'Teledildonics and rape by deception' by Robert Sparrow and Lauren Karas in (2020)
Law, Innovation and Technology 1-20 comments
It is now possible to buy sex toys that connect to the user’s phone or computer via Bluetooth and can be controlled remotely. The use of such Internet-enabled haptic sex toys involves an ineliminable risk of being deceived about particular features of one’s sexual partner and/or about which person one was having ‘sex’ with. Where this occurs, it is possible that the user would become the victim of rape-by-deception. We argue that determining whether a person using an Internet-enabled haptic sex toy has been raped or not when they are involved in a sexual encounter with someone – or something – other than that they intended requires us to confront difficult questions about the definition and significance of sexual intercourse and about the nature and harm of rape. Our discussion of these topics suggests that the use of such devices is more ethically fraught than has been appreciated to date.
The authors argue
The search for new or improved sexual pleasures plays a significant – if often under acknowledged – role in driving the development of new technologies. It was perhaps inevitable, then, that progress in ‘haptics’ – the science and technology of the transmission of touch – would spark interest in the development of haptic sex toys. Consequently, it is now possible to purchase a number of sex toys that transmit touch and physical sensation via the Internet.
In this paper, we want to reflect on these technologies and some of the ethical and philosophical questions they raise for two reasons. First, given the popularity of ordinary sex toys, and the sexual opportunities and communities made possible by the Internet, it is reasonable to assume that large numbers of people will experiment with these new remote-controlled and interactive sex toys and that a significant number will use them regularly. Any ethical and/or philosophical issues they raise are thus of interest simply by virtue of the number of people they might affect. Second, the use of such devices seems to involve a not-insignificant risk of users being deceived
about the identity of the person with whom they are having ‘sex’. As we
shall see below, it is possible that in such cases the user would become the victim of ‘rape by deception’. Until this issue can be resolved, the design and manufacture of teleoperated and remote-controlled sex toys involves profound moral hazards.
While existing products fall short of allowing fully immersive ‘cybersex’, it
seems likely that in the not-too-distant future devices that transmit a larger
range of genital sensations, which we shall call Internet-enabled haptic sex toys (henceforth IEHSTs), will be developed. In order to bring the philosophical questions that interest us into stark relief and to reduce the risk of our discussion being rendered obsolete by technological progress, we shall for the most part discuss the issues raised by the use of such IEHSTs. We suggest that determining whether a person using an IEHST has been raped or not, when they are involved in a sexual encounter with someone – or some thing – other than that they intended, requires one to confront difficult questions about the definition and significance of sexual penetration, what counts as consent, and the nature and harm of rape. Our discussion of these topics will draw upon the academic literature on the philosophy of sex, philosophical and feminist discussions of the nature of rape, and – in particular – the literature on rape by deception. We argue that if one allows that IEHSTs enable sexual intercourse via the Internet then they will involve a significant risk of rape by deception. This risk implies that the use of such devices would be – and, we suggest, the use of existing devices is – more ethically fraught than has been appreciated to date. We also hope, throughout our discussion, to show how thinking about IEHSTs offers a valuable opportunity to gain new insights into some old questions in the philosophy of sex.
An important limitation of our discussion is that we are only concerned with the ethical and philosophical issues that are raised by the risk of rape involved in the use of these devices. As will become abundantly clear in the discussion that follows, it seems likely that even if one concludes that these devices do not involve a risk of rape, they do involve a significant risk of sexual assault, which might itself be enough to raise ethical red flags about their design and use. However, because of the length and philosophical complexity of our investigation of the risk of rape involved, this further set of questions must remain a topic for future investigations.
Relatedly, we have not tried to settle the question of how IEHSTs should be regulated here for a number of reasons. First, as we hope our discussion demonstrates, the ethical and conceptual questions arising from the possibility of deception involved in cybersex are complex and profound. It is, we shall argue, plausible to hold that the use of IEHSTs may expose users to a risk of rape and also make it easier for malicious actors to rape people. However, it also seems likely that these devices will be popular with a class of potential users who do not share the philosophical commitments that suggest that deception in the context of the use of IEHSTs can constitute rape. Before we can decide whether – or how – we should regulate IEHSTs, then, it is important to consider the philosophical questions we address below. Moreover, second, even if one wished to regulate to minimise the risks posed by these devices, the social acceptability, and thus the effectiveness, of such regulation is likely to depend in part on whether the regulations track people’s intuitions about the nature and significance of the wrong done by those who misuse IEHSTs in various ways. Again, then, at a bare minimum we need to know if – and when – the wrong might be rape. Third, developing good regulation in this area would require paying attention to various pragmatic and technical matters (How hard would it be to identify those who hacked into such devices? Would it be possible to ensure that minors could not access them? What means might be available to prosecute people misusing these devices across national borders?) that are beyond the bounds of our expertise. For these reasons, we have chosen to leave the question of appropriate regulation to future investigators, but hope that, by clarifying the underlying ethical and conceptual issues, our own work will make their task easier.
In the first section of the paper we provide a brief account of the existing range of remote-controlled and interactive sex toys, as well as the likely future of this technology, and explain what we shall understand by IEHSTs for the purposes of the current investigation. The second section of the paper outlines the prima facie case for allowing that the use of IEHSTs would constitute sex rather than masturbation. In the third section, we introduce the idea of ‘rape by deception’ and discuss some of the ways it challenges our intuitions regarding rape in other contexts. The fourth section argues that the use of IEHSTs would involve an ineliminable risk of being deceived about particular features of one’s sexual partner and/or about the identity of the person with whom one was having sex. In the fifth section, we consider a number of hypothetical scenarios designed to draw out the implications of such deception for the use of IEHSTs on the assumption that they do enable individuals who are separated by distance to have sex. The sixth section discusses some possible objections to our treatment of the cases in the previous section. In the seventh section, we assume, for the sake of argument, that the use of IEHSTs only involves masturbation and discuss a number of further hypothetical scenarios intended to draw out the implications of deception on this account. The eighth section considers the question of the reasonableness of beliefs about consent in the context of cybersex involving IEHSTs. We conclude by considering the implications of our discussion for the ethics of the use and design of IEHSTs now and in the future.
