Moral and legal implications of sexual consent in body-switching (possibly NSFW).

[The Romulan Republic]

First of all, apologies for the rather strange and morbid topic, but its one that comes up, implicitly or explicitly, in SF surprisingly often, and may become a concern in the real world before too long (more on that shortly). Its also one which raises some very serious social, legal, and moral questions which are unfortunately often ignored in SF, and one that seems particularly timely given the current movement to bring to light cases of sexual misconduct. And I cannot think of a better place to discuss it than this board.

A common trope/plot in speculative fiction is the body-switch, weather accomplished by magic or technology. In some cases, characters will engage in sexual relations while inhabiting another's body (sometimes played for comedy, other times for drama).

Take these examples:

Case Study 1."-Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

In Season Four, a vengeful Faith uses a magical gadget to swap bodies with Buffy. While impersonating Buffy, she has sex with Buffy's boyfriend, Riley. While not explicitly described as rape on the show, this is portrayed by the franchise as a violation of Buffy which is damaging to her and Riley's relationship.

So, did Riley rape Buffy because he technically had sex with her without her consent? Normally I'd say yes, but the legal system isn't really designed with body-swapping in mind. After all, Riley had no way to realistically know what had happened, beyond the fact that "Buffy" was acting rather odd. Or did Faith rape both Buffy (by performing sexual acts with her body without her consent) and Riley ("rape by deception")?

Case Study 2.-The Dresden Files.

In book seven, Dead Beat, Warden Luccio duels a wizards known as the Corpsetaker, who's main tactic is body-swapping. During the duel, the Corpsetaker lets Luccio stab her current body (that of a young college student she murdered), and then switches bodies with Luccio. Corpsetaker in Luccio's body is subsequently identified and killed by Dresden, while Luccio's new body survives its injuries.

Three or four books later, Luccio and Dresden strike up a sexual relationship (which subsequently turns out to be have been influenced by mind control magic used on Luccio, bringing up a whole bunch of other consent issues).

So, what are the ethical implications of using another (deceased) person's body for sex? Is it now Luccio's body? Or is this a violation of the poor murdered woman who's body she is now inhabiting?

For that matter, the same question occurs to me regarding any time someone has sex with a vampire (presuming its a setting where vampires are soulless undead, anyway, like the Buffyverse).

Case Study 3.- Possible real-world issues.

A recent claim was made by a doctor that he was close to perfecting human head transplants. While this may seem fanciful, there has also been speculation for a long time about downloading peoples' consciousnesses in the future into machines.

What issues might arise out of a) transplanting someone onto another (presumably deceased) person's body, or b) someone using an artificial body to impersonate someone else? How might the legal system have to adapt to equitably address these issues?

[Broomstick]

Case Study 1."-Buffy the Vampire Slayer"...[snip]...So, did Riley rape Buffy because he technically had sex with her without her consent? Normally I'd say yes, but the legal system isn't really designed with body-swapping in mind. After all, Riley had no way to realistically know what had happened, beyond the fact that "Buffy" was acting rather odd. Or did Faith rape both Buffy (by performing sexual acts with her body without her consent) and Riley ("rape by deception")?

I'd say Faith definitely raped Riley via deception. I'm inclined to say Buffy was also wronged because her body was used without her consent.

Case Study 2.-The Dresden FilesThree or four books later, Luccio and Dresden strike up a sexual relationship (which subsequently turns out to be have been influenced by mind control magic used on Luccio, bringing up a whole bunch of other consent issues).

But give Dresden some credit here - when he was informed of the mind control issue he broke off the relationship (actually, it was more or less mutual) and apologized to Luccio. Luccio was definitely wronged here, but Dresden had no way to know she was incapable of giving consent so I would say he is not culpable, especially given his actions when he was made aware of the situation.

So, what are the ethical implications of using another (deceased) person's body for sex? Is it now Luccio's body? Or is this a violation of the poor murdered woman who's body she is now inhabiting?

