted Seven of Nine. Someone whose appearance is just too perfect.  Too smooth, too flawless to be realistically human, as with the robotic prostitutes in Steven Spielberg's opus, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.  Indeed, there's a lot of crossover here with that of latex, spandex, rubber, and lycra fetishists, who also love that smooth, tight and sometimes robotic look.

     And it just gets more robotic from there.  After these more subtle examples, you get people painted overtly silver. People that wear full head or partial protheses or masks like with The Borg, or Kigurimi Masks from Japan, where people transform themselves into a living breathing doll-like version of their favorite fictional or animated character. Or further still, reflective metallic fetish clothing that obliterates individual feature, accentuating the fantasy that the controlled is nothing more than a sexy machine, as with the infamous Thierry Mugler Robot Suit, based on the gynoids of Hajime' Sorayama.

APPEARANCEThe old saying goes, if it walks like a duck, squawks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it's likely a duck. The same goes with robots for Technosexuals.  The overt appearance of being robotic can take many forms, but will never fail to get some positive reaction out of your circuit-imprinted (As opposed to dyed-in-the-wool) Techno.

     As was touched on before, sometimes the android or gynoid in question can look unquestionably human, as with The Terminator, The Stepford Wives, or Andromeda Ascendant. Someone who could walk past you on the street and you'd never look twice.  Here the appearance factor seems to reside totally in behaviour or demeanor.

     And finally, there's facial expression.  The Blank Look.  The 1000-Yard Stare.  The Stoneface. They all describe the same thing.  That emotionless mask that falls over the face of your classic robot, living statue, or mind-controlled slave. They don't feel. They don't think. And you can see that absence of autonomy or soul in their expression.

     Sometimes that look will even be accentuated with the effect of glowing eyes, blank white or blank black sclera lenses that cover the entire eye. Sometimes it could be silver or circuit imprinted contact lenses.  Sometimes eyes that look like featureless pinballs in the head as with cyberpunk-ish fiction. In the aforementioned movie Blade Runner, the replicant characters were shot in such a way as you caught the reflection of the actors retinas on film, like when  you shine

a flashlight at a cat and their eyes seem to glow. Sometimes the eyes will be left un-augmented, but made to look as if the irises were really constricted or dilated.  Or just rolled up as if looking into the back of their forehead inside their skull.  If eyes are the windows to the soul, they're windows to the absence of one as well.

…or are they?

1.6. WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE ANYWAY?

     There is the question of who's usually the controller or controlled in these types of fantasies.  Isn't it very like the misogynist male supremacist stereotype put forward in The Stepford Wives?  Indeed, the term Stepford Wife has been likened to a meek, obedient hyper-effeminate woman who has no sense of pride or self-esteem in modern society, as with the old stereotypical Donna Reed.  (Nevermind that she was the one of the first woman TV executives of her day.) Is it all about men objectifying women?

     Gracious, I hope not! The women in my life have all been powerful and capable people, worthy of nothing less than total respect as individuals.  I'd certainly hate to imagine their thinking I wanted to reduce them to a set of remote controlled tits and boobs, with three orifices, preferably tight and moist.

     There does seem to be a cathartic release for some men as a backlash against more abusive forms of man-bashing liberated women in Technosexuality. I couldn't respect that myself, but I'm not about to pretend there's not men in the world that would be just fine with a remote control he can point at the bitch to shut her the hell up so she can get on with the business of being a perfect little fellatio device.  On the other side of the coin, there's likely women out there that may feel the same way about men.  Basically wishing they had a remote that they could turn this dildo with legs on and off with at her command, while not having to listen to his self-important yap.

     There are people like that out there.  The Technos you'll find in the online community, however are probably not going to be those people. Technosexuality has been described not so much as the objectification of people, but the humanization of objects.  Creating the ideal lover in the Technosexuality sense implies that the artificial partner you create or role play with is doing this willingly because it's what they were programmed to do. (Or agreed to ACT like they were programmed to do.)  It's why they were created. There's no guilt or repercussions. You remove the possibility for rejection or mutual abuse or hurt or misunderstanding.  Remove the human equation and all of that possibility for hurting another human being or being hurt goes away.  Talk about your 'safe sex'! Your robot lover will never get sick.  Make you ill. They'll never age...

