"Sex robots" revisited

Klein, Wilhelm E. J.; Lin, Vivian Wenli

doi:10.1145/3243141.3243153

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Following this conceptualization, the production and use of female sex robots is regarded as harmful for individual male users, their female partners, and society at large, as female sex robots symbolically reinvent and reaffirm the status of women as sex slaves [ 85 ]. However, this conceptualization operates more with metaphorical equations than established theories and is challenged by other publications as vague and unconvincing [ 79 , 80 , 89 ]. Although existing sex robots might appear sexist, different designs are possible; therefore, sex robots are not inherently sexist, according to other authors [ 11 , 69 , 76 , 78 , 98 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design, Use, and Effects of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots: Scoping Review

Döring¹,

Mohseni²,

Walter³

2020

J Med Internet Res

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Background Although sex toys representing human body parts are widely accepted and normalized, human-like full-body sex dolls and sex robots have elicited highly controversial debates. Objective This systematic scoping review of the academic literature on sex dolls and sex robots, the first of its kind, aimed to examine the extent and type of existing academic knowledge and to identify research gaps against this backdrop. Methods A comprehensive multidisciplinary, multidatabase search strategy was used. All steps of literature search and selection, data charting, and synthesis followed the leading methodological guideline, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews checklist. A total of 29 (17 peer reviewed) and 98 publications (32 peer reviewed) for sex dolls and sex robots, respectively, from 1993 to 2019 were included. Results According to the topics and methodologies, the sex doll and sex robot publications were divided into 5 and 6 groups, respectively. The majority of publications were theoretical papers. Thus far, no observational or experimental research exists that uses actual sex dolls or sex robots as stimulus material. Conclusions There is a need to improve the theoretical elaboration and the scope and depth of empirical research examining the sexual uses of human-like full-body material artifacts, particularly concerning not only risks but also opportunities for sexual and social well-being.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design, Use, and Effects of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots: Scoping Review

Döring¹,

Mohseni²,

Walter³

2020

J Med Internet Res

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“…Benefits include entertainment, pleasure, and a capacity to support safe exploration of a diverse range of sexual expression [1,2,14], as well as the potential to ameliorate harmful paraphilias [23] and to mitigate the anger and violence of those forsaken by mating markets [1]. These technologies also elicit concerns, including that doing deeply human things with objects might lead to a rise in objectification, particularly of women (e.g., [8]; but see [24,25]). While the question of objectification remains open, there is little doubt that humans readily treat objects-in the form of robots and other artificially intimate technologies-as if they were, at least in some respects, human (see [1,2,9,13,26]).…”

Section: Will Artificial Intimacies Affect the Lives Of Users Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Lovers and Jealousy: Anticipated Emotional Responses to Emotionally and Physically Sophisticated Sexual Technologies

Prochazka,

Brooks

2024

Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies

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Technologies that stimulate human social and sexual impulses could affect users and societies. Here, we report on two experiments designed to test participant responses to (1) “virtual friend” chatbots that vary in capacity to engage users socially and emotionally (i.e., emotional sophistication) and (2) “digital lover” technologies—in the form of sex toys, sex robots, or virtual reality entities—that vary in capacity to physically stimulate users (i.e., physical sophistication). Participants (173 female, 176 male) read vignettes that each described a particular technology and then answered whether, if their romantic partner were to use the described technology, they would anticipate jealousy or anger, and whether they would prefer to see the technology banned. Participant anticipations of jealousy and anger were so similar that we combined them in a single composite measure. In experiment 1, both the anticipation of jealousy-anger and the inclination to ban chatbots increased with emotional sophistication, particularly in female participants. In experiment 2, both sexes anticipated greater jealousy-anger and were more inclined to ban more physically sophisticated digital lovers. Female participants expressed higher levels of both responses across the range of sophistication. Experiment 2 participants were more likely to anticipate jealousy-anger and more inclined to ban sex robots than sex toys or virtual reality lovers. Our results show only limited consistency with evolutionary theories concerning sex differences in jealousy. Generally, the anticipated levels of jealousy-anger and inclination to ban the described technologies were low, suggesting low levels of resistance to the idea of the technologies.

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“…For many, however, sex robots’ gendered and racialized humanistic form, as well as their pornified esthetics, invoke concerns directly out of the feminist sex wars playbook (Bracewell, 2016; Duggan and Hunter, 2006)—namely fears that sex robots stand in for and objectify all women, eroticize social domination, and normalize and promote sexual violence—thus, mirroring radical feminists’ concerns about pornography, prostitution, and S/M fantasy play. For instance, UK ethicist and self-proclaimed radical feminist Kathleen Richardson established the Campaign Against Sex Robots (CASR) based, in part, on the supposition that sexbots reinforce “‘prostitute-john’ [relations]…justify the use of women and children as sex objects, [and] corrode human empathy” (Klein and Lin, 2018: 111). More recently CARS has changed its name to the Campaign against Porn Robots (CAPR) because, according to Richardson, “They’re pornbots, they’re actually pornography.…”

Section: Sex Robots In 2021: Notes On Ontology and Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

Plastic fantastic: Sex robots and/as sexual fantasy

Karaian

2022

Sexualities

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This article provides an interdisciplinary and intersectional analysis of sex robots and/as sexual fantasy. I demonstrate that sexual fantasy is a highly complex and salient vector of analysis for any discussion of love and sex with robots. First, I introduce contemporary North American sex robots and offer a brief sketch of their ontology as relates to sex toys and pornography. Next, I provide a short but instructive mapping of sexual fantasy scholarship from across the fields of experimental psychology, media and cultural studies, post-colonial, psychoanalytic, feminist, queer and critical race theory. My goal here is to demonstrate sexual fantasy’s polymorphous and productive nature and its complex relationship to reality. Drawing on the theories of sexual fantasy canvassed herein, I examine the role of fantasy to sex robots’ inception, marketing, and consumption. From here I offer an appraisal of radical feminist, new materialist, and disabled queer and trans feminists’ critiques of sex robots and their users. I argue that theorizing sex robots through the lens(es) of sexual fantasy is necessary given efforts to stigmatize, regulate, and criminalize sexual fantasy and sextech users in the post/digital age. Future scholarship is encouraged to further examine the sex robot/sexual fantasy nexus and to consider whether and how their intersections impede or facilitate the development of alternative “networks of affection” including those that lie between the platonic and romantic or between “carbonsexuality” and technosexuality/digisexuality.

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"Sex robots" revisited

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

Design, Use, and Effects of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots: Scoping Review

Design, Use, and Effects of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots: Scoping Review

Digital Lovers and Jealousy: Anticipated Emotional Responses to Emotionally and Physically Sophisticated Sexual Technologies

Plastic fantastic: Sex robots and/as sexual fantasy

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