New Materialist Perspectives on Sex Robots. A Feminist Dystopia/Utopia?

Abstract

Feminist discourses on sex robots and robot sex largely focus on the dystopian fear of an exponentiation of hegemonic masculinity. The very possibility of robot sex is put on a level with slavery or prostitution and is rejected as a continuation of male dominance over women. Proceeding from a feminist new materialist perspective and building both on the refutation of normative definitions of sex and a general openness to the manifold variants consenting adults can engage in in sexual matters, the article presents a queer alternative to this outright rejection. Leaving the beaten tracks of pornographic mimicry, sex robots may in fact enable new liberated forms of sexual pleasure beyond fixed normalizations, thus contributing to a sex-positive utopian future.

Exploring the psychological characteristics and risk-related cognitions of individuals who own sex dolls

“…Far from being dangerous individuals at a potentially high risk for sexual offending and objectification, as has been suggested in theoretical sociological and legal work (Carvalho Nascimento et al, 2018;Danaher, 2017bDanaher, , 2017aKubes, 2019;Lancaster, 2021;Puig, 2017;Shokri & Asl, 2015), the data paint a perhaps more vulnerable picture. Lower mood that is experienced in a chronic manner may be a driver for avoiding interpersonal relationships.…”

“…The emergence of realistic dolls, however, has led to an explosion of philosophizing about the ethics of such materials (Carvalho Nascimento et al, 2018;Danaher et al, 2017;Eskens, 2017;Facchin et al, 2017;Kubes, 2019;Lancaster, 2021;Richardson, 2019), particularly when these dolls ostensibly represent children (Chatterjee, 2020;Cox-George & Bewley, 2018;Danaher, 2017aDanaher, , 2019bMaras & Shapiro, 2017;Strikwerda, 2017). Indeed, there have been some convictions for the importation of sex dolls that resemble children (Brown & Shelling, 2019;Danaher, 2017aDanaher, , 2019bStrikwerda, 2017), with those prosecuted for such offences also commonly being found to possess child sexual exploitation material (Brown & Shelling, 2019;Cox-George & Bewley, 2018).…”

“…A common theme within the existing literature on sex doll ownership focuses on the effects that the commercial availability of realistic sex dolls has on broad-scale social attitudes towards women (Carvalho Nascimento et al, 2018;Cassidy, 2016;Danaher, 2017aDanaher, , 2017bDanaher, , 2019aKubes, 2019;Puig, 2017;Richardson, 2019;Shokri & Asl, 2015). These arguments typically stem from scholars writing from a feminist-based philosophical position, and in legal outlets whereby claims are not always challenged by competing evidence or supported by primary data collected from doll owners about their attitudes or behavior.…”

Can I Feel Your Pain? The Biological and Socio-Cognitive Factors Shaping People’s Empathy with Social Robots

“…This is an extremely complex issue, one which includes problems such as the reality and one-sidedness of these relationships (hypothetical (self) deception of people entering into relationships with robots), or limiting, objectifying and reducing interpersonal relations as a result of people entering into relationships with robots [26,96,111,113,117,147]. There is also considerable concern about the impact that sex robots will have on the social status of children [141], women and minorities [22,36,43,77,113,117,152]. As I noted earlier, gender bias in empathy, among other factors, is responsible for the phenomenon of victim-blaming in the case of victims of violence against women, especially sexual violence.…”

Male homosocial bonds and perceptions of human–robot relationships in an online sex doll forum

“…Within the growing corpus of research are investigations of sex robot attractiveness perceptions among US men (Ferguson, 2010; Szczuka and Krämer, 2017), perceptions of sex robot utility and the advantages and disadvantages of use (Scheutz and Arnold, 2016, 2017), the risk factors underlying human–robot intimate interactions (Borenstein and Arkin, 2016), the projected future of sex, love and intimacy with the invention of embodied agents (Sullins, 2012) the anticipated sexual health implications of sex robots (Cox-George and Bewley, 2018), the typical profiles and intimacy attitudes of sex doll owners (Valverde, 2012) as well as their views about sex robot technology (Langcaster-James and Bentley, 2018). These are valuable and timely contributions to research variously described as the study of ‘human–robot relationships’ (Levy, 2007), ‘affective robotics’ (Sullins, 2012: 399), ‘human-machine interaction’ (Kubes, 2019), and ‘lovotics’ (Cheok et al., 2016). And yet, little is known about how sex doll owners view developments in sex robot technology as represented in Harmony (Langcaster-James and Bentley, 2018) or the male dominated online communities in which members post, share and discuss their doll relationships.…”