Lara Karaian

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About

Lara Karaian is a leading scholar at the intersection of sexuality studies, technology, and law. Her research critically examines the social, legal, and ethical dimensions of emerging technologies, with a primary focus on sex robots and their cultural implications. Karaian’s most-cited work, “Plastic fantastic: Sex robots and/as sexual fantasy” (22 citations), offers an innovative interdisciplinary and intersectional analysis that reframes sex robots not merely as objects but as complex sites of sexual fantasy. This contribution has been pivotal in shifting academic discourse toward a more nuanced understanding of human-robot intimacy. In “New Technology, Same Old Stigma: Media Narratives of Sex Robots and Sex Work” (9 citations), she exposes how media portrayals perpetuate longstanding stigmas against sex workers, revealing the deep entanglement of technological innovation with social prejudice. Her more recent work, “Sex robot brothels: backlash, by-laws, and sex work within the queer inhuman fold” (3 citations), continues to push boundaries by exploring legal and regulatory responses to sex robot brothels through a queer and posthumanist lens. Karaian’s scholarship is essential reading for anyone interested in how technology reshapes desire, identity, and governance in the 21st century.