If I know my sci-fi right, then sexbots are making their way to a bedroom close to you. No more wondering which emoji to text, how to ask her out, what compliments are inoffensive, and when will this whole #MeToo thing turn too personal for comfort.

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Best of all, no more in-laws to meet and make painful conversation with. No girl’s father will ever say to you, ‘Yeh shaadi nahi ho sakti!’ Because scientists assembling your future silicone bride for you and staff packing her up for you and the Amazon guy who delivers her to you are all happy you ordered her in the first place. Here, they will say, take her, with no mention of her first words, her first step or first dance at nursery school.

Once upon a time was the sex doll, hilariously depicted by Tom Sharpe in his Wilt series. But hi-tech labs are turning passive sex dolls into mobile sex pots, who pout and pour you tea.

Men will no longer walk into homes to wives who say, ‘oh, it’s you.’ Instead will be this hot AI babe who will ask in a pre-recorded voice, ‘How was your day, darling?’ (Of course, neither is really listening when said man launches into boss-tales or how he was stuck in an elevator for hours.)

Potentially New Refrain From Mothers

Mothers who have been traditionally rolling their eyes at their sons’ choice of future wives will now say hello to plastic daughters-in-law. After telling their sons to marry someone from same clan, same caste, now they will add a new diktat, ‘marry a flesh and blood woman, please.’

While many women have been slowly turning to plastic to beautify themselves, wholly plastic women will now take their place. Unlike real female employees the pretty, pretty bots won’t have an issue with wage inequalities or a lack of leave or meetings going on forever. You can grope them at the water cooler and they will just blink those long-eyelashed eyes.

Scientists who create them say they are created not so much for sex but for companionship – the same thing men say to non-bot women, by the way! Lonely customers now don’t have to break into shop windows and drag mannequins by their bald heads home, because, hey, you can mail order them.

Complimentary Partner

No nagging, no searing critique of your mother, no listing of your imperfections – the sexbot will only pay compliments and simper with slight static in her voice. At the sexbot-seeing ceremony the man won’t ask, can you cook, can you clean; he will just order a firm flank here, a certain cup size there. All he has to worry is not getting an electric shock when ‘in’ there. Which is a small price to pay for forgetting anniversaries, birthdays and Valentine’s Day. No funeral to plan either. Once the relationship is over, just put your bae in the bin.

Women, don’t fret though. Male sex robots with bionic penises are being manufactured even as we cry. Cyborgs who will never ask you how was it for you, tell me, tell me, tell me... Or light up a cigarette afterwards and talk about an ex. And, man, can they listen! Like no real human man can ever listen.

Shinie Antony is a writer and editor based in Bangalore. Her books include The Girl Who Couldn’t Love, Barefoot and Pregnant, Planet Polygamous, and the anthologies Why We Don’t Talk, An Unsuitable Woman, Boo. Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Asia Prize for her story A Dog’s Death in 2003, she is co-founder of the Bangalore Literature Festival and director of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival.

First Published:Apr 28, 2018 7:29 AM IST