“Cutting between an apple, a snake, and two hyper-sexualized female cyborgs including Battlestar’s Number Six to the lyric “and the Devil is six,” Charmax reveals the stubborn persistence of representations which equate sin with female sexuality and blame female bodies for male desire.”

When considering the dynamics of scopophilic reactions, especially that of the man as the active participant, who does the watching, and the female as passive, who serves only for others to take pleasure in looking on, this representation of female as guilty of inciting sexual response becomes troublesome. Certainly the physical appearance of female characters, who supposedly act to be observed like the hyper-modified Molly of Neuromancer and the female androids of “Blade Runner,” has been a central point of their identity. Even when plot did not require or rely on objectification, Ripley still provides a quick strip in “Alien.” However, does this passive act of living, altering appearance or changing clothes, deserve the label of inciting a sexual response?

Even the synthetic women of “Machine Love” in “Robot Stories” incite sexual evaluation from men. While working and typing, her physical appearance, arbitrarily created by an external force, is mocked and critiqued. It is important to note that in “Machine Love,” a male robot is subject to similar treatment, but though the same actions are taken on him (groping of the breast by a human of the opposite gender), the emotional reaction is not as severe. Does this have to do with the falsity of the display, women contradicting their scopophilic role by actively sexualizing the image of a passive form? Should the synthetic women, who do not control their appearance but are rather the result of another planner’s vision, be held responsible for their form? Furthermore, can they be rightly accused on inciting another’s response purely based on their appearance?

How can the dynamics of a genre change to better allow women to be avoid debasement into sexual objects?