Sad Sex Robots

Note: This can be a touchy subject. The very last thing I want to do is bring any shame to it. This is not about drawing conclusions or saying what is right and wrong. These are thoughts and questions based off of my personal experience, which is mine to own. Yours can be entirely different and yours to own. My reason for sharing this is because it doesn’t really get talked about and if it does, it’s polarizing. But processing through this is a part of my life and I wish I could do that more with people instead of pretending like we don’t all have some level of relationship or experience with it. So please know that is where I’m coming from. My hope is it results in more questions and conversations over a drink rather than Facebook rants and upset messages. My hope is that it simply causes people to pause for a moment and think. That is all.

 

I spent an hour reading about how sex robots are a thing. AI robots with ‘warming intimate areas’ and the ability to hold a conversation, express desire, and learn about you. Researchers predict that between 2030-2050, sex robots will be normative. There will be sex robot brothels to replace human prostitutes (anyone who finds this intriguing should watch Ex-Machina). I also saw articles that referenced the impending mainstream of virtual reality porn. And another article that mentioned web cam sites that allow users to upload a photo of someone they find attractive (friend, co-worker, celebrity, anyone) so it can use facial-recognition software to pull up similar looking sex-models from their database. This beautiful, humanity-restoring material inspired me to visit some porn sites. It had been almost three years since I’d done that. The same thing that always happened, happened: my ears and cheeks got hot, my heartbeat went funny, and after clicking out I felt sad.

It used to make me sad because I was with someone who couldn’t get enough of these women forever scrolling across the screen, arranged and dominated in window boxes. They were perfect because they were quite literally: unending. Instant, always desiring, never asking, and completely uncomplicated. I was sad because I didn’t know what my response was supposed to be and it confused my perception of what was real and what wasn’t. Is this supposed to be seen as pretend entertainment or an instruction guide? If one is aroused by demeaning, aggressive, exploitative sex, does that mean they want that for their own sexual relationship? If not, what is the value in watching it? If your partner closes their eyes during sex, are they picturing all these other women and does that prevent connection and intimacy? Is this what makes it difficult to stay hard or last long enough and is that the only thing that is going to get people’s attention? If they’re spending hours with them instead of you, does that count as cheating? I used to pray that he’d just ‘actually’ sleep with someone else so that I’d at least be able to make sense of the pain I felt from the constant, quiet competition. It used to make me sad because I had an overwhelming suspicion that I had been having sex with someone for years and yet we had never really touched each other.

But this time I wasn’t seeing it as someone looking to spice up their sex life or trying to understand their significant other. I was seeing it for the first time as someone who has been sexually assaulted. Now it made me sad because I know what it is like when someone picks you out and decides that your body is for consuming. I know what it is like to be arranged, dominated, and rendered completely uncomplicated. I am a part of a system that agrees sex is something that men do to women or watch women do to each other. I understand there is a level of consent in pornography, making it different from sexual assault. But I would argue that both are dehumanizing. There are so many men who would never EVER dream of abusing, harassing, or assaulting a woman. Men who consider themselves feminists. Men who stand up for women, respect, value, and praise women. But I think what they really mean by women is women they know. Because when it comes the women they watch in porn, is that respect null and void? Are they valuing those women for who they are or what they will do? Are those women being stood up for or laid down for? It seems like the only “right” viewers care about is the right to consume someone else’s body as a means to an end without it being abuse or assault. Because we all hope and assume that these people are getting paid well and enjoying their job. But there is also plenty of evidence that the porn industry is rampant with physical abuse, sexual trauma, drugs, and mental health disorders. Documentaries, research, and the personal accounts of ex-porn actors all indicate that there is a lot more to the conversation than is being widely discussed.

Our world compartmentalises porn. It puts porn in this box and says this couldn’t possibly contribute to 1 in 3 women being sexually assaulted, 4.5 million people being trapped in forced sex work, rising rates of impotence and ED, half of marriages ending, and generally being the most addicted, depressed, obese, in-debt adult cohort in all of history. It couldn’t possibly contribute to that because everyone does it. It’s normal. It’s fine. This is just acting. No harm, no foul. But let’s look at these statistics from PornHub’s 2015 annual review. Keep in mind this is just one porn site.