The body transfer was permanent - think of it as an organ donation writ large. There is no way to bring back the deceased woman. Granted the young woman was murdered and the "transplant" done without consent, but neither did Luccio consent to what happened and there is no point to killing Luccio. The guilty party was killed.

The body is now Luccio's, just as a transplanted organ is now the recipient's.

Another interesting case study is the Larry Niven story The Defenseless Dead. In that case, the perpetrator of murder really has taken over his victim's body. It's a different slant on the situation.

For that matter, the same question occurs to me regarding any time someone has sex with a vampire (presuming its a setting where vampires are soulless undead, anyway, like the Buffyverse).

Sex with a vampire is, under those conditions, basically necrophilia. The difference is that this is a case where the corpse at least seems to have some sort of volition and ability to consent. Can a vampire give consent or not? That's the core question there.

Case Study 3.- Possible real-world issues.

A recent claim was made by a doctor that he was close to perfecting human head transplants. While this may seem fanciful, there has also been speculation for a long time about downloading peoples' consciousnesses in the future into machines.

What issues might arise out of a) transplanting someone onto another (presumably deceased) person's body, or b) someone using an artificial body to impersonate someone else? How might the legal system have to adapt to equitably address these issues?

A head transplant is just a body transplant by another name - the donated bits become the property of the recipient under current laws, therefore, the body would become the property of the recipient, that is, the recipient's body to do with as he or she wills.

The Defenseless Dead deal with this from the standpoint of a murderer using his victim's body to impersonate the victim and thereby escape justice (or at least try to).

If you use an artificial body with intent to deceive and/or commit fraud, well, that's already illegal. It's just another means to impersonate someone.

[Bedlam]

Case Study 1."-Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

In Season Four, a vengeful Faith uses a magical gadget to swap bodies with Buffy. While impersonating Buffy, she has sex with Buffy's boyfriend, Riley. While not explicitly described as rape on the show, this is portrayed by the franchise as a violation of Buffy which is damaging to her and Riley's relationship.

So, did Riley rape Buffy because he technically had sex with her without her consent? Normally I'd say yes, but the legal system isn't really designed with body-swapping in mind. After all, Riley had no way to realistically know what had happened, beyond the fact that "Buffy" was acting rather odd. Or did Faith rape both Buffy (by performing sexual acts with her body without her consent) and Riley ("rape by deception")?

My understanding is that there is already legal consequence for having sex while disguising your identity (I assume normally in the dark or covered rather than in another body). So if someone claim to be Bob to have sex with Bob's wife and she consents to have sex with who she thinks is Bob not-Bob has committed rape which I would assume is the situation here.

[J Ryan]

Case Study 1."-Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

In Season Four, a vengeful Faith uses a magical gadget to swap bodies with Buffy. While impersonating Buffy, she has sex with Buffy's boyfriend, Riley. While not explicitly described as rape on the show, this is portrayed by the franchise as a violation of Buffy which is damaging to her and Riley's relationship.

So, did Riley rape Buffy because he technically had sex with her without her consent? Normally I'd say yes, but the legal system isn't really designed with body-swapping in mind. After all, Riley had no way to realistically know what had happened, beyond the fact that "Buffy" was acting rather odd. Or did Faith rape both Buffy (by performing sexual acts with her body without her consent) and Riley ("rape by deception")?

My understanding is that there is already legal consequence for having sex while disguising your identity (I assume normally in the dark or covered rather than in another body). So if someone claim to be Bob to have sex with Bob's wife and she consents to have sex with who she thinks is Bob not-Bob has committed rape which I would assume is the situation here.

So this seems to fit the classical definition of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_by_deception. However it seems that laws have been produced that don't take into account body-swapping souls. On the link above you'll see a case in Massachusetts which fits your example exactly (darkened room, mistaken identity). You'll see though that it doesn't fit their definition of rape as no force was involved. So although it seems we can agree that the Buffy/Faith & Riley situation described above is abhorrent it would only be a crime in certain states in America.

