Findings suggest interest in robotic love dolls is about more than sex.

Does a desire for casual sex mean a robotic lover will never enter your bed? 

According to results from my research on desire for robots, it’s mostly likely the case that someone who seeks multiple casual sex partners is not also fantasizing about sex robots.

On its face, the finding could also be easily interpreted to support stereotypes about why people desire robots. Yet upon closer examination, I contend this finding supports the notion that people may be interested in sex robots for reasons aside from casual sex. 

For the love and desire of robots

Over the past few articles, I have discussed findings from my thesis that examines individual differences in desire for intimacy with robots. In one article, I discussed how hostile sexism is one reason that men might be interested in having sex with robots. In another article, I focused on the need for diversity in sex robot development so that robots can appeal to a greater variety of people. And lastly, I discussed a finding that men are more interested in sex with robots, while women are more interested in friendship with robots.

In this article, I will share my findings when I measured a person’s desire for robots along with their sociosexual orientation (SOI).

What is sociosexual orientation (SOI)?

In simpler terms, sociosexual orientation (SOI) is someone’s likelihood of engaging in or desiring casual sex with another person. SOI also examines someone’s beliefs about casual sex, such as their agreement with the statement “sex without love is okay”.

In order to determine a particpant’s SOI, the team asked participants about about their engagement in casual sex in the last year, if they think that casual sex is something they would be interested in (e.g., “sex without love is okay”), and if they have had any desire toward casual sex with a friend, or a stranger, in the past week, two weeks, or month.

In my thesis, I found that, for both men and women (in a sample of undergraduate students at a pacific northwestern university), higher SOI (more interest in casual sex) predicted less interest in sex with a robot. Stated another way, in a measure that combined behavior, attitude, and desire of individuals toward casual sex with people, higher scores predicted less interest in robots.

Casual sex and robots

The most obvious answer is that people who have more casual sex may be less interested in sex robots. This also suggests that people who have less casual sex may be more interested in sex robots. While this might fit a number of preconceived notions about who is interested in sex robots, there is a lot of nuance worth explaining.

First, actually having causal sex is only one of the three facets of SOI, and the other two relate to wanting casual sex. 

A higher SOI is possible if someone reports having frequent sex while hating casual sex as a concept, and having zero desire for it. Yet, people with higher SOI can be considered more sex-focused people compared to those with lower SOI. 

If someone wants casual sex a lot and has had zero partners in the last year, they could still have relatively high SOI scores. 

And, to clarify some of these findings, while analyses can be done of the facets separately, it is often not a valid use of the measure to draw conclusions from the facets individually.

What this finding suggests is that people might be interested in sex robots for reasons aside from casual sex. 

When someone spends money on a sex robot, the buyer may consider it a commitment, and that commitment may instead resemble a relationship rather than casual sex. I contend that, instead of the obvious “sex robot lovers have no sex” notion, people who use sex robots may not interested in casual sex at all, and instead may want a relationship.

This creates a future direction for this research, which could examine how much participants want a committed relationship compared to sex, and if that belief relates to interest in a robot for sex and/or relationships. 

Although there is no immediate timeline for this research, it can be supported by keeping in touch with us at Future of Sex, and supporting conferences like the yearly Congress on Love and Sex with Robots.

Image source: Maru Lombardo

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Examining the links between gender and social dominance in relationship style.

How does gender influence the likelihood of someone preferring friendship over a sexual relationship with a robot?

In an earlier article, I discussed my thesis findings that indicated a positive effect between a participant’s level of hostile sexist beliefs and their interest in robot sex partners. 

As part of this study, I also looked into the gender differences regarding who might want a robot, and if participant sex could be a predictor of engagement with robots.

Here, I will share my findings from this section on gender and how it intersects with social dominance and relationship preference. If you would like more information, the full article “Technically in love: individual differences in desire for intimacy with robots” is available to read for free on Google Scholar.

