"Strangers on the Internet" Podcast Episode 29: The Sex Robot in the Closet

International sex robots expert Dr. Kate Devlin tells all

The twenty-ninth episode (Apple Podcasts link here and Spotify link here) of Strangers on the Internet with co-host and psychologist Michelle Lange has us chatting with international sex robots expert and "Turned On" author Dr. Kate Devlin, who explains the current state of technology and her views on the moral panic surrounding parasocial relationships with robots. Kate believes that most of people's fears about sex robots or AI replacing human relationships are overblown in a world in which even carrying around and finding a place to store a robot (the closet?) are challenges.

In the second half of the episode, Kate also shares about her personal life, be it her search for balance with bipolar disorder, her polyamorous and dating app-related experiences, or the loving relationship with her younger (second) husband she found on Twitter. You will not want to miss our conversation with this Northern Irish powerhouse!

Dr. Kate Devlin

Comments

[Dr. Ed 2]

This was after Hurricane Bob, when a USCG bouy was over a nautical mile from where it was supposed to be (it and its one-ton concrete mooring block got dragged by the storm). That is relevant because we didn't think that anyone could possibly be stupid enough to run aground on a *lighthouse* on a clear night with a nearly full moon. And this was in the days of LORANS when you had to do the math that the GPS does for you automatically.

He'd radioed in his LORAN numbers and we figured they were wrong, it's easy enough to get numbers wrong when you are cold, wet & scared, so the first boat was sent to the ledge that no longer had a bouy on it, but he wasn't there. His numbers were right, he'd actually run aground on the small island that had the lighthouse on it.

He had a young lady with him, we politely assumed wife although none of us really believed that, and we found him in about 4-5 feet of water, he'd literally run aground on the ledges, which tore the bleep out of the bottom of his sailboat.

He was worried about the fact that he couldn't find his credit cards. Nothing about "thank you for coming out here" (and in rural Maine, these are unpaid volunteers doing this) or "where is my wife/girlfriend/bedmate?" but his credit cards.

Memory is he was told something about how Lobsters aren't known to be into credit card fraud, but he could call the banks to cancel his cards once we got ashore. (This was before cell phones.)

Three decades later, I am still struck how he was more worried about his credit cards than a woman he had been sleeping with a half hour earlier. She's a human being, you can't call the bank and get another one of her reissued....

And I view this "Strangers on the Internet" as being the female version of that...

[Dan Schiavetta]

It’s not quite as bad as that, but this is still pretty bad. Why can’t Eugene find a serious person for his one female blogger? I think I might leave soon.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“IRINA MANTA is a Professor of Law and the Founding Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University.”

Some posts on intellectual property would be quite useful on a blog such as this, but instead we get cartoonists who compare men to ticks…and now Northern Irish sex robots (“before we begin, are you Protestant or Catholic?”)

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's manbashing, nothing less.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"Beep boop beep...my diodes are up here, creep."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Robots are programmable.

I think that is what a few people are missing, if the only thing women bring to a relationship are body orifices, they can be replaced with sexbots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqokkXoa7uE

[John F. Carr]

Kirstie Alley played an alien with eyes where her nipples should be.

[John F. Carr]

Sex robot expert, bipolar, polyamorous. She does lead a full life.

[Frank Drackman]

and a younger (second) Husband, his future, I see Pete Bootyjudge learning Irish just so he can have a younger (second) Husband

[Michael P]

Not just any sex robot expert, even -- an international one.

I'm not interested enough to find out whether that means an expert on international sex robots or an expert on sex robots who was on an international flight during the interview (or something else).

[ReaderY]

An international-sex robot-expert?

In otherwords, an expert of the robotic persuasion whose (take your pick) (a) gender is not merely trans, it’s transnational or (b) likes to do it while crossing borders.

What a thus-hyphenated expert is an expert in, this hyphenation doesn’t tell us.

[JSinAZ]

“In the second half of the episode, Kate also shares about her personal life, be it her search for balance with bipolar disorder, her polyamorous and dating app-related experiences, or the loving relationship with her younger (second) husband she found on Twitter. You will not want to miss our conversation with this Northern Irish powerhouse!”

Why would anyone talk about their miserable “polyamorous and dating app-related experiences”? Another rotten self-absorbed piece of shit millennial exhibitionist.

Reason sucks shit. I’m sure this new writer does too, and no doubt will talk about it on her next “dating app experience” discussion.