[Zixinus]

With some thought on the matter, I think the following statements are aggreeable:

1. The person who owes their body has a right to use it for sex.

2. The person who owes their body has the right to give consent to use it when they are capable of giving consent.

3. For sex to be morally acceptable, both parties must give consent. As long as that was given, rape cannot be said to have happened.

4. A person has the strongest and most innate right for the body they were born with.

Arguable points:

1. If person A does wrong by having sex with someone else but still given consent to person B (who also gave consent), person B is not responsible for person A's wrongdoings.

Here is a simple example: STDs.

Person A had consensual sex with person B, thus transmitting an STD to person B.

If person A has an STD and did not tell person B, then person A is in the wrong and person B is innocent of wrongdoing. Arguments can be made for person B having to be more careful but that does not negate in any way person A's wrongdoing.

2. If a person is stuck in a body that is not theirs by a body-swap and are unable to reverse this wrong, their new body is theirs by default.

So, did Riley rape Buffy because he technically had sex with her without her consent? Normally I'd say yes, but the legal system isn't really designed with body-swapping in mind. After all, Riley had no way to realistically know what had happened, beyond the fact that "Buffy" was acting rather odd. Or did Faith rape both Buffy (by performing sexual acts with her body without her consent) and Riley ("rape by deception")?

I think rape is the wrong word. "Body-hijacking" might be the correct term for what Faith did and it should be a much, much worse crime than rape.

If Riley gave consent to false-Buffy and false-Buffy gave consent to Riley, then Riley did no wrong. I am ignoring something like either taking alcohol and so on, I am assuming that both gave real consent.

What further reduces Riley's responsibility is that he had sex with a person who he was in a relationship with and had consensual sex before. Unless there have been a body-swapping epidemic going around, he had no reason to even think that false-Buffy had no right to give consent to use a body that was not hers.

Faith as false-Buffy on the other hand is in heinous wrong-doing for body-hijacking, abuse of Buffy's body and deception of Riley.

I think you could technically call it "rape" but I think that would be just lazily slapping the term on it to fit something that needs new terms and maybe new laws.

So, what are the ethical implications of using another (deceased) person's body for sex? Is it now Luccio's body? Or is this a violation of the poor murdered woman who's body she is now inhabiting?

Let's assume that the murdered woman, Alicia Nelson, did not die.

Her stole was locked away inside her own body and Dresden was somehow able to banish Capiorcorpus's soul without damaging the body.

The primary question then becomes this: is it within Luccio's (and/or Alicia's) power to reverse the body-swap?

If yes, Luccio has no right to use the body in any other way than Alicia wishes. Likewise, Alicia cannot use Luccio's body in the same manner. What's more, Luccio is under the obligation to use her outmost power to make sure a body-swap happens and as soon as possible while as safely as possible. So that everyone is given back their rightful body.

If no, then these two people have to accept that they now own new bodies. Both are victims to another guilty party.

The only thing I can think of is that Luccio might owe some medical help and general support to Alicia with her newly old body. Not because of any wrongdoing, but simply due to the positions of power they now inhabit and how they ended up.

All of Alicia's efforts to build herself her own life and support herself just went up in flames. Lucio, as we have seen, has not lost it all. As we have seen, she retains her position and even some of her powers.

Alicia can't even identify herself as herself anymore in a modern society unable to understand body-swapping. Thus Luccio is obligated to help Alicia to her own resources to her new-old body. If it is within reasonable means, Luccio should also help Alicia set herself up for her the rest of the few decades she has left.


But that's not what happened, so let's examine that scenario.

Alicia cannot express any of her wishes because she is dead. Alicia is dead and cannot contest the right to her own body.
Luccio cannot regain her stolen body. She has no other body she can morally take.

Neither are under any moral obligations or responsible for any wrong-doing. They have not consented to the body-swap. Luccio's rights to the ownership of her body defaults to her.

