The future of sex… with robots
by Emma Louise Boynton @emmalouiseboynton
Jenny Kleeman is an award-winning journalist and documentary maker, and the author of Sex Robots & Vegan Meat which is a timely investigation into the forces that are driving innovation in the four core areas of human experience - birth, food, sex, and death.
We chat to Jenny about how specific technologies are shaping the future of sex and intimacy, and the different ways in which misogyny is being encoded into these products.
Your book begins with you going to Abyss Creations, the company that creates the world's most famous silicone sex doll. Can you describe what you saw when you entered the doll factory?
Abyss Creations makes the Rolls Royce of sex dolls. They're very expensive and fancy, so fancy that they've been in Versace advertising campaigns. When you walk into their basement, you'll find a row of headless women's bodies hanging from the ceiling, like carcasses in an abattoir. Because they're hanging, they swing back and forth, looking alive, but decapitated. The cheapest doll you can buy is around $6,000; this is just a torso. If you want a full doll, they cost upwards of $8,000 each. People have paid over $50,000 for very customisable dolls - we’re talking 14 different styles of labia and 42 kinds of nipples to choose from. I didn't realize that human desire was that specific, but it is. Most of the dolls sold are female. There is a range of male dolls, mostly bought by gay men, but they don't sell very well. The sex doll market is very much a male market.
Who was the ideal customer for these sex dolls?
There are sex robots and then sex dolls. The sex dolls sell, while the sex robots aren't quite on the market yet. These robots are incredibly lifelike, highly customizable with animatronics and AI that make them move and give them their own personalities.
Makers of the dolls say a range of people is buying them, from Nobel Prize winners to Hollywood superstars. Many want to buy these dolls for their artificial companionship. There is a fetish for having sex dolls, which requires a degree of imagination. A sex doll is a very large and heavy mold of silicone, and you need to imagine that you're having a relationship with it, whereas a robot is something slightly different.
You interviewed a number of sex doll owners. What did you discover?
I spent time on interesting forums. The people who make these dolls claim they are providing companionship for people. These are people who are disabled, chronically lonely, socially awkward, or who never leave the house. Others enjoy having a relationship with something that looked very human but that they could be completely in control of. I met very few people willing to talk to journalists, unsurprisingly, but ‘Daveca't’, a lovely man, was happy to talk.
He's married to his sex doll, whom he bought 20 years ago. He even sends her to be repainted every few years. Davecat experiences incredible comfort knowing that she's always going to be there for him. He said he has tried having relationships before, but they’ve all been very disappointing and he doesn't want to step on these landmines (disappointing relationships) anymore.
“Sex robots tap into the fantasy that you can have the perfect relationship without any compromise or pain.”
What do you think are some of the most serious implications of people having ‘relationships’ with sex dolls?
Imagine having a hyper-realistic doll that can move and talk, that you can customize to laugh at your jokes; that does whatever you want it to do, like never say no when you want to have sex. This has really serious implications for all of us. Empathy and compromises are not requirements in that relationship. If these artificial beings are used by people who lack the ability to interact with others, I think it will further isolate them, instead of helping to simulate the real world. What these people need is human contact, not a lump of silicone.
Collectively, we are spending more time with technology. How do you think this will impact us down the line?
Technology gives us this illusion of control. Take dating apps, for example. The business model of dating apps is to keep us perennially dissatisfied so we keep swiping hoping that something better is just one more swipe away.
It's the same with these artificial companions. They're not real, and they're there to make money. While they may provide initial satisfaction, their function depends on you coming back, buying more and continuing to subscribe. For me, a sex robot represents something that requires you to interact with it as if it were human. I worry about what this will do to human relationships when the most intimate relationship in your life is not human at all
There is an argument that the potential use of sex dolls might replace sex workers. Do you think that should or could happen?
The first book about sex robots was written by a man named Dr. David Levy, in 2007. He was very utopian and thought, for example, that it was a fantastic way for young men to practice losing their virginity so they didn't disappoint women on their first time. He believed that sex dolls could change the sex industry forever by removing prostitution and STDs. While I think there will always be sex workers, the existence of sex robots will put them in even more precarious situations. Sex robots themselves will be quite expensive, even in 50 years, which means there will be human beings prepared to do things for less money.
How do you think sex robots have already changed us?
I think we're used to having relationships with AI. We're used to barking at our phones to do things for us. We're used to not having to be courteous because we know that it's just a machine. We are also classifying ourselves in a way that perhaps we have in the past. We talk about our sexuality in terms of ‘I'm into X, Y, and Z’. This comes from things like online pornography and the different categories of desire that we can decide to insert ourselves into. It's these classifications and definitions that are useful for AI. So I think we're already being changed. We're already being encouraged to see ourselves in terms of how artificial intelligence see us.
