Activist Law Professor Warns Against Sexbot Industry Expansion

George Washington University Law School Professor John Banzhaf has turned his eye toward the realistic sex dolls that are poised to change the face of erotic entertainment.

Banzhaf is described as one of the men who “helped drive cigarette commercials off the air” in his personal bio, among numerous other legal victories. He teaches Torts, Administrative Law, Disabled People and the Law, Law and the Deaf, and his claim to fame, Legal Activism — known by some as “Sue the Bastards.”

This time around, Banzhaf is targeting the sale of sexbots to “perverts” that may use them to exercise otherwise illegal fantasies. He wants Congress to address the “brave new world of robot sex, where the law may well have to play catch up, just as it did with artificial insemination, host mothers, drones, and other developments,” in a world where “science fiction of the type depicted in HBO’s Westworld is rapidly becoming reality.”

Banzhaf admits that not all of the science backs up his concern. Some have suggested that allowing so-inclined men to act out their fantasies on inanimate objects might reduce the instance of actual rape or child molestation. However, Banzhaf asserts that “other experts have suggested that sexbots programmed to act like they are being raped may well lead to more, not fewer rapes; that permitting men to act out their rape fantasies will only stoke their desires and provide a bridge from mere idea to acting out with a sexbot and then to actually engaging in a real rape with a real woman.”

What Banzhaf is pressing for right now is research, examination, hearings that bring expert opinions to light, potentially leading toward regulations that would govern the sale of such lifelike silicone to people who might be predisposed toward abuse. Otherwise, he warns, “if these sexbots do pose significant risks to women and/or to young children, but no action is taken now, it may be too late if we wait until millions are already in the hands of actual or potential rapists, actual or potential child molesters, etc.”

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