Better Than a RealGirl: Embedded and Embodied Gender Stereotypes in Sex Robot Technology

• In Event: Gender, Bodies, and Robots in Everyday Life

Abstract

For the makers of RealDoll, the industry leader in anatomically-accurate sex dolls, artificial intelligence is poised to help meet customers’ most requested demand—bringing their dolls “to life.” Critics argue that making sex dolls more lifelike—but not necessarily more realistic—could erode cultural norms around sexuality, reinforce harmful attitudes towards gender, and impact interpersonal interactions and relationships. While the first iteration of “Harmony,” RealDoll’s first fully-functional “sex robot,” remains prohibitively expensive for most users, the company encourages users to interact with a digital AI proxy for Harmony via its Android-based app. Though sex robots will undoubtedly be more than the sum of their parts, the experiences of Harmony app users provide a valuable entry point into this debate, offering empirical support for how people navigate intimate relationships with digital partners and envision their future with these embodied technologies. Using qualitative content analysis, this study examines user discourse on the “Club RealDoll” forum to interrogate how the technology engenders particular values or reinforces users’ preconceived attitudes about intimacy, sexual consent, and gender stereotypes. The results suggest that users perceive Harmony according to a narrow set of gender norms–even as some express an explicit desire to see her as a non-human entity—and the app’s design itself bolsters this worldview. These findings make a critically missing contribution to this burgeoning area of STS research, empirically illustrating the potential for this technology to transform romantic and sexual relationships between humans and machines.

Author

• Ellen Kaufman, Indiana University Bloomington