• 87,849,731,608 videos viewed (that’s 12 videos viewed per person on earth)
• 4,392,486,580 hours of porn watched (that’s 2.5x longer than homo sapiens have been on earth)
• Americans account for 41% of overall traffic
• The most common search terms were “teen” and “stepmom”

You can’t have statistics like this for anything and not have it creating an enormous impact, even if its subconciously. Even if it hasn’t been like this long enough to have conducted comprehensive, in-depth research. That is a lot of people watching a lot of material that propels the message that the female body is an object and that sexiness is a woman’s currency. It propels it at a pace and in forms we have little control over. Technology moves faster than we do. Today the average age of exposure to pornography is 8. And we aren’t just dealing with Playboys stashed under mattresses anymore. I’ve worked with 14 year old guys who showed me Snapchat videos of them receiving head. I’ve worked with girls who feel it is completely normal to send nude pictures of themselves to guys at school because they expect it. The line between liberation/empowerment and objectification is very blurry depending on who you’re asking. There are generations yet to enter adulthood that have learned most of what they know about sexuality and human interaction from the internet and social media, which is fascinating. And kind of terrifying. I just wonder if and how this is affecting our ability to be in relationship, to have empathy, to build intimacy, and to humanize?

A lot of what I’ve experienced has made my state of being feel out of control. It violated a part of who I am and I continually find myself trying to restore that. I don’t want to be angry and cynical. I don’t want to be incapable of trust. I don’t want to feel ashamed of what happened. So I’m trying to grasp how normal, nice guys end up in a mindset where they feel that sexually assaulting someone is okay. I’m trying to understand why we find it so easy to be disgusted by the degredation and objectification of women when we look up at our wives, sisters, friends, daughters, and mothers but when we look down at our laptops or phones we don’t think twice about participating in a system that helps sustain it?

I have this scenario that plays out in my head where I look at the guy who raped me and I say, “Hi! My name is Taylor and my favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip. In high school I was voted ‘Most Likely to Make Your Day’ by my classmates. I have a bunion on my right foot that I’m all self conscious about because it makes me feel like an 80 year old. I come up with terrible analogies. I can remember every movie line and I’ll make you the best mojito of your life. Look, I’m like a really sweet, angel, butterfly type person and if you would just stop to know me you’d never do this so please, please, please don’t do this.”

I want to believe something like this would work. Unfortunately, I know deep down that pleading for people to understand the gravity of what they’re doing has never been a winning strategy. But now all I can think about are the women that just flew across my screen in ‘Freckled Latina Deepthroat’ and ’19 year-old getting gang banged’. I hope that whoever is watching realizes just how very, very real these women are. And I hope that instead of getting off this time, they’ll just wonder what her favorite ice cream flavor is.

Love,

Taylor

Appetites

I started to read the book It Starts With Food. This was written by the people who brought on the Whole30 craze that you hear about everyone and their dog doing. Part of the book discusses how sugary, salty, delicious, shitty food electrifies our taste buds in ways that real, nutritious food can’t. This messes with our brains in a major way. It isn’t our fault that we can’t stop eating that stuff. We still have willpower, responsibility, and choice but they are built to make us crave them. They are designed to mess with our psychological processes and make it feel impossible to give up.

It goes on to say how these foods are easy to eat a lot of, quickly, and not get full because they have such minute nutritional value that they don’t signal to our body that we’re getting fed or that we’re satisfied. This gets coupled with dopamine receptors in the brain which motivate our food-seeking/wanting and energises our feeding. We don’t even have to be hungry. Just the thought of that Krispy Kreme gives us a rush of anticipation before we even get close to taking a bite. It becomes about satisfying the craving, not the need. And thus, eating unhealthy food becomes a habitual response to triggers like stress, reward, and emotion.

“Supernormal stimulus” is the scientific term for something so exaggerated that we prefer it to reality- even when we know its fake. A supernormal food stimulus arouses our taste receptors more intensely than anything found in nature. Candy is far sweeter than fruit. Onion rings are fare fattier and saltier than onions. Modified foods like Oreos and Doritos outcompete any taste found in nature, which is, of course, exactly why we prefer them. These supernormal stimuli are like the Las Vegas Strip of foods. Exotic! Extreme! Dazzling! But entirely contrived. Not real. Totally overwhelming. And if you take a good hard look at their ingredients- you’ll see that they’re actually cheap, dirty, and kind of gross. 

I’m reading this to help me understand why I crave sweets as I attempt to give them up. I know that sugar bingeing is something I do when I don’t want to deal with something else going on. But as I’m reading it, I can’t help but feel like you could replace the word “food” with “porn”, “drugs”, or whatever indulgence you prefer and it would still read the same.

But those aren’t really the problem. They are side effects.

At some point we just turn to these things for pleasure when we’re stressed or lonely or angry or feel like we deserve it. And if you let it go for so long, our brains rewire. The trigger-response bridges are built. They’re set. And if/when it becomes a problem, it’s extremely difficult to burn those bridges. But it’s not impossible. I used to think maybe it was. But it’s not. I refuse to believe that. For anyone.

