Sex dolls are a complex phenomenon with several diverse possible emotional, sexual and therapeutic uses. They can be part of a broad variety of sexual practices, and also function as a sexual aid. However, the media discourse on sex dolls first and foremost concerns how we perceive the relationship between intimacy and technology. A critical discourse analysis of the Swedish media discourse on sex dolls reveals six themes which dominate the discourse: (a) the definition of what a human being is; (b) a discourse on the (technological and existential) future; (c) a social effort; (d) a loveless phenomenon; (e) men’s violence against women; and (f) pedophilia. Accordingly, this discourse is very conservative and normative in its view of sexuality, technology, and humanity. Overall, the dominant themes do not provide any space for positive effects of technology on human sexuality, and if they do, it is usually as a substitute for something else.

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The dream of the good pornography today, draws its argument from a feminist anti-porn analysis that concludes that pornography is an expression of the patriarchal society where women are being obejctified and degraded. However, in the 1960s, there was another dream of the good pornography, one which claimed that the existing pornography was bad from an aesthetic point of view. It had to do with the fact that pornography was forbidden in Sweden until 1971, and one argument for legalization was that porn would then become much better. The article examines the dream of the good pornography, the relationship between art (cinema) and porn (film), and what happens to the issue of gender when the dividing line between the two categories is questioned. Historically, the relationship between art cinema and the pornographic film is complex and the two categories that at a first glance are so easy to distinguish, have lived in a mutual dependency of each other. Art films with sexually explicit material pushed the limits for censorship during the 1960s, but at the same time, the success of art films with sexually explicit material often relied on a censorship that allowed sex in art but not for pornographic purposes. The undefined border between art and pornography also bring to the fore a discussion of the gender ascribed to each category. Art, belonging to the realm of modernism and high culture, has, by some theorists, been regarded as masculine, whereas porn, belonging to what has sometimes been regarded as the feminine mass culture, is often discussed and analyzed as a male genre. At the same time, one point of departure for the dream of the good pornography in the 1960s as well as in the late 1990s and early 2000s, is woman, her sexuality and her consumption of pornography.