     AHEM, anyway. The Technosexuals you’ll probably find online are going to be very intelligent, sensitive and respectful people on the whole. They don't follow Issac Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics or anything.  But if you are a Techno, these are people you probably share a lot in common with.  The common joke among Technos is that each and every last one of them at one point thought they were the ‘only one’. They're not. If you are one, YOU'RE not.  If it happens to be someone you know instead, THEY'RE not. And they're likely far from being some sort of degenerate pervert. It just seems in my own experience that nice and respectful people are the rule instead of the exception.  As with dealing with any real person, exercise common sense.  There are creeps out there. But it seems the Cool Person to Creep ratio among Technos is weighted very heavily AGAINST the creeps.

     This is all very nice, I hear you saying, but that doesn't answer the question who's in charge here.  The idea, if you wanted to put it into simple terms, is a very specialized version of Dominance and Submission.  And it seems to blanket and overlap several different aspects of itself in as many diverse ways as BDSM does. And even though there's a prevalence of women as the sub imagery out there, there's just as many stories out there where the woman or fembot is in charge.  So while it may seem that men are on top in this community, I don't believe that it was by choice. If anything, it was by default.  And I think we'd certainly welcome more women taking charge and meeting men as equals on the playing field, the internet, or in the bedroom.

     The 'Sub' that wants to be a dolly for you to be played with and squeezed and cuddled could be said to be indulging in a very specialized form of Age Play. (Role-Playing where one plays a different age from one's reality.  Also Infantilism.) The terminator/terminatrix type robot dominant may be indulging in a sort of topping that removes all uncertainties and guilts from being dominant.  A robot dom, after all, doesn't have to worry about going too far with their sub if they're only following the programming their sub put into them. (It doesn't feel pity or remorse! And it absolutely will not stop!"  -Kyle Reese, 'The Terminator')  Indeed, such a safe way of domming might even be considered by some to be an ideal way for a Sub to Dom.  They're in command, but they're also completely subservient to the needs of their bottom.

     The person that wants to immobilize or be immobilized in a roleplaying sense or hypnotically may be looking for that same thrill and sense of being catered to or helplessness that bondage enthusiasts crave when being mummified or elaborately tied or chained. What kind of ultimate control might your Master or Mistress have over you if they can freeze you without a link of chain or fiber of rope?  In this case, they own you in your skull as much as they do outside.

     And of course there's the more generalized ideas to do with dominance and submission.  The ideas from the media are really well used here.  Who will be a more heartless and unrelenting master or mistress than the machine, the mad scientist, super-villain, artist that sculpted you, 'evil'-hypnotist?  Who is more helpless and subserviant than the pulp-science-fiction damsel in distress, fembot, living doll, hypnotized sub? Are there more archetypes than these?  You betcha!  There's likely a dominant or submissive fantasy figure for every person out there that ever saw a Techno concept in a movie and had to shift in their seat.

1.7 - SO, LEVEL WITH ME.
ARE THERE WOMEN ACTUALLY INTO THIS?

     Believe it or not, yes there are. Friends and neighbours, I kid you not. We men folk probably outnumber them 10 to 1 in the online world. Half the women you meet in chat are likely men.  Some women that post are even assumed to be men out of hand, as is the case with a favorite Technosexual/Mind Control author and artist I'm quite a fan of. And women that lurk without posting sometimes NEVER reveal their actual gender. And it gives some of us fits!

     It's an understandable situation however.  Women online today tend to get pounced on immediately by any man that may perceive them to have even a vaguely female sounding online name.  Sometimes to the degree that some women will post under a male-identity out of sheer self-defense!  It happens to me all the time.  More than likely before someone has the common decency to try and chat you up, they're asking you in abbreviated terms, "A/S/L????????" (Age, Sex, Location.)  Geez, I don't even rate a 'Hello'?  Sound familiar ladies?  Every time you've ever been propositioned 8 times in a night and wished these guys knew what it was like, it's very likely your average Technosexual, Pygmalionist, or Mind Controller will know your pain and understand what you're talking about.  At least half of them have been there and have the lousy T-Shirt to prove it.

     This is not to say that Technosexuality or its related forms of play are strictly online phenomenon.  There are very happily married couples out there that indulge themselves in this kind of roleplaying without ever seeing the inside of a chat-room or bulletin board. Or at least, so it has been suggested to me.  And by some reports from people online that seem to love each other very much in the old real world, there's good reason to believe it.

     Women are often also under a form of societal pressure to feel shame about acting submissively in relationships and sexual roles.  And there's the stigma of the Stepford Wife.  Often, I would imagine, there's guilt. You know.  Something along the line of, 'What kind of woman am I to even consider being turned on by being a submissive or dominant sex object???'

