Nov 27, 2020 03:33 AM
https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-heal...-1.9331032
INTRO: The social isolation and the rigid lockdowns dictated by the COVID-19 pandemic have foisted a new and oppressive reality on humanity, with millions of people around the world finding themselves imprisoned between four walls. [...] Despite all of that, however, the solution proposed by Nancy Jecker may still sound a bit extreme. In an article published this month in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Jecker [...] proposes “a dignity-based argument for affording older people access to sex robots as part of reasonable efforts to support their central human capabilities at a floor level.” Jecker’s article is entitled, “Nothing to be Ashamed of: Sex Robots for Older Adults with Disabilities.”
Social robots, which are intended to provide sexual services and company, as Prof. Jecker emphasizes, are a particularly effective solution for a period such as this. Besides being easily sanitized, they offer new ways to create interaction and can help relieve the severe loneliness of elderly people. However, she sees them being useful not only during the pandemic, but also as an integral element in the future aging experience of millions of older adults with physical disabilities in every part of the world.
Jecker: “There is no doubt that in an epidemic like this, social robots can be the basis for a social relationship that will constitute a substitute for family and friends who are physically distant and are prohibited from visiting under the strict restrictions.” At the same time, she notes, the problem of the serious loneliness of the elderly population existed long before this crisis struck, and will continue after it passes. The phenomenon of “elder orphans,” as they have come to be known, refers to the increasing numbers of older adults who chose not to have children and who live alone, Jecker told Haaretz, in a recent phone interview.
“In Japan, for example,” she continues, “the proportion of elderly people living alone increased in recent years by about 7 percent, to 33 percent. It’s the same in Hong Kong and in many other countries. The ability to conduct relationships, to connect with others, to think, to play, to imagine, are the basic things that we appreciate and that we can should do and be as human beings. So the article is a call to the sex industry to provide those basic needs of this community.”
With an expertise is in bioethics, the professor is aware that people probably perceive the idea of relations with sex robots as tawdry, “but the reality is that for many older adults the only alternative is to be completely alone.” It’s well known that loneliness does not induce older people to try to forge new relationships with others, Jecker says, but the opposite: They become increasingly insular. “Social robots with advanced communication capabilities can help those people, and sex is only one aspect of that help, which as I see it is a far more effective and safe solution than the medications that are offered to the elderly.” (MORE)
INTRO: The social isolation and the rigid lockdowns dictated by the COVID-19 pandemic have foisted a new and oppressive reality on humanity, with millions of people around the world finding themselves imprisoned between four walls. [...] Despite all of that, however, the solution proposed by Nancy Jecker may still sound a bit extreme. In an article published this month in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Jecker [...] proposes “a dignity-based argument for affording older people access to sex robots as part of reasonable efforts to support their central human capabilities at a floor level.” Jecker’s article is entitled, “Nothing to be Ashamed of: Sex Robots for Older Adults with Disabilities.”
Social robots, which are intended to provide sexual services and company, as Prof. Jecker emphasizes, are a particularly effective solution for a period such as this. Besides being easily sanitized, they offer new ways to create interaction and can help relieve the severe loneliness of elderly people. However, she sees them being useful not only during the pandemic, but also as an integral element in the future aging experience of millions of older adults with physical disabilities in every part of the world.
Jecker: “There is no doubt that in an epidemic like this, social robots can be the basis for a social relationship that will constitute a substitute for family and friends who are physically distant and are prohibited from visiting under the strict restrictions.” At the same time, she notes, the problem of the serious loneliness of the elderly population existed long before this crisis struck, and will continue after it passes. The phenomenon of “elder orphans,” as they have come to be known, refers to the increasing numbers of older adults who chose not to have children and who live alone, Jecker told Haaretz, in a recent phone interview.
“In Japan, for example,” she continues, “the proportion of elderly people living alone increased in recent years by about 7 percent, to 33 percent. It’s the same in Hong Kong and in many other countries. The ability to conduct relationships, to connect with others, to think, to play, to imagine, are the basic things that we appreciate and that we can should do and be as human beings. So the article is a call to the sex industry to provide those basic needs of this community.”
With an expertise is in bioethics, the professor is aware that people probably perceive the idea of relations with sex robots as tawdry, “but the reality is that for many older adults the only alternative is to be completely alone.” It’s well known that loneliness does not induce older people to try to forge new relationships with others, Jecker says, but the opposite: They become increasingly insular. “Social robots with advanced communication capabilities can help those people, and sex is only one aspect of that help, which as I see it is a far more effective and safe solution than the medications that are offered to the elderly.” (MORE)