[The Romulan Republic]

With some thought on the matter, I think the following statements are aggreeable:

1. The person who owes their body has a right to use it for sex.

Certainly.

2. The person who owes their body has the right to give consent to use it when they are capable of giving consent.

This raises an interesting question.

An important part of sexual consent is that the person giving consent has the right to later say "I want to stop now." So, can you consent to give someone else control of your body, and give them permission to do as they wish with it as if it were their own, if said permission is then non-revocable?

I mean, I guess people sort of do this with transplants. It just feels different when its an entire body, rather than just a part of a body. Maybe it logically shouldn't, but it does.

3. For sex to be morally acceptable, both parties must give consent. As long as that was given, rape cannot be said to have happened.

Agreed.

4. A person has the strongest and most innate right for the body they were born with.

Agreed.

Arguable points:

1. If person A does wrong by having sex with someone else but still given consent to person B (who also gave consent), person B is not responsible for person A's wrongdoings.

Here is a simple example: STDs.

Person A had consensual sex with person B, thus transmitting an STD to person B.

If person A has an STD and did not tell person B, then person A is in the wrong and person B is innocent of wrongdoing. Arguments can be made for person B having to be more careful but that does not negate in any way person A's wrongdoing.

Agreed.

2. If a person is stuck in a body that is not theirs by a body-swap and are unable to reverse this wrong, their new body is theirs by default.

That may be the most practical answer, generally.

But what about a case where the person deliberately stole someone else's body, rather than it being done to them against their will? Do they then have a right to do whatever they please with the body that they stole?

I think rape is the wrong word. "Body-hijacking" might be the correct term for what Faith did and it should be a much, much worse crime than rape.

Well, as I said before, the legal system isn't really designed to handle magic, but Faith did perform sexual acts with Buffy's body without Buffy's consent, after stealing said body. It doesn't fit the conventional definition of rape, but I'd say that it qualifies.

If Riley gave consent to false-Buffy and false-Buffy gave consent to Riley, then Riley did no wrong. I am ignoring something like either taking alcohol and so on, I am assuming that both gave real consent.

I'd be inclined to agree, yes.

What further reduces Riley's responsibility is that he had sex with a person who he was in a relationship with and had consensual sex before. Unless there have been a body-swapping epidemic going around, he had no reason to even think that false-Buffy had no right to give consent to use a body that was not hers.

Pretty much.

IIRC, Faith's behavior was rather... off, so maybe he should have been suspicious, especially since he was aware of magic. However, he was also new to magic in season four, and probably not aware of its full capabilities. I don't think he could reasonably be expected to figure out what was going on.

Faith as false-Buffy on the other hand is in heinous wrong-doing for body-hijacking, abuse of Buffy's body and deception of Riley.

I think you could technically call it "rape" but I think that would be just lazily slapping the term on it to fit something that needs new terms and maybe new laws.

Possibly, though I think it does fit a technical definition of rape, and that word does fit both the technical act (Faith performed sexual acts involving other people without their consent), and the severity of the violation that occurred, reasonably well.

Let's assume that the murdered woman, Alicia Nelson, did not die.

Her stole was locked away inside her own body and Dresden was somehow able to banish Capiorcorpus's soul without damaging the body.

The primary question then becomes this: is it within Luccio's (and/or Alicia's) power to reverse the body-swap?

If yes, Luccio has no right to use the body in any other way than Alicia wishes. Likewise, Alicia cannot use Luccio's body in the same manner. What's more, Luccio is under the obligation to use her outmost power to make sure a body-swap happens and as soon as possible while as safely as possible. So that everyone is given back their rightful body.

Agreed.

If no, then these two people have to accept that they now own new bodies. Both are victims to another guilty party.

More on this in a moment.

The only thing I can think of is that Luccio might owe some medical help and general support to Alicia with her newly old body. Not because of any wrongdoing, but simply due to the positions of power they now inhabit and how they ended up.

I don't think Luccio would be obligated, since she herself was put in this situation against her will, but it would be the decent thing to do.