     I'm here to tell you, ladies, at least from my own point of view, that it needn't be that way. The choice to give your obedience to a controller or will up for programming is a choice YOU make.  In my own eyes, the willing choice to take or give control, and thus render one's-self emotionally vulnerable in this kind of sense takes the kind of iron will any warm-blooded Techno would only be too happy to polish up for you. As much as it can be seen as a negative thing, it can be a HUGELY empowering thing.  By indulging in this fantasy, you hold the desire of your partner in your every movement and word. The totality of your existence is what we'd be aroused by. Talk about topping from the bottom.  Your partner may be your controller, but you have every bit as much control as your partner does... if not more. You as the controlled or controlling 'sex-object' maintain the fantasy and make it real.  It doesn't happen without you.  You are essential and integral.  What could be more empowering than that?

1.8. SO WHAT MEDIA CAN I FIND SOME OF THIS STUFF IN?

     This is a hot and cold subject. Where can you find Technosexuality in the media? Everywhere.  Just be prepared to dig a little. There is a thing I've heard termed as the 'Woulda/Coulda/Shoulda' factor in a lot of mainstream television or movies.  It WOULD have been better if said Robot Guy did this.  Robot chick COULD have done this and it would have really rocked. They SHOULD have had the mechanical person totally act this way.

     The moments in a lot of mainstream movies are usually all too brief and fleeting to justify going through an entire movie or show to see.  An episode of Andromeda for example may feature a total of 15 minutes of Lexa Doig on Camera.  And maybe she'll act robotically once.  Or twice.  For maybe 5 seconds.  Or the larger and more well known example might be the aforementioned movie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  The movie is huge folks.  And the wind-up dance sequence that Truly Scrumptious performs for the King of Vulgaria is maybe 3 minutes, if you take Dick Van Dyke's part into it.

     Now, would anyone sit through this longer than two hour children’s movie just to see three minutes of it? You're darn tootin' we would!  As a matter of fact, there are folks who've gone as far as sampling out digital clips of the films so you don't have to watch the WHOLE movie. There are people that have made quicktime movies of commercials just because of a timestopped moment.  People that have dug through their old videotapes and made movies of those crucial but brief moments in things like Wonder Woman, Charlie's Angels, or obscure movies of the week from older network TV.

     There are made for TV movies from cable channels. Network Series that lasted only one season and were never picked up like Mann & Machine, My Living Doll, Automan.  There's any number of sight gags and themed sketches from variety shows like Mad TV or Saturday Night Live, one of which features the infamous Britney Spears as a living Barbie Doll. (Self-parody perhaps? She was also a fembot at the beginning of Austin Powers: Goldmember)  And that doesn't even get into all the commercials or songs, or music videos, novels or comic books.  There are in fact so many, I am not going to list them all here. People more dedicated to that purpose than I have made entire pages devoted to chronicling every last instance of Techno, Statue, or Mind Control instances in Television, Radio, Fiction, Comics, and the Movies. I shall include links to those pages at the end of this FAQ so you can go do your own researching.

     And when you do go looking?  You'll find that these people are very much aware of the niche they occupy. And they're no longer satisfied with just sifting the deluge of product from the entertainment mills of Hollywood for the occasional nugget that gets them into that aroused place. You'll find that any number of authors have sprung up to produce erotic fiction that caters to what excites them. Digital artists have taken to photo-manipulating stills of popular celebrities or internet porn into what satisfies their Techno, Statue, or Mind Controlling urges.  And some rare few have gone beyond that, producing original videos or audioplays of the aforementioned fiction.  I should know.  Trust the Rose on this. I have CD-Rom's FULL of this stuff. And no, don't mail me asking for copies. I have a 56k connection and no money for such things.  You'll have to find them yourself.  Hey, at least I'm pointing you in the right direction, yes? Which leads me to...

1.9. ALRIGHT, SOUNDS GOOD! 
WHERE ARE THESE PEOPLE ANYWAY??

     Now that you're ready to look for some of the things that turn Techno's on, where do you go to find these people?  How do you get in touch with these people that share your interest? Where are some people you can talk to to get advice on living with and exciting the Techno in your life? What?  I haven't answered enough of your questions already???  DAMN PEOPLE!! *smile*

     Well, I'm glad you asked. There's LOTS of nice friendly places, clubs and bulletin boards where Techno's go to congregate, exchange information about the latest movie or show tidbit. Work out new plots and stories.  Role-play online. Internet Relay Chat rooms where people talk in real time and cyber-sex with one another and generally be terribly supportive.  One is 'Fembot Central', a PHP style BBS that's WAY user friendly and segmented into nice little sections where you can quickly find what you're looking for.  From there, you could find the addresses into IRC rooms and Yahoo Groups and Lycos Clubs and fiction archives and personal pages with links to all the other places that the people on Fembot Central may have missed. 