Robo-friendships, sex, and gender

Participants were students from a university in Western Canada. The sample was about ¾ women, and about ¼ men. While non-binary participants also responded, there were too few responses to draw any conclusions from. The average age of participants was about 21. 

The questions examined questions about whether people would think robots would make good friends, and if people might want to have sex with robots. Male participants responded that they would be more interested in sex with robots than women. Female participants were higher than male participants in their interest in robot friendship. This finding suggests that there may be a sex difference between wanting sex with a robot, and wanting friendship with a robot.

The role of social dominance

An important caveat was related to the variable “social dominance orientation”. Someone who scores low on social dominance orientation is likely to believe in group equality, while someone who scores higher will believe some groups are less-deserving than others. 

At low levels of social dominance orientation, men were more interested in sex with robots, and women were more interested in friendship with robots. However, for women who were higher on social dominance orientation, they were more interested in sex with robots, and about equal with men (women’s scores were higher, men’s scores were the same regardless of beliefs). 

For both men and women who were high on social dominance orientation, there was equal interest in friendship with robots (women’s scores came down, men’s scores went up). 

Overall, in this sample, men were more interested in sex with robots, and women were more interested in friendship with robots. While social dominance orientation affected women’s interest, women were, on average, lower on social dominance orientation, so overall, they were less interested in sex with robots. 

What this suggests is that social dominance orientation might play a role for both men and women, in that they view robots as a different group. If they view robots as lesser, they might be open to using robots for sex and friendship.

Women might be more interested in sex with robots if they can use them like a sex toy, while men seemed as interested regardless of social dominance orientation.

At the same time, higher scores on social dominance orientation suggested less female interest and more male interest in robot friendship. This could mean that women may want to have equal status among friends, while men might prefer unequal status among friends. Further research will have to unpack these findings, as this is just the first in what I anticipate will become an interesting direction in human-robot research. 

These findings were presented at the International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots. To support research in this area by a variety of impressive academics and sex tech researchers, I hope you will visit the congress website to learn more and join us at future conferences.

Image source: DrSJS, Gerd Altmann

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Hyper-sexualized, white gynoids attract just a small portion of the potential sexbot market.

Currently, sex robots only appeal to a fraction of their potential users, as many of the prototypes are white and female. For the industry to grow, sex robot manufacturers need to recognize the importance of representation and diversification.

I believe that one of the most effective ways to create better representation in sex robots, and thus appeal to a larger audience, is to improve diversity on manufacturing teams.

Homogeneous thinking creates blind spots 

Issues that arose with the development of self-driving cars exemplify why representation is crucial. 

In a recent article, one study found that self-driving cars may prioritize hitting some pedestrians of certain ethnicities (if dodging was unavoidable) because the algorithm was trained to avoid white people over people of color. 

One reason put forth for this error: many of the engineers on the AI project were white, and the algorithm was trained on white faces. This issue was not considered because the team lacked people of color.

While this is an extreme example, it does suggest that producers can make glaring omissions in their development should they lack diversity on their team.

Turn to feminist pornography

In a recent paper, John Danaher proposed creating robots inspired by feminist pornography to counter the hyper-sexualized female sex robots that are most often represented today. 

He suggested that pornography is often made for men, and thus can be more violent and less pleasing to woman viewers. In comparison, feminist pornography often has female viewership in mind, is more appealing to women, and is often directed and shot by women. 

Representation makes a difference

You could view sex robots the same way. With a lack of female representation, the robots will be made with the male consumer in mind. 

Manufacturers can create more inclusive robots and a greater variety of options by employing a diverse team of people of different ethnicities, genders, and lived experiences.

As one example, Realbotix, which is advancing the work on sex robots, has a diverse team made up of people from different backgrounds. They are working to create a variety of robots, including male, female and trans robots. While this is undoubtedly good, we can take this argument a step further.  