All of Alicia's efforts to build herself her own life and support herself just went up in flames. Lucio, as we have seen, has not lost it all. As we have seen, she retains her position and even some of her powers.

Alicia can't even identify herself as herself anymore in a modern society unable to understand body-swapping. Thus Luccio is obligated to help Alicia to her own resources to her new-old body. If it is within reasonable means, Luccio should also help Alicia set herself up for her the rest of the few decades she has left.

Not sure Alicia's life would actually be all that much reduced, given the life spans of Dresden-verse wizards. Or would that longevity be tied to Luccio's magic, and desert her body after the transfer?

But this is something of an aside.

But that's not what happened, so let's examine that scenario.

Alicia cannot express any of her wishes because she is dead. Alicia is dead and cannot contest the right to her own body.
Luccio cannot regain her stolen body. She has no other body she can morally take.

Neither are under any moral obligations or responsible for any wrong-doing. They have not consented to the body-swap. Luccio's rights to the ownership of her body defaults to her.

It just seems strange, the idea that someone can acquire permanent ownership of another person's body. But yours is doubtless the most practical approach.

[Zixinus]

So, can you consent to give someone else control of your body, and give them permission to do as they wish with it as if it were their own, if said permission is then non-revocable?

In literal terms yes. Because you gave permission to do with the body "as they wish with it as if it were their own".

You just gave away the right of "I want to stop now" because you gave implicit permission to use "your" body for sex.

A more implicit assumption with a consensual body-swapping is that you trust the person you are letting your body be burrowed to not abuse your body. But then the bounds of agreement is general trust, which may or may not work out if you have different definition of "abuse".

Let's take a relatively tame example. Say I allow you to burrow my body for a month. You decide to add piercings to it. Now, piercings are removable (unlike tattoos, which I originally thought about) but I consider them abuse. You don't. The trust is broken.
This would be especially serious if the body-swapping happened to archive a specific, higher goal (say, stop a bad guy in buffy).

If the body-swap is consensual, than an agreement has to be made in the first place as to what both parties will do with their burrowed bodies. Here, the rules and laws of lending of properties come into play.

But what about a case where the person deliberately stole someone else's body, rather than it being done to them against their will? Do they then have a right to do whatever they please with the body that they stole?

The main issue from a practical standpoint is whether the body-swapping can be reversed or not. Or whether an alternative body can be created.

Here is a point to add to my standing assumptions:

- Every person, regardless of their status and crimes, requires a body.

Ergo, if a criminal body-swapped with a young person while killing their previous body (along with the young person's mind), then what are you going to do?

Options:
- The most hands-on and best approach is to reverse the body-swapping.
- You can kill them, for deterrence against other body-thieves.
- You erase the mind and turn the now empty body into a vessel for potentially more worthy minds.
- Same as above, just body-swapping the criminal into an inferior body. Like one belonging to a good-but-dying person. Or an artificial body.
- Give them traditional punishments like prison time while denying them all the assets and properties the previous owner of the body has. Same with penalties and such. Likewise, if the body-swap victim survives, transfer properties and other legal things attached to that identity. This includes a burden on the state, that recognizes the new identities, to enforce appropriate changes to other entities that obey that state.

Well, as I said before, the legal system isn't really designed to handle magic, but Faith did perform sexual acts with Buffy's body without Buffy's consent, after stealing said body. It doesn't fit the conventional definition of rape, but I'd say that it qualifies.

Then we are trying to twist the definition of rape, a path I am not happy to go down with.

I'd get it if it was a lawyer trying to get a conviction within existing laws. But I'd say that is potentially creating a potentially problematic precedent.
A greater risk is that you potentially muddle the defintion of rape, which is something I am principally against because its definition needs to be as clear as possible. Rape is already not taken sufficiently seriously.

The problem here is the laws don't exist because the legal system is unaware that this is in any way a possibility. Like we don't have legal rights about sentient AIs because at best, we can only create AIs the level of insects.