Here's some URL's to some of the majors to get you started out of my own bookmarks:

The Alt.Sex Fetish Robots Homepage
http://www.asfr.com

Fembot Central
http://www.fembotcentral.com/bbs/index.php

The Female Android Cornucopia
http://monza.yi.org/Preview/

The Many Realms of Fantasy
http://www.many-realms.net/

The Legacy of Timeless Beauty Story Arhive
http://www.many-realms.net/LTBSA/index.html

Robo-Lover's ASFR Fiction Archive
http://members.aol.com/robolvr/fiction.htm

The Master List of ASFR-Related Material
http://www.many-realms.net/master-list/list.html

And my own sites...

The Bestiary - The WinterRose ASFR Homepage
http://winterrose.web1000.com

The Psycho Technoid Theater of the Wired
http://psycho.technoid.theater.web1000.com
 

The Technosexual, Statuephile, Dolly, & Mind Control Haven
http://clubs.lycos.com/auth/live/Directory/CommunityHome.asp?CG=affcmm8fdfah386m0188nohtss

The Mind Control & ASFR Artists' Prop House
http://clubs.lycos.com/live/AUTH/Directory/CommunityHome.asp?CG=5utd48a67nskh9d12ceqdm1n3s

Privatepages.com - The Realm of Enchantment - The WinterRose Galleries
http://www.privatepages.com
 

1.91.  SO HOW WOULD I RECOGNIZE A TECHNO? 
IS THERE A ‘HANKIE CODE’?

     Well, I don’t believe there is a hanky for a Techno in the huge pages to do with those codes. For those of you that are scratching their heads and going HUH?? In clubs and scenes, there are certain codes to do with hankies or bandannas. If you wear a certain colour hanky hanging out of a pocket on the right or left side of your clothes, it could mean you’re into spankings.  The side you wear it on would indicate whether you wanted to give or recieve them. And it’s applied to any fetish you might imagine. Looking them up, Gold, Silver, Mylar, and Gold Lame’ have already been spoken for it would seem.

     What to do? Well, it has been suggested in the past that we affect the good old fashioned Wind-Up key from old wind-up toys. We could wear em on shirts, since someone sells em.(http://www.cafeshops.com/asfr)  We could get keys and put em on necklaces or pins or whatever kind of jewelry you can think of. I know I wear mine on a chain. With a little metallic rose on it that I put there. ^_^

1.95 - THE FUTURE.

     "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friends, future events such as these will affect you in the future."

                                                 -Criswell, 'Plan 9 From Outer Space'.

     So is this all just science fiction and unrealistic longing?  Today it is.  We may or may not see the advent of robotics in our lifetime.  There are so many factors involved that it isn't even funny. But the idea is inevitable, in my own view.  The idea of robots seems indelibly branded on the consciousness of the world. Entire branches of science are devoted to its research to bring it about. 

     There are innumerable papers written out there for your perusal about the coming convergence of evolution into hybrid mechanical/biological creatures as a species. There are people out there researching mechanical limbs. Mechanical organs already exist in some primitive, and sometimes NOT so primitive fashions.  In the last two years, it's been loudly decried that the first cyborgs exist, through microchip implants.  Considering the need for mechanization of body parts that have been damaged or worn out, there's really no reason to believe it will stop there.

     Then there's nanotechnology. Like it or not folks, it's coming. Nanotechnology has already advanced to the point where a guitar has been sculpted no bigger than the size of a human blood cell.  (www.lutherie.net/ nano_gtr.html)  World leaders have already anticipated the advent and are preparing for it, as noted in plain old scientific journal articles you could look up yourself. 

     It's been theorized that colonies of nanomachines could manufacture and replace protein stem-cell caps, halting the biological clock and the effects of age. Lace our bones with diamond or titanium. Increase the tensile strength of the softer parts of the body, in effect, making us capable of surviving things like a 3 story drop so well, we could just get up and walk away. Colonies that protect us from ultraviolet sunlight.  Colonies that seek out and destroy cancerous cells with mutated genetic structures. Colonies that produce oxygen within us, or enable us to metabolize the oxygen from seawater, conceivably opening up the frontiers of the rest of our planet to us beneath its oceans. And of course that doesn't even get into the possibilities for finally opening up the ol' FINAL FRONTIER. Post humans or Robotic humans would be the ideal beings for the vanguard into space.  To the moon.  Or Mars.  Or maybe even beyond.