Disability should not preclude use

In a recent paper, a team of researchers stated the explicit need and interest for sex robots by people with disabilities, as those needs may not be easily met by other humans. 

This would require consulting with people who have visible and invisible disabilities at the design and testing stages. Although this might take a significant amount of time and money, it could create greater buy-in from a variety of sources, while ensuring the usability of sex robots for people around the world.

Reduce stigma

It is important for both the creators and users to understand how important it could be to have diversity in the development of sex robots. By increasing the number of users, this may also reduce the stigma toward users of sex robots, and create a massive benefit for the community overall.

Image source: Comfreak, Hao Pan, Elf-Moondance

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Interest in objectifying women may lead people to objectify robots for sexual gratification.

How closely tied are sexist beliefs and the desire for sex with robots?

As a researcher at the University of Victoria in Canada, I examined this relationship between sexism and interest in sexual relations with robot in a study of 223 undergraduate students.

The sample was 75% women and had a median age of 20 (mean age of 21.5). Most participants were either Caucasian or Asian.

The study revealed several key findings, including men’s higher tendency to hold sexist views toward women and robosexuality.

Hostile sexism and robosexuality

We defined and measured hostile sexism based on harmful and antagonistic beliefs someone may hold toward the status of women. Examples of this might be someone’s belief that “women are not funny,” or that “women can only achieve high-status positions through affirmative action.”

Hostile sexism sets itself apart from the concept of benevolent sexism. While views that fall under the latter category remain restrictive or based on harmful stereotypes, they tend to be more prosocial and positive in feeling, at least in the eyes of the person who holds them. For more details, you can access the original measure as explained by Peter Glick and Susan T. Fiske in the paper The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating Hostile and Benevolent Sexism [pdf]

Regarding our findings, first, we found that men were considerably more sexist than women toward women.

Second, we discovered that the level of male participants’ sexism was directly related to robosexuality: the desire to have sex with robots. Men who scored higher for sexism were more interested in sex with robots compared to men who scored lower for sexism.

Additionally, men were more interested in sex with robots compared to women.

The role of science fiction

Unsurprisingly, popular culture may play a significant role in the relationship between sexism.

The research found that robots that are partners in science-fiction media are often women. If someone who imagines a robot partner imagines a female robot, and that person happens to be sexist toward women, then they would probably be more interested in such a partner. They might want to objectify such a partner, and as many people view robots as objects, having a robot partner comes with the opportunity to objectify with no outside judgment.

Sexism isn’t a prerequisite for an interest in sex robots

What might this mean in the grand scheme of things?

Men who are more sexist might be more interested in sex robots than women, but this does not mean that one must be sexist to want a sex robot. Additionally, it does not mean that all people who like sex robots are sexist.

Rather, it suggests that people who are sexist may have an interest in objectifying women, and that that interest may also lead to an interest in a sex robot that one can use for their own gratification.

Additional research is needed

There are likely many more reasons than sexism that people are interested in sex robots. For example, people who are open to new experiences may be more interested in robots than people who aren’t.

To learn more, however, more researchers must engage with these questions. One way to learn more about this type of research is by attending certain annual events where robot research is showcased.

This year’s International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots (LSR), which took place on Zoom in mid-August, featured new research on robots: including advancements in robo-technology; the future roles they may play in society; and the way they are perceived by the general public. By supporting this type of research, we can continue providing these insights and supporting the field of robot partnership overall.

Image sources: Connor E. Leshner, vulcanostraga

The post Men with Hostile Sexist Beliefs More Likely to Desire Sexbots: Study appeared first on Future of Sex.

New research from the Kinsey Institute reveals a divide in public perception of human-robot relationships.

Every day, we get closer to having robots as relationship partners. But, as we get closer, we also approach the point that robots might exist alongside our human partners.

This creates an important question: if someone in a relationship has sex with a robot, would that be considered cheating? According to researchers at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, about 50% of people say it is.