I’m starting to think the key is to not stop at drugs, porn, food, or whatever your vice is. A lot of people try to just manage the behaviour, but that isn’t sustainable because the behaviour isn’t at the root.

The shame/pain/anxiety/anger/etc. that causes us to turn to the ‘supernormal stimulus’ to numb it out is at the root. But identifying what those are requires digging into the past to see if/how the same indulgences, coverings, and coping mechanisms exist within your own circle of people. It involves confronting how that affected you and then taking ownership and awareness of your own shit (rather than just blaming it on mom or grandpa or whatever). Followed by connecting, processing, and healing. All of which takes work, patience, and time. I know that sounds like a bunch of therapeutic bull but I really, truly, madly, deeply (heyyyyy Savage Garden reference) think it’s valid.

Those of you who really know me, know that porn has been a weirdly significant part of my life. And in working through everything, I’ve recognised that I made it a bigger deal than it was. Than it is. I was really young and naive. What did I know? And I didn’t ever think that watching porn was relationship damaging- addiction to porn was relationship damaging. Addiction to anything can be relationship damaging.

Is pornography itself inherently bad? I don’t know. I can only speak from my own experience and I’m not here to argue about that…but I do know that like food that’s deliciously terrible for you, it can make people feel really freaking awesome and then in excess…cheap, dirty, and kind of gross. I know that it can become preferred to reality, but offers minute mental or emotional value, so you continue to want more, even past the point of completion. It’s selfish. And honestly, that’s really the core part that bothered and scared me. That’s all. I just wanted the person I was sharing life with to be willing and able to give up what was fake and choose into what was real. For the love of all that is holy, I just wanted the dysfunctions that came with it to stop so that we even could engage in what was real. I just wanted it to be like, “You know, watching this is like a solo missioning an entire cake in one go. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s not particularly healthy for me. So, meh. Hard pass.” Because that would take away it’s power. But I think our enemy wants to use the fruit to distract us from the root. He wants to keep us trying and failing at managing habits and behaviors so we don’t identify the real issue and confront it. That is essentially the very first story in Genesis and we’re still living it out thousands of years later.

As I dig and uncover what is behind my own appetites I’m trying to be slow and mindful of not just what I’m reaching towards but why. It’s all about balance and moderation, but I’m training myself to remember that the 2 minute gratification I get from scarfing five cookies is rarely worth it. Especially on the regs. And do I really want to eat, or am I just eating because I feel discontent or insecure about something else going on in my life? I’m a work in progress. Always.

Well. That got kind of real, which always makes me a little bit nervous. But I’m committed to my belief that vulnerability isn’t comfortable- it’s necessary. We have to stop numbing ourselves. We are factually the most addicted, obese, in debt, drugged up adult cohort in US history. At some point, everyone is going to be recovering (or hiding) from something. We’re sure not going to make it on our own like this. We need authenticity and we need each other. This is the human experience. It’s messy and it’s beautiful. IJUSTLOVEYOUALLSOMUCH and I want you to help and join me in getting and staying honest. And living abundant, full lives with lots of confetti-worthy moments (I’ve been thinking lately about how I seriously need to keep a pack of party poppers with me and just pull them out at opportune times).

So, as my friend Andrew and I like to ask each other,

“How’s your soul doing?”

Love,

Taylor

P.S. I genuinely care to know the answer to that question. From anyone.

 

Equal to my love of confetti: Casey’s sprinkle doughnuts.

Untitled

I was ten. I was running through the sprinkler in my underwear. Blades of grass stuck to my skin. My body was long and lean, void of any curvature. It was whole and mine. It allowed me to do backbends and cartwheels. That is all I noticed about my body.

I was twelve. I was sitting at the kitchen table in my pajamas. My dad looked at me sympathetically and told me that I had reached an age where boys would start to see me differently. He spoke of the differences between boys and girls and hormones. “Boys are visual. Girls are emotional.” So, child, you must be careful. The world will make sure you learn not desire for the other, but the desire to be desired.

I was fourteen. I took off my jacket at lunchtime, scandalously revealing my strapless shoulders.[1] The Vice Principal swore at me. I was sent to the office a for a second outfit violation that year. Blindsided and face burning with humiliation, I hid in the bathroom stall and changed into clothes my mom had to bring me. My parents read me something out of Dr. Phil’s ‘How to Talk to Your Teen’ book. I was learning that people had opinions about my body. Now there were rules regarding my skin.