     This doesn't even get into the possible uses for brain augmentation.  Nano-colonies that seek out and replace or rebuild failing neurons.  Or the enhancements for memory and recall or expansion of intelligence. And once that's advanced far enough, it isn't that hard to imagine that once a person is more nano than neuron inside their skulls, that the consciousness of that person is more program than bio-supported animus. Could the human consciousness be downloaded from a failing body into a computer network or robot? 

     Consider the effect on lifekind.  How resource friendly would post-humans be in a world capable of safe energy resources and recycled materials? "Boy am I hungry.  I need to go soak up some rays. My batteries feel a little drained.  I'll set my emulator to perceive the sunlight through my solar panels as tasting like chocolate." 

     And these post humans, still being living, thinking, feeling beings will likely still want to be able to show their affection for one another.  By necessity, there'd have to be a post-human or robotic-human equivalent of sex. Or would it be that necessary without the biological drives that we're in thrall to as humans?   As beings that could potentially live for millennia, how would that bear on one's drives socially or romantically? 

     If we still wanted to produce offspring, how would it be done between human and machine consciousnesses? Perhaps a batch of donated nano-programmed sex cells could be produced with the preserved genetic code of the post human for combination with the sex cells of the biological significant other's.  How would two purely code-based post human intelligences work it out?  Might they copy and combine their programs into an new combination of themselves? Might they merge completely into a new consciousness?

     Is it all really that farfetched?

     Maybe.

     Men and women are already having sex with robots to some degree.  CRUDE robots. But by the strictest definitions, robots all the same.  The vibrator. The mechanical penis pump. They're both mechanical devices meant to do the work of a man... or woman. But it doesn't stop there.

     With the advent of things like Silicone-Based sex dolls like RealDolls and SuperDolls and any number of Japanese equivalents, the idea of sex with robots becomes more and more realized.  These dolls are said to be solid and realistic feeling.  And in some people's opinions, SUPERIOR to flesh and blood human beings. They're being sold as we speak to people for between 3000 and 6000 dollars US. Completely customizable in appearance; people are already deviating from the constraints of the traditional human design, having dolls made for themselves in colours straight out of science fiction. Female designs with penises AND vaginal openings.  MALE designs with penises and vaginal openings. It would seem that the only constraint on design is whether or not it can be built.  And the technology is improving all the time.

     With the advent of things like Silicone-Based sex dolls like RealDolls and SuperDolls and any number of japanese equivalents, the idea of sex with robots becomes more and more realized.  These dolls are said to be solid and realistic feeling. And in some people's opinions, SUPERIOR to flesh and blood human beings.  They're being sold as we speak to people for between 3000 and 6000 dollars US.  Completely customizable in appearance; people are already deviating from the constraints of the traditional human design, having dolls made for themselves in colours straight out of science fiction. Female designs with penises AND vaginal openings.  MALE designs with penises and vaginal openings. It would seem that the only constraint on design is whether or not it can be built. And the technology is improving all the time.

     Does that make these dolls robots? Not if they were just dolls. But they're even more sophisticated than that already. Some of them have sensors implanted in them at strategic spots. Plug your doll into your PC and use the appropriate program to define responses? It's not inconceivable that when you touch it on a certain part of its body, it replies to you with the programmed response right out of your PC's speakers. The voice of anyone you can sample speaking being available to you. And that doesn't get into the mechanically assisted vibration possible in a mouth, anus, penis or vaginal opening. And that REALLY doesn't get into the fact that you can buy these things built to actually MOVE under the power of motors meant to make the hips rotate or thrust back and forth. Or get them with steel skeletons within, making them quite sturdy or posable.

     Sound like programmable sex machines yet? In their basic and not so basic form, yes indeed.  Is there any reason to believe that the technology will stop there? I very much doubt it.  Based on the success of existing technological alternatives to sex, research into nanotechnology, the scientific research being poured into robotics and computers, and the research into biological and technological convergence?  This isn't just weird science fiction conspiracy X-files theory. The research is taking place while you're reading this FAQ.  The documentation is something you can search out yourself.  This is happening.  Robot sex isn't a matter of if, ladies and gentlemen.

     It's when.

     That’s the end of the Technosexual section of this great honking FAQ.  If you have any questions I didn’t answer, or would like to submit some facts of your own, E-Mail me at jt_winterrose@graffiti.net If you’d like to know about some of the other facets of sexuality in this group of fetishes I’ve written about, please do follow the links below.

Technosexuality

ASFR

Dollers

DOLLERS

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BACK TO MAIN

Pygmalionism

PYGMALIONISM

Mind Control

MIND CONTROL

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E-MAIL ME!

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