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Kalamu ya Salaam's information blog

Ms. Minna Salami dares approach the question head on. Are sex robots a practical solution to a largely male problem, especially in this age of physical/emotional distancing and isolation? Her 2018 online essay “My take on the sex robot debate” boldly offers information and opinion plus a provocative short video on the subject. Her 2020 collection of essays “Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone” is a handbook that, from a feminist perspective, probes, discusses and challenges our thinking about the modern world.

Minna Salami is a thinker, an activist, and a writer whom we all need to read. We would be wise  to look at her as far more than just an attractive woman who happens to write. More importantly, rather than simply be entranced by her physical appearance, we all need to grapple with and seriously respond to her trenchant discourse and her serious ideas. 

In terms of human sexuality, necessity may be the mother of invention, but, as Salami presciently notes, the sex-bot (i.e. the sexual robot) probably will be put forth as “an” answer to what is essentially a predominately male question.

Why a “male” question? Because in the 21st century we live in a world dominated by patriarchal assumptions and paradigms. While it is obvious that the establishment’s penis-centric viewpoint and practice have major implications for our daily sexual activity and for our views on human sexuality, the wider and more important truth is that “male-dominant” viewpoints also, and too often disastrously, affect all of our political and cultural activity worldwide.

Even when male dominance is obvious, so much of its effects are invisible to us. Worse yet we can actually fight against raw sexism while at the same time being oblivious to the ways that our patriarchal views of sexual relations have shaped our conception of what it means to be human. In her work, Salami peels back the implications and underpinning of the subtle and pernicious social sexism that permeates our society. 

Salami is especially adept at deconstructing sexual interactions. Hence her critical work on sex-bots.

While a fruit or vegetable (e.g. a banana, cucumber or carrot) is generally inexpensive and widely available, that will not be the case for sex-bots, which undoubtedly will be relatively expensive. Additionally, making a functional male sex-bot is relatively easy compared to constructing a functional female sex-bot. Firm and hard is much easier to replicate than is soft and moist. A finger is a much better penis substitute than is a fist a good vagina substitute. All of which points to the complexity of replicating the female anatomy compared to the male sex organ.

There is a major contradiction: while the non-human male sexual substitute is widely available, and has been used for centuries (think “dildo”), for futuristic sexual engagement, the non-human female sexual substitute, i.e. the sexbot, is the prevalent focus/fantasy of mass culture. Hollywood films such as “Ex Machina” and “Blade Runner” are prime examples of the fascination with synthetically replicating females.

When you add in the economics of sexual activity, constructing artificial objects of male fulfillment becomes an expensive activity. Moreover, the purchase of sex from a prostitute is far easier and safer for males than for females, not to mention men are generally less discriminating in terms of engaging a sexual partner. The worldwide ideology of purchasing or expropriating pleasure from females, especially when there are stark contrasts in monetary wealth between male and female wage earners, creates a near universal view of sexual activity that privileges male over females both literally and figuratively. None of the above even begins to consider issues of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, nor delve into the psychology of human sexual intimacy.

These and many other issues are bravely broached by Minna Salami. Brave because her views challenge and contradict the norms of modern society. She is an avatar of the feminine resistance not only to male dominance, but, indeed, she is about more than being anti-sexist. Her words and work are emblematic of and necessary for the development of both a post-colonial world as well as a post-patriarchal world.

Although male figures such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, Lumumba and Mandela, are celebrated icons of Black resistance, the reality is that on a daily basis in our homes and workplaces, Black women have been major, although not equally celebrated, warriors and thinkers leading us out of the wilderness of Western oppression/exploitation.

Well beyond a Harriet Tubman-like role in mentally leading us away from slavery, Salami also fulfills an equally, and possibly even more important task: escaping, deconstructing and, hopefully, eventually destroying patriarchy. Black female activists have thought through major contradictions that too often are overlooked by male activists. Women warriors have not only resisted the enemy, they have also been at the forefront of conceptualizing what a Black future can, and should, be/come.

The authentic and genuine viewpoint of women generally has anti-patriarchal attitudes/ideas/& actions at the core precisely because patriarchy is built on the suppression and control of women, and thus women being self-determining, especially in their choices around sexual expression and practice, is anathema to patriarchy. Whether as the result of conscious and proactive anti-patriarchal ideals and behavior, or as the result of resolute opposition by a loved one who is also a feminist, few men are ready to voluntarily give up patriarchy as a subtext of their relationships with women, especially if they are not prodded or otherwise forced to surrender the prerogatives of patriarchal influence and the psychological/physical dominance of women, particularly when the woman is wife or lover. In this regard feminism is not only a way for women to think about how to conceptualize their humanity, the advocacy of feminism (i.e. female self-determinism in theory and practice) counter-intuitively is also a way for men to be truly human. In other words you don’t have to be a woman to be a feminist, i.e. to be an advocate and supporter of female self-determination.

Feminists do not hate men, feminists (both female and male) hate patriarchy. You don’t have to be a woman to advocate and support feminism but you (whether male or female) do have to be willing to fight against patriarchy and fight for female self-determination.

In a Demented Goddess magazine interview, Minna Salami details the relationship of eros to female self-determination, and especially deconstructs the negative impact of patriarchy. Ultimately, the human sexual connection, when it is not only consensual and age-appropriate, is always more than simply a hook-up with a fuck-buddy. The real question is this: is human to human sexual activity more satisfying than human to non-human-physical object? Additionally, there is an even more complex question: are men capable of engaging in non-patriarchal/non-male dominant satisfying human-to-human sex?

Although most of us assume sex with a male can be satisfying, the real question is: is heterosexual sex equally and fully satisfying for both/all partners? Moreover, is that satisfaction non-commercial, i.e. not mediated by money and/or social power controls?

Minna Salami is truly a feminist who has thought deeply about what erotic practice means in theory and practice. She is one of the ones who are both activists and thinkers. They are not only warriors fighting patriarchy, they are also thinkers and architects of our post-patriarchal future. She is one of the ones, one of the many unsung or overlooked women, whose fierce vision will be a major contribution to leading us out of mental slavery, out of the patriarchal practice of suppressing and/or enslaving women. And that is a beautiful future.

Minna Salami (born 1978) is a Finnish Nigerian journalist who has propagated information on African feminist issues, about the African diaspora, and Nigerian women through her award-winning blog MsAfropolitan,[1] which she created and has been editing since 2010.