I was sixteen. I was wearing a high-collard turquoise t-shirt and a long skirt. I was teaching vacation Bible school for children in the villages of Panama. We were singing Abre mis ojos oh Cristo and throwing a giant colorful tent up in the air. Tiny ones squealed with delight and ran under. I felt a tap on my shoulder and the leader asked me to talk to her for a minute. We walked to the church entrance, where she told me that since my chest was big and my shirt was too tight, boys were staring at me. She lent me a big t-shirt to put on, lest the outline of my body cause those brothers of mine to sin.[2] You don’t want to do that, do you? I walked back to the giant colorful tent, now resembling what I was wearing. I looked over at the boys leaning out the church windows. My heart beat faster. Lying on the church’s cement floor that night, from my sleeping bag I watched my cursed chest rise and fall. I was drenched in a humid sweat, soaked with shame. On this day, a tiny bit of my innocence was sacrificed. The impact of your naturally developing curves is a dangerous thing, apparently. Hide.

I was eighteen. I was wearing jeans and a hoodie. It is important to note that my face and hands were the only parts of me exposed because I was on a service trip in Morocco[3], a place that forced me to constantly be aware of my femaleness. It was a place where I was chased out of a market. Where I sat in an Internet café writing e-mails while the man at the computer next to me watched porn. Where a man on the street asked if he could bring me home to his mother and fuck me. Where I listened to people have sex against the door to my hostel room. Where I was constantly “complimented” in the streets and strangers were not afraid to touch you. One day, I was sitting on a park bench reading my Bible. Two men walked up and sat on either side of me. They began speaking to me in Arabic. I did not look up or respond. I just stared at Isaiah’s verses, resting on my knees. Then I heard in broken English whispers that felt wet and hot in my ears, “Why you no talk to us? We be nice.” They played nice with their hands, which found their way to my neck, gliding down my breasts, and landing in my crotch. My legs, despite their Jell-O consistency, found the strength to stand. I apologized to the men for not wanting to talk to them as I walked away. When I came back home, the prayer ladies told me that maybe I was supposed to go back to Morocco because it was obvious the devil didn’t want me there.

I was nineteen. I was wearing a white dress. It had little cap sleeves with sequins. The air was crisp. My stomach was in knots. I was his. We made lots of promises. We lit a candle and put rings on our fingers. We danced. It was sweet and sparkling and blissful. He carried me away and unlaced the white dress. I laced up my lingerie. Nothing went the way I thought it would. Rejection. Lies. Confusion. I had a lot of exposure to a world of fantasy and I grappled to understand how they became more desirable than reality.[4] You’re supposed to be both. But you’re not supposed to be both. The messages say things like: Be a virgin when you get married, but also know exactly what you’re doing in bed and be really good at it. Be outraged by the objectification of the female body, but also see your own as the sexual object it is. Just be you, but also look and act like these women. He’ll love you for it. You are valued for your purity, but desired for your promiscuity.

I was twenty-one. I was in the bathtub wearing a layer of bubbles. I knew something was wrong and I was trying to wash it off. He came in and sat on the bathroom floor. I asked him how he was doing. He admitted to this one thing that made my nose crinkle. This was different than the other things. Every cell in my body felt wide-awake and dead at the same time. This feeling wasn’t going to wash off. Something had to change. I can try to be or look as beautiful and perfect as possible, but I am it is not enough. I can leave for one, three, or five months, but I am it is not enough. I can read all the books, do all the research, plan all the things, say all the prayers and attend all the counseling sessions, but I am it is not enough. I can want, wish and love with all of my being but I am it is not enough. Something had to change.[5] It was me. The feeling never washed off.

I am twenty-four. It is pouring rain. The humid summer kind of rain. I’m wearing a striped dress, cotton clinching to my grass-covered skin. I’m dancing. My body, which has felt burdened and hallow for months, finds in this moment a sweet release. There is pure, unadulterated joy beaming from my twirling limbs and bouncing wet waves. My body is soft and strong, no longer void of curvature. It is whole and mine. It is more than enough. It still allows me to do backbends and cartwheels, among a million other amazing things. That is all I notice about my body.

 

[1] There is nothing scandalous about my shoulders.

[2] Boys are not helpless victims when it comes to their eyes. The evidence of my breast size does not cause them to sin.

[3] I was fully clothed when I was assaulted. Sexual assault happens because the perpetrator wants it to happen, not because any woman “asks for it” with her appearance.

[4] Love it or hate it; porn is a lie. It is a performance. It is not an instruction manual. Never before in our world have we had such immediate access and extreme exposure to this kind of media and at such young ages. Science is starting to show the negative effects it is having on our brains, relationships, and society.

[5] There is nothing I can do to create or initiate change in someone else.

 

Love,

Taylor