Outer Alliance Spotlight #32: Kal Cobalt April 30, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , trackbackWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #32. Each Friday, the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is Kal Cobalt, author of Robotica.
Kal is a genderqueer, pansexual, kinky switch in a stable polyamorous triad, which makes him[1] pretty familiar with non-heteronormative sexual and gender identities, even before you factor robots in. He made his first queer speculative fiction sale three years ago when “The Lift” appeared in Circlet Press’s Best Fantastic Erotica collection. Since then, his stories have also been included in Richard Labonte’s Best Gay Romance and Boys in Heat, Queerpunk, and Circlet’s upcoming Best Erotic Fantasy and Science Fiction. Robotica is his first solo story collection.
On the non-fiction side of things, Kal writes essays and articles related to alternate gender and sexual lifestyles and identities. His essay, “Gender Evolution” is included in Toward 2012: Perspectives on the next age, and he also writes for edenfantasys.com and Reality Sandwich. His hobbies include knitting, playing Wii, and attending industrial and electronica shows. In addition to his personal site, Kal maintains a Twitter feed, and shares a food blog with his best friend at foodn00bs.typepad.com/.
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OA: Robotica is your e-book collection focusing on the sex lives of robots. What range of robot and human sexuality can readers expect there, and what makes robot sex so appealing in the first place?
KC: There are so many ranges of sexualities to describe! In terms of orientation, some of the stories are gay male, some are bisexual, and some are what my editor, Cecilia Tan, calls “post-gay.” In terms of tone, there’s everything from innocent coming-of-age stories under the control of human scientists on through to painful, rough interactions with alien robot “species” where the humans are very much not in control. Mostly, you can expect humanoid robots, but there’s some sex involving a sentient spaceship as well. That in itself is one of the things that makes robot sex so appealing: the interesting and unexpected ways that sexuality can come to pass outside of human biology. For me, a big writing payoff comes from the double whammy of separating sexuality from biology and viewing human sexuality from the outside — that’s led to a lot of surprising personal revelations.
OA: How much of the robot sexuality in your stories is within the realm of possibility in our non-fictional future? How much human/robot sexual interaction already exists, and what are the ethical concerns around that both now and as technology advances?
KC: I could see a near-future situation where artificial intelligence assembles information regarding sexuality in a logical yet entirely different fashion than we’re accustomed to, which is part of what happens in “Charlie.” “Star Fucker” is about identity, idolization, and rock ‘n’ roll robotics, which I think is another very plausible near-future. Chances are, though, that “The Sex Drive” is closer to where we’re going — imbuing robots with the capacity for sexual activity without quite thinking through the consequences. “Agrathia’s Freedom,” about a sentient, sexual spaceship, and “Survival-Compatible,” about a very rough human introduction to an alien species, are such far-future tales that it’s hard to say whether our paths will lead us there or elsewhere.
Right now, I think we’re in a phase with robotics and sexuality much like we were a decade ago with PDAs and cellphones. We had two gadgets that had some overlap in functionality, but it took a while to finally merge the two so fully that having a smartphone — PDAs and cellphones gene-spliced together and then given steroids — is fairly ubiquitous. I see a similar thing happening with robotics and sex toys at this point. The 1970s blow-up “sex doll” has given way not just to better simulations of genitalia but better simulations of humans. RealDolls are absolutely incredible — if you saw a five-second clip of a guy having sex with a female RealDoll, you probably wouldn’t even know the difference. Because they’re meant to mimic human sexuality, the focus is very much on things like breasts with realistic sway and lips with realistic give. These are the things that the scientific robotics community is only slightly delving into, as their focus is more function than form. Some companies are already combining the two; there’s a Japanese company that makes what are essentially RealDolls with artificial heartbeats that speed up to signify excitement and have accurate body temperatures. In a hundred years’ time, I think it’s plausible that we’ll have fairly human-realistic, reasonably-intelligent robots, some of which will be “optimized” for sexual behaviors.
