Sex With Robots and Human-Machine Sexualities: Encounters Between Human-Machine Communication and Sexuality Studies

Abstract

Sex robots are a controversial topic. Understood as artificial-intelligence enhanced humanoid robots designed for use in partnered and solo sex, sex robots offer ample opportunities for theorizing from a Human-Machine Communication (HMC) perspective. This comparative literature review conjoins the seemingly disconnected literatures of HMC and sexuality studies (SeS) to explore questions surrounding intimacy, love, desire, sex, and sexuality among humans and machines. In particular, I argue for understanding human-machine sexualities as communicative sexuotechnical-assemblages, extending previous efforts in both HMC and SeS for more-than-human, ecological, and more fluid approaches to humans and machines, as well as to sex and sexuality. This essay continues and expands the critical turn in HMC by engaging in an interdisciplinary exercise with theoretical, design, and use/effect implications in the context of sex robots.