New Materialist Perspectives on Sex Robots. A Feminist Dystopia/Utopia?

Tanja Kubes
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Tanja Kubes: Gender Studies in Science and Engineering, Technical University of Munich, 80333 Munich, Germany

Social Sciences, 2019, vol. 8, issue 8, 1-14

Abstract: Feminist discourses on sex robots and robot sex largely focus on the dystopian fear of an exponentiation of hegemonic masculinity. The very possibility of robot sex is put on a level with slavery or prostitution and is rejected as a continuation of male dominance over women. Proceeding from a feminist new materialist perspective and building both on the refutation of normative definitions of sex and a general openness to the manifold variants consenting adults can engage in in sexual matters, the article presents a queer alternative to this outright rejection. Leaving the beaten tracks of pornographic mimicry, sex robots may in fact enable new liberated forms of sexual pleasure beyond fixed normalizations, thus contributing to a sex-positive utopian future.

Keywords: new materialism; sex robots; robot sex; transversalism; human–machine interaction; sex-positive; diffractive design; queer studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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