How Many "Breakthroughs" Away Are We From The Sex 'Droids?

Perhaps there are more tasteful ways to put that point. But when you combine the American invention -- the "RealDoll" -- with this latest development from (where else) Japan, of a robot that performs facial massages, yet another advent of science-fiction seems ever more the likely.

What development is that, you ask? Why, this one:

It's a minor step -- but the idea of objects (inanimate or otherwise) performing and being used for human luxuries seems to be more and more... common nowadays. One can only imagine that it won't be too long now until some entrepeneurial spirit figures out he can rig up a -- by then -- simple machine to something like the RealDoll, and then rent 'her' (or 'his') time to johnny-on-the-street.

What makes this interesting is: will the moral crusaders see fit to try and ban such an activity, should it develop? And -- if they don't -- what, then, is the justification for telling a real flesh-and-bone woman that she can't do the same with her own body?