“[Sex robots] have the potential to harm all of us, male and female, by eroding our capacity for empathy.”
Do you think sex robots perpetuate misogyny?
At the moment, they do. The form in which they take is an extremely pornified view of what the female body is. The dolls in this factory all looked like surgically enhanced porn stars. While certainly encouraging objectification, my big issue with them is not that they perpetuate misogynistic stereotypes. It's the fact that they have the potential to harm all of us, male and female, by eroding our capacity for empathy. When you're used to having an interaction with something that looks human, but behaves exactly how you want it to behave, and all you have to think about is what you want, then having a relationship with a human being you don't get along with is going to be hard work.
With the people that you interviewed, like Davecat, how did they speak about their sex doll partner?
Davecat was extremely reverential about his sex doll partner, Sidora. She even has her own Twitter account. I thought he was very loving, and then I found out that he has five or six different sex dolls and he's not exclusive with her. It requires a certain amount of imagination to have an evolved relationship with a doll. I think this differs from a robot because it encourages you to interact with it like a human. In general, most people who are prepared to spend so much money, tend to treat their dolls well.
What do sex robots tell us about the future of how we approach sex and intimacy and relationships?
I think there is an ancient human desire for control, the desire to live without doubt and heartache that comes from a human relationship. Sex robots tap into the fantasy that you can have the perfect relationship without any compromise or pain. I think dating apps also tap into that same drive, which is the idea that perfection is just around the corner. Instead of encouraging the notion that happiness comes from accepting imperfection, we are told that by spending money or watching enough free advertising, we're going to be happy. Unfortunately, this is just a fantasy. Relationships take human connection.
Are you optimistic about how the future of technology will impact sex and intimacy?
I am optimistic because I believe that human progress is in our hands. I think it's an American idea that we're all enthralled to consumerism, that we can't resist it. I believe in human beings, which means accepting imperfection, accepting compromise, and doing the messy work of social change. People are going to have relationships with extremely realistic robots within the next 10 or 15 years, and they're going to be cheap enough for most people to have them within the next 50 years. This means that the power that we have is to talk about these technologies before they arrive and to make sure that we know what we value beforehand. If we refuse to be sold on the Hollywood idea of the perfect robot and the perfect being, then the future is in our hands.
What is one thing that everyone can do to take more ownership of their relationship with technology?
I was at a birthday party with my daughter at the weekend, watching her play. It was very boring, but I did not get my phone out. Instead, I just sat and stared at the wall. We are all addicted to our phones which is okay, they are designed that way, but it is up to us to take back control. I recommend people stare at a wall for half an hour and see what ideas come. Go to concerts, go see some art - do things that make your subconscious take over because your phone gives you the illusion of being inspired when, actually, real inspiration comes from letting your mind go for a walk.
Rapid Fire
What impact do you feel AI dolls will have on our sexual pleasure?
I think it will make us very selfish.
Women use silicone sex toys but we don't seek relationships with our dildos. Is toxic masculinity and the social stigma of men seeking emotional connection or being rejected fueling this movement?
I don't think this movement is being fueled by fear of rejection. I think this movement is being fueled by male sexuality being different from female sexuality. I cannot speak for all women, but I think most women would find it very hard to be turned on by a doll or something that lacks genuine desire. I think men don't necessarily have as strong a need to feel desired in order to be turned on.
Did the designers of the sex robots collect a variety of different perspectives before building the dolls?
Not at all. I spoke to several robot manufacturers who just wanted to make money. They look at who their target audiences are and ask them what they want. They're not interested in a woman's perspective.
Should there be policies deterring the development of sex robots or control over the distribution of these dolls?
There are already policies about creating sex dolls that look like children, for example. Also, you're allowed to own a sex doll, but you can't import them. I also think we need to look very carefully at what data these dolls could collect. Imagine your beloved partner is a robot and tries to get you to vote conservative or to buy a particular brand of toothpaste. This is incredibly intimate, valuable data that they're collecting off of you, which they could then sell to advertisers. We need legislation for that.
If the future of relationships includes more sex dolls and robots, but the biggest market for them is men, where do you think that leaves relationships between men and women?
I think women will become tolerant of more men having a silicone partner. Maybe women will also begin to enjoy these dolls for themselves. It all depends on how convincing and sophisticated the AI is. We know how rapidly those advances are happening. Whatever the case, it's not going to be something that people laugh at in the future.
Register for our next Sex Talks event here.