‘Sex robots and digital infidelity’

These findings were presented by Ellen Kaufman in her talk, “Sex Robots and Digital Infidelity: Attitudes toward Technology-mediated Extradyadic Sexual Behavior” at the 2021 Congress on Love and Sex with Robots.

A panel of judges awarded the research Best Rapid Talk for its contribution to the field.

In a study of over 7,000 respondents, participants answered questions about whether they might consider a variety of physical behaviors, such as sex with another person, and digital behaviors, such as watching pornography, as infidelity.

Virtual sexual experiences may be perceived as cheating

The first findings suggested that watching pornography alone was not considered a cheating behavior. Online sexual behavior, such as sending and receiving sexual chats or videos, was closer to cheating, but was less like cheating than sex with another person.

Oral sex and penetrative sex with human partners were both viewed equally as cheating.

Humanoid robots and monogamous relationships

In the second set of findings, the researchers found that about 50% of people believed that sex with a humanoid robot was cheating, while the other 50% believed that sex with a humanoid robot was not cheating.

Women were more sensitive to cheating than men. However, both men and women reported that they would be less upset with a partner cheating if they also viewed sex with a robot as not cheating.

Similarly, both men and women who believe sex with a robot is cheating would also be upset if their partner cheated with another human.

Lastly, there were similar findings for both heterosexual and queer participants.

Heterosexual participants were more likely to be upset if their partner cheated compared to queer participants.

Both heterosexual and queer participants were also more sensitive to cheating if they believed sex with a robot was infidelity.

Physical sexual experiences most considered as cheating

Overall, the findings from this study suggest that there may be a digital/physical divide in cheating, with people being more sensitive to physical versus digital cheating.

While this is an early study with some important considerations in the future, it gives us important information on how our society views robots.

The current research for the SIA researchers is focusing on long-distance and video dating in the year 2020. For more information or to participate, you can visit their website Singles in America.

Image sources: AI AI-Tech UK, Kinsey Institute

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After a year of social distancing, physical connection is a hot commodity.

While 2021 has been an unpredictable year, the sex work industry is still booming as escorts and full-body sex workers receive unprecedented interest online from potential clients.

One likely explanation is after being deprived of human contact for so long, many lonely people are craving touch and intimacy—also called “skin hunger,” a psychological longing for physical contact with another human being.

As of May 2021, online sex worker websites are seeing record interest from potential clients, according to reporting from ABC News.

The average creator is receiving about 115 clicks a day, which is up almost 50% from around the time the pandemic began. These findings offer interesting implications for the future of sex work.

The good

The interest in sex work means we may be closer than ever to decriminalization. 

While finding a community can be challenging for sex workers, growing interest could lead to support from the media and financial sectors, leading to better backing for sex workers. 

If the upward trend continues, investors and the general public cannot ignore the importance of sex work in the population.

The bad

While there is an interest in sex work online, there is also interest in sidelining the workers who built the community and brand in the first place. 

Had there been less of a public outcry, we may have seen an OnlyFans that, by the end of September 2021, was completely devoid of sex and most nudity. 

Although interest in sex work has been growing, no one knows how long OnlyFans or similar websites will allow sex workers to make money. 

If OnlyFans were to ban sex work from its website, how long until the next company would be willing to try? Would that company also eventually ban sex work? The concerns would not go away for the vast majority of sex workers.

The missed

While the information discussed above appears to be good news for sex work, the data leaves out some crucial information. 

It is unclear if the spike is from paying users, or people who happened to click on a shared link. Furthermore, the data was gathered prior to the announcement and reversal by OnlyFans in their sex work ban decision, so we do not know if people have left the website in protest since.

And while online sex work works for some, many still want to return to in-person sex work in the near future. While we can be hopeful about OnlyFans’ effect on broader society, it may not move the needle on in-person sex work.

Image source: Obi Onyeador, Eric Nopanen

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