The Internet and Research Methods in the Study of Sex Research: Investigating the Good, the Bad, and the (Un)ethical

Rosewarne, Lauren

doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2779-6_140-1

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…But, sex and intimate relationships between humans -ranging from flirting and courtship rituals, to partnered masturbation or sexual intercourse -can be sensitive and risky (Dir, Coskunpinar, & Cyders, 2014;Scott-Sheldon et al, 2013). These can also be particularly difficult to navigate safely and ethically in laboratory settings or natural environments (cf., Binik, Mah, & Kiesler, 1999;Masters, Johnson, & Kolodny, 1977;Masters, Johnson, Kolodny, & Weems, 1980;Munck, 1999;Price, Jansen, & Weick, 2020;Riley & Scott, 1999;Rosewarne, 2017;Rosoff, 2018;Shirmohammadi et al, 2018;Watter, 2020;Zhang et al, 2019). Hence, to protect research participants, and ensure that their studies comply with the ethical guidelines set by governments and research ethics boards, sex researchers must often rely on proxy or indirect methods to explore human sexuality.…”

Section: The Ethical and Methodological Challenges Of Sexologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Erobots as research tools: Overcoming the ethical and methodological challenges of sexology

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2022

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Sexology faces several ethical and methodological challenges. One of them is that sex researchers must rely on proxy methods to safely study fundamental aspects of human sexuality – in laboratories and natural environments. However, laboratory studies often lack ecological validity, whereas studies conducted in natural environments make it difficult for researchers to control experimental conditions or use sophisticated equipment. Together, this puts into question some of the empirical foundations of contemporary sexology. To address this problem, the present article proposes that sex researchers could leverage the potential of emerging technology, like erobots – or artificial erotic agents, such virtual partners, erotic chatbots, and sex robots – to help overcome some of the current ethical and methodological challenges of sexology. To make this case, this article describes these challenges; highlights how erobotic technologies could be employed as research tools to conduct more ecologically valid sexological studies safely and ethically in and outside laboratory settings; and discusses the relative strengths and weaknesses of embodied, virtual, and augmented erobots as experimental apparatus in sex research. Ultimately, this article concludes that the development of erobots that are useful for sexology may require further collaboration between academia and the private sector. It also concludes that the development of such useful erobots may allow us to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and our eroticism.

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