The ethical concerns are immense, but I’ve noticed a very specific gap in the cultural conversation about robot ethics. We are, by and large, quicker to assume sentience than we should be. This is how Furbys and Tamagotchis are so popular: they get “sick” and we feel guilty. We anthropomorphize very easily. I think the biggest, and nearest, ethical concern we’ll face is that of wanting to protect artificial beings which are not yet actually sentient but make us feel like they are. At some point, the question of what exactly constitutes sentience will come up in that debate, and suddenly we’ll have an issue that’s so far-reaching it impacts things like the rights of people in comatose states, how we treat people with low IQs, and even what we decide about abortion. There are a slew of ethical issues that will affect artificial intelligence, but I think we’ll be bowled over by the ethical issues that artificial intelligence raises about ourselves first.
OA: “Analog Christmas” presents a future in which electronic stimulation is par for the course, and reminds us that good old fashioned human contact is also worthwhile. In your opinion, is there an ideal balance between mechanical and analog sexual interaction?
KC: In my opinion, it’s an entirely subjective, personal thing. Is your idea of an ideal weekend holing up with The Sims or mall-crawling? Do you check Twitter a dozen times a day or do you not even own a smartphone? There’s no static right answer. It all has to do with the balance you strike in your life that’s ideal for you.
OA: You were recently on a panel about gender and sexuality in SF, and were dismayed at the narrow focus on feminism and homosexuality that people expected the panelists to have. What other avenues would you like to see the speculative fiction community exploring?
KC: Everything! While it’s true that SF has to, in some aspect, speak to present-day society in order to be relevant to present-day readers, it amazes me how many SF writers build mostly-monogamous, mostly-heterosexual, mostly-humanoid cultures a hundred or two hundred or a couple thousand years into our future. If you look back at our last fifty years, not even just on Earth but within the narrow confines of the United States, you can see enormous social changes in gender and sexuality norms. The idea that we’ll still be pretty much here in a future so advanced as to be science fiction seems ludicrous. Let’s talk about English evolving into a language with non-gendered pronouns and the good and bad that ensues. Let’s talk about starships filled with 200 crewmates all bonded to one another in a polyamorous commitment. Let’s talk about starships filled with 200 crewmates who bed-hop regardless of gender or species and none of them have even heard of this “commitment” thing. Let’s talk about what the heck we humans do when trying to interface with a species that has sex like slugs do (YouTube it[2], it’s amazing and would cause some serious diplomatic issues). Or a human who falls for someone in a “black widow” species. The possibilities with sexuality and gender are just as endless as every other topic in SF, and it amazes me that we don’t do more with that.
OA: You’re a big J. G. Ballard fan in part because of his unflinching portrayals of non-mainstream sexuality. Have you got any other recommended reading for us?
KC: How large a font can I use to say CHARLES STROSS?[3] Sometimes it’s easy to read the queer SF “ghetto” and lose sight of what’s seeping into the mainstream. I was completely shocked the first time I picked up a Stross book because I had no idea we’d come to the point where his ideas could be handled by a mainstream publishing house and land on the shelves of airport bookstores everywhere. I highly recommend his Glasshouse for anyone interested in seeing some truly creative and plot-integral explorations of gender and sexuality. You also can’t go wrong picking up a James Tiptree, Jr. Award winner. The Award’s short-story anthologies are a particularly good way to get exposed to authors with non-mainstream ideals. Circlet Press, my publisher, focuses on really terrific erotic SF/F, and there’s a lot of free content on their website to get you started.
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Thanks, Kal! Join us next Friday for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out Robotica.
1. Kal identifies as pangendered, but tends to prefer male pronouns.
2. It really is amazing! Here’s a video link for you (warning: contains graphic depiction of slug sex).
3. Rather large, as it turns out.
Comments»
OMG I love footnotes. Ravenclawgasm.
And I love the word Ravenclawgasm. Nice.