"The Perfect Companion": From Cyborgs to Gynoids-Sex Robots and the Commodification of Authentic Intimate Experience

摘要

The prevalence of discussions regarding sex robots shows a growing anxiety around human-robot interactions (HRI) (Scheutz & Arnold, 2016). The growing field of ‘Lovotics’ seeks to explore the romantic potential of harmonizing love, sex and robotics with HRI (Levy, Cheok & Devlin, 2016). Feminists exploring technology’s potential as a tool to establish gender equality also recognise the problematic nature of the globalized and capitalist market’s potential to impede progress, as explored in Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto and Rosi Braidotti’s The Posthuman (1991) (2013). As technology advances, Realbotix aim to pioneers in the sex-robot field, attempting to create “The Perfect Companion”. Firstly with “Harmony AI”, “part android app, part sexualised robotic assistant” and then also “Harmony Sex Robot” powered by the AI application in a humanoid body. These latest creations introduced to the market are posited as products to have an intimate relationship with (Realbotix, 2018). Our perception of intimacy has changed through technological mediation, as we become increasingly involved in online social interactions (Shank, 2014) (Turkle, 2013), but also because of market-driven changes, an aspect also reflected in globalized sexual commerce (Bernstein, 2008). This investigation seeks to explore how intimacy and companionship is sold through technologically mediated sexual commerce. Through a dualistic approach of discourse analysis of the Realbotix website and cyberethnography of potential customer’s forum comments, this project creates an early approach towards the commercialisation of intimacy mediated through a technologically and artificially created female. This will lead to a reflection on technology and sexual commerce’s mutations that accommodate this desire for intimacy, and how this is characterised through sex robots.