Sex Robots as Perfect Confucian Wives?
The Confucian comeback is one of the most striking and unexpected intellectual developments in China. But it’s not all good news, even for Confucians. Along with the revival of Confucianism, some ideas that are diametrically opposed to Confucian values have been quietly disseminated in the form of orthodox Confucian ideas by labelling them as such.
On 15 December 2024, Confucius Studies – one of China’s leading academic journals on Confucian philosophy – published Fang Xudong’s article “Companion Robots: a Confucian Defense” on its WeChat account. The article claims to demonstrate from a “Confucian perspective” that companion robots (more commonly known as ‘sex robots’) fulfil the Confucian fantasy of the submissive wife. Despite the article’s strong individualism and blatant misogyny, it was able to pass rigorous academic reviews and was published because it claimed to reflect purely traditional Confucian values.
Fang Xudong, a professor at East China Normal University, believes that the virtue of a Confucian wife lies in obedience, but this concept has been greatly challenged since the rise of the gender equality movement in modern China. He writes enthusiastically: “Sex robots fulfil Confucian fantasy of the ideal wife.”
A sex robot, as the name suggests, is a robot that simulates a human sexual partner and is designed to meet the sexual needs of the user. In theory, a sex robot can be “male” or “female,” but Fang Xudong’s imagination of a sex robot is biased towards a male user: “It can be expected that a super-intelligent sex robot will not only look perfect but also be empathetic and can be customized according to the user’s requirements to maximize the satisfaction of the user’s individual needs. According to the programmed settings, the sex robot is gentle and considerate to its master, obedient, hardworking, and eternally loyal…In another sense, it can also be regarded as the master’s servant. The most important thing is that because the sex robot is not human...When enjoying its services, people do not need to worry about whether certain actions of theirs would constitute disrespect towards it.”
We can summarize Fang Xudong’s requirements for a sex robot/perfect Confucian wife: 1) having beautiful appearance so that it can satisfy the user’s sexual needs; 2) being in a master-slave relationship with the user; 3) having no moral subjectivity so that it can be used/misused. In what sense is a sex tool that completely lacks subjectivity the Confucian imagination of the perfect wife?
In the history of Confucianism, the ideal couple is King Wen of Zhou and his wife Tai Si. The opening poem “Guan Ju” in the Classic of Poetry tells the story of King Wen pursuing and marrying Tai Si: “Shy and slender is the chaste girl, For the lord’s son a loving mate.” (Edward L. Shaughnessy’s translation.)
The pursued subject can accept or reject, and in the suspense of time, love is tenderly nurtured. Therefore, King Wen also had to experience “seeking her but not getting her; Awake and asleep, wishing to pair! Longing, ah, longing, ah! Tossing and turning to and fro.” During the process of waiting for the loved one, the subject is also experiencing, reflecting, and refreshing himself. Finally, “with harp and lute befriending her” reveals an aspect of equality between King Wen and Tai Si, and “with bell and drum delighting her” indicates a grand wedding ceremony according to ritual propriety and exemplary music.
The Confucian ideal of an ideal marital relationship is completely distorted in Fang’s account of the ideal sex robot/perfect Confucian wife. Sex robots cannot refuse, so there is no process of “seeking;” there is no equality between the sex robot and the user; the sex robot ultimately cannot form a real marital relationship with the user.
Moreover, the relationship between spouses is one of the five Confucian relationships (between ruler and ministers, father and son, husband and wife, between siblings, and between friends). No Confucian scholar has ever argued that an ideal wife is a submissive sex slave. In Confucian philosophy, a wife being in the relation with her husband is also the daughter-in-law of the parents-in-law, the mother of the children, and the grandmother of grandchildren. She is an ethical subject in various human relations, rather than a passive tool or toy.
When the context of human relations is removed and only the trait of “obedience” is stated, in what context can it still be considered as a traditional Confucian view? Is it possible that this seemingly ‘Confucian’ view is actually a vulgar concept of individualism designed to satisfy male sexual desires unfiltered by any ethical considerations?
An effective criterion for evaluation is whether the use of machines can promote the development of interpersonal relationships, especially with our loved ones. For instance, the popularization of robotic vacuum cleaners in cities liberates people from some household chores, allowing people to spend more time with their families. This can be seen as a practical application of Confucian philosophy. However, Fang claims that sex robots are the ideal Confucian wives, while simultaneously asserting that people cannot establish real marital relationships with them, is clearly contradictory.
A slight correction to Fang Xudong’s statement would it more coherent: a sex robot can be his ideal wife, but not an ideal wife in traditional Confucianism. In fact, Fang’s views are closer to individualism, characterized by the evasion of real human relationships. There may be a case for sexual robots if someone, for whatever reason, is incapable of sexual relations with humans. But the idea that relations with robots can be superior to relations with real people in the name of Confucianism is absurd and such claims do more to harm the Confucian tradition than to revive it.
Confucian scholars have historically made many comments that are unfavorable to women, but they have never regarded wives as submissive sex tools or toys. The claim that “sex robots fulfil Confucian fantasy of the ideal wife” is a serious deviation from the Confucian tradition. Beyond highlighting the absurdity of this viewpoint, I cannot help but ask: what kind of academic review mechanism permitted the publication of a such a misleading and inflammatory article in a highly esteemed Confucian journal? Can we prevent Confucianism (as well as sex robots) from being misused in such a disgraceful manner in the future?
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