Cybersex with human- and machine-cued partners: Gratifications, shortcomings, and tensions.

Abstract

From social-network spambots and forensic chatbots to dating simulation games, sexual communication with machines is not uncommon in contemporary culture-however, it remains effectively a black-box phenomenon. There is little empirical research examining how sexual human-machine communication (HMC-S) is experienced, whether it is impactful, or whether it may be similar or different to human-human sexual communication. Advancing our understanding of those questions is vital in understanding the potential for machine partners to foster the health and welfare benefits, as well as the potential to have negative impacts. This study takes a first step in considering experiential parity or divergence by experimentally investigating 271 people's cybersex experience with a chat partner that was visually and textually cued as a human or a machine. Multimethod analysis suggests there may be no difference in gratifications from sex chat with ostensible machine versus human partners; however, participants seem to experience tensions between the gratifications and shortcomings of cybersex with machine-cued partners.

Flirting With or Through Media: How the Communication Partners’ Ontological Class and Sexual Priming Affect Heterosexual Males’ Interest in Flirtatious Messages and Their Perception of the Source

“…In the realm of the SIIM and in accordance with results of an empirical study by Banks and van Ouytsel (2020), the results (especially in terms of attractiveness and flirtatiousness) indicate that the voice assistant achieved no goodness-of-artificial fit, which might be due to constraints such as social and sexual norms (intimate or sexualized interactions are preserved for humans) but also evolutionarily rooted aversions (artificial humans may provide cues that deviate from healthy humans, e.g., voice, which might automatically trigger aversion). As the SIIM is based on the media equation theory, it also needs further research on whether it can be applied in the context of digitalized sexuality.…”

“…While no concrete research has yet been conducted on how voice assistants are perceived in this context compared to humans, Banks and van Ouytsel (2020) conducted an empirical study on how people interacted with a sexualized chatbot that either displayed human or machine-like cues (e.g., extended typing delays or visual and textual indicators of sex). While manipulation checks indicated that most of the respondents were aware that the chatbot showing human-like cues, was also a bot instead of a human, results also showed that the participants experienced sexual arousal across both conditions.…”

“…In summary, there are empirical studies that provide reasons to believe that people evaluate and react to humans more positively compared to artificial entities in the context of digitalized sexuality (e.g., Szczuka and Krämer, 2017 ). However, there is also theoretical considerations (media equation theory, Reeves and Nass, 1996 ) as well as first qualitative reports that indicate that people may enjoy a sexualized interaction with an artificial entity (e.g., Banks and van Ouytsel, 2020 ). Based on these considerations, the following research questions were conducted:…”

“…Following the SIIM, the evoked sexual arousal might then also interact with the evaluation of the interaction partner and the content of the sexualized interaction. Banks and van Ouytsel (2020) conducted an empirical study in which they explored reactions toward a sexualized chatbot compared to an interaction partner presented as a human. The results were mostly consistent with the SIIM, as they found that artificialness interfered with the arousal for some participants, while others engaged in the interaction because they had what the authors called a goodness-of-fit with either the content of the messages and/or the ontological class of the interaction partner.…”

Sexual Interaction in Digital Contexts and Its Implications for Sexual Health: A Conceptual Analysis

“…The third subtype focuses on sexual interactions with software sexbots (e.g., AI-enabled chatbots; Banks and van Ouytsel, 2020 ; AI-enabled holograms; Liu, 2021 ). Those software artifacts are not tangible but invite the user to engage in social, romantic and sexual interactions and relationships.…”