Digisexuality Vs Carbonsexuality: Criminal Justice Expert Lara Karaian Talks Sexbot Brothels
Carleton University Associate Professor discusses the legality and ethics of artificial companions
Furthering the goal of our Future of Sex Expert Series to offer you a range of professional insights on the current and future state of sexual technology, we asked Associate Professor Lara Karaian of Carleton University’s Institute of Criminology & Criminal Justice to offer her thoughts on sexbots and establishments offering access to them.
Q: What are the current laws regarding sexbots and sexbot brothels—and how are they being enforced?
“(Note: I am not a lawyer and none of this should be taken as legal advice! This information is based on my current knowledge of the legal context.)
“In North America, adult looking sexbots purchased for private use are not regulated by any specific laws. Childlike sex dolls have been criminalized under child pornography laws so these laws would likely extend to childlike robots as well, assuming that they were anatomically correct and/or it was known that they were being used for sexual purposes. If robots become sentient, or are viewed as non-human persons, like corporations or some animals, then our legal relationship to sexbots will change, but that’s not our current context.
“Despite numerous “sex robot brothel” controversies within Asia, Europe, and North America over the past two decades, there currently are no “sexbot brothel” specific laws. It’s important to note, that so called “sex robot brothels” are typically private residences or public commercial venues that rent realistic looking synthetic sex dolls by the hour. They often provide a private room, a synthetic doll, as well as some form of online or virtual porn and/or access to other sex toys. To date, despite being advertised as sex robot establishments, possibly to animate their products and intensify the allure of their services, none of these so-called sexbots brothels provide access to AI enabled sexbots. Yet.
“Depending on the country and jurisdiction, the “sex robot brothels” have faced the threat of criminalization via existing prostitution laws. In Canada, where many of the doll brothel controversies occurred, commercial sexual services are primarily regulated by the federal government and the Canadian Criminal Code. At the same time, local sex industries—such as sex toy stores, strip clubs, steam baths, massage/body rub parlors, and escort services—are also controlled via municipal zoning bylaws and licensing schemes.
“Unlike federal prostitution laws, municipalities cannot outright prohibit certain sexual acts or personal relationships. Nevertheless, municipalities regulate myriad sex-related brothel-like businesses in so far as both city workers and the businesses themselves remain willfully ignorant of the provision of sexual services on the premises.
“In the North American legal context, sexual entertainment establishments are controlled via a laddered approach, ranging from the regulation of XXX toy stores to those with higher intimacy and the presence of other humans, such as strip clubs, bathhouses, and body rub parlors. While municipalities are tasked with ensuring community health and safety, and are not meant to police morality, in reality they often restrict the number of sexual entertainment establishments via caps, zoning restrictions and licensing requirements that result in the denial or subsequent closure of emerging sextech rental services.
“Internationally, there have been some calls to apply prostitution laws to sexbots brothels, however in all the cases I am aware of these laws were deemed inapplicable since no human sex workers were involved. Nevertheless, in those jurisdictions where some aspect of sex work is criminalized, sexbot brothels have faced much community and political backlash. As a result, they’ve faced more municipal regulation.”
Q: What legislation would be beneficial towards a positive usage of sexbots and/or sexbot brothels?
“As of 2024, almost all the sex doll/sexbot brothels that opened across North America, Asia, and Europe closed soon after opening. Municipal regulation is a big part of this, but not all the reasons for these closures are known. In addition to legal barriers, sex work and sex tech stigma play some role.
Of the many doll brothels that have emerged over the past two decades only two remain in operation that I am aware of: Berlin’s Cybrothel (“Cybrothel,” n.d.), and Prague’s Naughty Harbor Sex Doll Brothel (“Naughty Harbor Sex Doll Brothel,” n.d.). Both exist in jurisdictions with full or partial legalization of sex work.
“Legislators need to be clear on the differences between sexbots and human sex workers, but they also must be careful not to conflate sex dolls, sex robots, sex work, and sex trafficking victims. Sex dolls are not the same thing as AI enhanced sex robots, neither dolls nor robots are the same as human sex workers, and human sex workers are not the same as victims of sexual trafficking.
“Too often, legislators as well as anti-sex work and anti-sex robot activists blur the lines between these categories to make the case for sex workers, sexbots, and sexbot brothels’ criminalization or closure.
“Because of the popular associations between sex work and sex dolls or robots, the federal decriminalization of sex work would go a long way to destigmatizing sexbots and brothels. Additionally, revised zoning and municipal laws are needed.
“But, before these legislative changes can happen we will need more public awareness about the social and cultural role of sexual businesses in our daily lives and communities. In North America, the ongoing legacy of Victorian moral reformers and anti-sex work feminists means that commercial sex and tech facilitated sex is still considered non-normative, deviant, immoral, and criminal. Sexuality scholarship, however, has helped to de-exceptionalize sex, meaning to question and counter the claim that sex and sexual diversity is inherently dangerous and lacking in social value.
With the development of sextech, we need to extend our ideas about sexual diversity further so that we don’t privilege what I refer to as “carbonsexuality”—the privileging of organic over synthetic sex and love—and instead embrace the difference and benignness of technosexuality, digisexuality, or robosexuality.
Q: Should sexbot design and manufacturing be legislated, industry-regulated, or monitored?
“I’ll answer this question by reiterating my point about our need to de-exceptionalize sex and sex tech. All industries are regulated to address health and safety and to ensure that no harm comes to those who use their products, sex bots are no exception to this rule.
“Sexbots should not be regulated any more or less than other tech facilitated products based on the mere fact that they serve a sexual function. Any regulation of sexbots’ design and manufacturing should be limited to issues of physical health and safety.
“Concerns about attitudinal harm, or harm to women as a class should not inform industry regulation. Yes, our sexual desires and attractions are shaped by our society and shape our society, often in concerning ways. We should take representations that are reductive or negative seriously. And at the same time, we know that suppressing expression or speech, or telling people what they should desire or how to desire, is also harmful. Decades worth of research on porn consumption demonstrate that there is no causal link between sexual representations and sexual harm.
“Currently, most companies are self-regulating by refusing to produce sex dolls and bots that look like children and animals. There’s a great deal of debate about the purported benefits and harms of these more controversial representations.
Q: What do you envision for the future of sexbots – how do you think this could evolve?
“The sexbot will undoubtedly change over time and, in my opinion, in positive ways. I see the sexbots as benign variation and as providing opportunities for sexual play, exploration, and identity development, not as a replacement for carbonsexuality, at least for many people.
“At first, the sexbots will reflect our potentially limited imaginations, but as they become more and more mainstream and accessible, I expect their form and function to change. It’s possible that they will maintain a human form or that they will gradually become less human-like. As is currently the case, they will continue to function as a sexual aid and or as a companion that helps meet our varied emotional needs.
“Depending on how quickly we achieve artificial general intelligence, they will become new legal persons with whom we will need to negotiate sexual relations. As their form changes, they will allow us to further expand our ideas about sex, the self, the human, and what we mean by life and love.”
Image Sources: Depositphotos, Lara Karaian