Possibly, though I think it does fit a technical definition of rape, and that word does fit both the technical act (Faith performed sexual acts involving other people without their consent), and the severity of the violation that occurred, reasonably well.

I disagree. The severity is a far worse violation.

You are focusing on one sub-crime while ignoring the far, far larger one. Faith didn't just abused Buffy's body for her own personal pleasure, she took over BUFFY'S LIFE!

It's like charging a murderer with "braking and entering" because they kicked the door down to kill someone in the shower. Yes, they did that but a far greater crime occurred.

I would argue that since the spell is temporary (or I guess it is), that is even worse because Faith doesn't suffer any of the consequences for the acts she did under Buffy (until she gets caught of course).

Frankly, the idea of calling it "rape" is also just lazy. That there are no laws is a deficiency of the legal system.

But for the argument, I would say something like "impersonation" and "idendity theft" are closer approximations to the real crime.

The issue is however, is how can a mind prove that they are the "true" owners of their own body? How can someone with a displaced body verify their own identity?

IIRC, Faith's behavior was rather... off, so maybe he should have been suspicious, especially since he was aware of magic. However, he was also new to magic in season four, and probably not aware of its full capabilities. I don't think he could reasonably be expected to figure out what was going on.

Then be both agree that Riley was a victim of deception. People are allowed to act off every once in a while.

You could argue that Riley should have been smarter to figure it out, but then you could also argue that Riley should also be more trusting and accepting to someone who is in a relationship.

I don't think Luccio would be obligated, since she herself was put in this situation against her will, but it would be the decent thing to do.

I would say that the obligation would come in Luccio's duty as a Warden to help the victims of magical crimes, not just to punish those that do the crimes. But that is sadly a severely lacking thing for Wardens in the Dresdenverse, as we seen.

Perhaps some argument could be made that they are both victims of the same crime and they need to help each other to fulfil some sort of justice. At the minimum, they should make true statements about each other as so as to reveal the crime to all affected parties as well as clear their identity ("I am Luccio in Alicia's body and therefore I have no right to all the assets that Alicia owes"). Remember, Luccio continues on being a Warden. Alicia can't exactly go back to her old job, can she?

Let me put it this way: if Luccio shoved Alicia-in-Lucio's-body under the bus, throwing Alicia into a legal purgatory of being a person she can't prove herself to be, would you say that Luccio did no wrong?
Especially considering that Luccio's reputation as a Warden would attract negative attention to the now-old Alicia? Not to mention the fact that Alicia has no access to her own money because she can't prove herself Alicia (how will she prove to a bank manager that she owes her own account when her ID photo clearly doesn't match)? Alicia's life is destroyed.

The extent as to how much Luccio should help is variable and arguable, but to outright throw Alicia under the bus is wrong. A minimum support to Alicia so she isn't a hobo isn't just the decent thing to do, it is the right thing to do.

Not sure Alicia's life would actually be all that much reduced, given the life spans of Dresden-verse wizards. Or would that longevity be tied to Luccio's magic, and desert her body after the transfer?

Luccio was old by wizard standards even. Old is old. Just because her foresable lifespan is still in decades rather a handful of years, she is still stuck in an old woman's body. That is something she did not deserve. Luccio does deserve that because it was her body and she lived down those years.

It just seems strange, the idea that someone can acquire permanent ownership of another person's body. But yours is doubtless the most practical approach.

No. The CRIME is strange. Crimes can often lead to broken lives and misery. That is why they are crimes. The outcome is strange because it is a sucky situation for everyone (except of course the uncaught body-swapper).

[Kojiro]

I have a slightly different moral quandary.

I was watching a video about sex robots, and the woman hosting it expressed the opinion that it was no ok to make a sex robot that resembled someone. Obviously it's not using their body, but if someone knocks up a sex bot that looks like Kate Beckinsale, are they in any way violating her? Or their ex girlfriend or just someone they have a crush on? Given that just about any robot that looks human will resemble someone, does that put them off the table entirely (short of said look alike consenting)?

