Book #24 for 2024: Sex Robots and Vegan Meat by Jenny Kleeman
Sex Robots and Vegan Meat: Adventures at the Frontier of Birth, Food, Sex and Death by Jenny Kleeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Book about how different aspects of life could be in the future, which I was keen to read for a while. Most concepts were something I was at least a little aware of, but reading the book it was hard not to think of TV's "Black Mirror".
The first part is about "sex robots", basically a more sophisticated version of blow-up dolls, and self-explanatory, with its depictions of robots used for the purpose of having sex. The concept sounds sinister enough to begin with, but as author Jenny Kleeman notes:
"When it becomes possible to own a partner who exists purely to please his or her owner, a constantly available partner without in-laws or menstrual cycles or bathroom habits or emotional baggage or independent ambitions, when its possible to have an ideal sexual relationship without ever having to compromise, where the pleasure of only one half of the partnership matters, surely our capacity to have mutual relationships with other people will be diminished".
The second part is about vegan meat substitutes; I admit to finding this bit almost like propaganda at first, as the evidently vegan Kleeman meets a militant vegan who has produced their own range of fake meats. Interestingly, Kleeman does not appear to be a fan of the produce that she tastes, also noting that: "by giving up meat, we are giving remote corporations more power to dominate us".
Part three is about the future of birth; surrogacy is not a new idea, and as the book notes, was mentioned in "The Handmaid's Tale", but then the book starts referring to concepts that I would not have thought possible, including the idea of how a baby could be born without anyone having to be pregnant, with the development of some kind of external womb. The section does make a lot of good points about gender roles though, such as how while it's considered okay for an older man to become a father, an older woman is treated like she is out of her mind if she wants to become a mother.
The final part is about euthenasia, and the right to choose to die. The book goes into detail about the different devices people have designed for people to die on their own terms. This includes the "euthenasia coaster", which kills riders with the G-forces of seven corkscrews. The drawbacks of these devices are made clear; as well as stories about deliveries being a year or more late, Kleeman speculates as to whether the technology can be trusted to work properly if it has not been tested before.
I enjoyed reading this book; I liked how Kleeman went into details about all the different people she met while researching their books, and what she had found out, as well as sharing her own opinions. At times, this felt quite thought-provoking.
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