[Elheru Aran]

I have a slightly different moral quandary.

I was watching a video about sex robots, and the woman hosting it expressed the opinion that it was no ok to make a sex robot that resembled someone. Obviously it's not using their body, but if someone knocks up a sex bot that looks like Kate Beckinsale, are they in any way violating her? Or their ex girlfriend or just someone they have a crush on? Given that just about any robot that looks human will resemble someone, does that put them off the table entirely (short of said look alike consenting)?

Legally IIRC there is precedent for not allowing your image to be used commercially without your permission. This would fall under that, I suspect.

[Kojiro]

there is precedent for not allowing your image to be used commercially without your permission. This would fall under that, I suspect.

See, I think you could definitely not sell a 'Scarlet Johansson' model of sex bot for sure. But a blonde sexbot that resembles her? In so much as any sex bot will resemble *someone* if they look at all realistic.

[Bedlam]

Well is there anything you can do if a human stripper or prostitute happens to look like you (or even undergoes some level of plastic surgery to look more like you)? All human's resemble each other to a certain extent.

I'd agree on the legal side that using the exact image is probably illegal but similar isn't going to cut it.

[Soontir C'boath]

Bit off-topic, but it'd be awesome to switch bodies with a consenting partner. That'll be an interesting night for sure.

[Elheru Aran]

there is precedent for not allowing your image to be used commercially without your permission. This would fall under that, I suspect.

See, I think you could definitely not sell a 'Scarlet Johansson' model of sex bot for sure. But a blonde sexbot that resembles her? In so much as any sex bot will resemble *someone* if they look at all realistic.

Honestly I'm not sure how far that can be taken.

I know that the original case (IIRC) was Back to the Future 2, when Cillian Murphy decided he didn't want to return as George McFly, so Robert Zemeckis paid his stand-in to briefly pass as Murphy in the background of the movie. Murphy sued for the use of his image without his permission, and won. Sooooo at least in film/movies/TV, you can't use someone resembling someone else and use the same name.

That said. The wiggle room is in parody. That's why you can have porn parodies of even real-life people; Nailin' Paylin, for example. Everybody knows "Paylin" is supposed to be "Palin", but obviously they can't actually say that "Sarah Palin" is taking stiff manhoods in three orifices at the same time. I'm almost 100% positive there's been a Donald Trump/Hillary Clinton porn... *googles* 'ZZ Erection', with 'Donald Drumpf' and 'Hillary Clayton'.

So I suppose it's possible one could make a Scarlett Johanssen look-alike sexbot and call it a 'Redd Johnson' or some such. An injunction could probably be made, but the burden of proof would be to prove that it's definitely supposed to portray the individual in question. It's certainly a different animal from a sex video or hacked photos.

[LadyTevar]

there is precedent for not allowing your image to be used commercially without your permission. This would fall under that, I suspect.

See, I think you could definitely not sell a 'Scarlet Johansson' model of sex bot for sure. But a blonde sexbot that resembles her? In so much as any sex bot will resemble *someone* if they look at all realistic.

Didn't "Futurama" have an episode like this, where Lucy Lui's head wasa being copied onto a robotic body and Fry 'dating' her? Then the crew find out that it's being done without the real Lucy's consent and other people have been downloading her and other 'dead heads' for far more abusive reasons?

[Kojiro]

I actually think I realised why this occurred to me. Buffy actually deals with this situation, with Spike making the Buffy-bot, and being rather disgusted (but then going and doing it for real anyway so... not sure what signal that sends).

[Zixinus]

The "sex robot resembling SOMEBODY" can be solved rather trivially: fantasy body designs. Elves, Na'vi, furries, whatever. There are test dummies that have a shade of skin that no ethnicity on Earth has. Do the same with faces. You can't legally protect body proportions. You design a body that resembles nobody. It's not like there is a lack of porn featuring those.