11 Questions
To further expand my knowledge on sex robots for one last time, I conducted a survey amongst San Francisco State University students which resulted with 28 respondents. The survey link was given to students through apps such as Wildfire, Snapchat, and Instagram. My survey consisted of 11 questions beginning with identity questions leading up to questions about how the users would feel engaging with sex robots. The purpose of my survey was to see how many people are willing to normalize sex robots and accept them into their society.
What I Think
Looking at my pool of survey responses, I was not surprised to get an overwhelming amount of “anti” sex robot respondents. After conducting this survey, I learned that people are not interested in having sex with sex robots mainly because they believe it’s “weird” and “scary.” It taught me that even though Dr. Pearson, a Futurologist, believe “robot sex [will be] overtaking human-human [sex] in 2050,” the majority of the younger generations are still skeptical on this newly developed technology.
My Findings
The survey was given to 28 students of 23 being female, 4 male, and 1 prefer not to say. Out of the 28 respondents, only one person answered yes to the question “Would you consider having sex with a life size doll that can respond to you?” The one person that said yes identifies as female and when I asked for an explanation to their prior answer, she answered “maybe it can actually make me cum.” This is interesting to me because the companies that manufactures these sex dolls usually target men by creating curvy dolls replicating women’s body, but the one person out of twenty eight who said yes to having sex with dolls, is a woman. On another note, I noticed that none of the four men said yes they would have sex with a sex doll. My numbers from this survey does not agree with surveys done by the University of Duisburg-Essen which found that out of 263 heterosexual males, 40% of them would consider purchasing a sex doll.
In addition, the 27 people who answered “no, they would not have sex with a sex doll” have explained that “it’s weird” or “it’s scary.” This was consistent in majority of the answer which shows that it will be a long time before people begin to normalize sex robots. I think the reason why people are against the idea of sex robots is because the technology is still being developed. Often times, people are afraid of change and being introduced to something that is not widely used might scare them. Matt McMullen, CEO of RealDolls, a company specialized in AI sex dolls, believe “if a sex robot is too human-like and too realistic, we get put off — it’s more effective to keep them slightly unrealistic.” From my survey, the results disagree with what McMullen says. If anything, my respondents believe that sex with anything less than human is considered “weird” because it’s not a real human. One respondent said “I value human connection over the physical act” and another said “It’s a robot, it’s impersonal.”
Although 96% of my respondents said “no, they would not have sex with sex robots,” 29% of my respondents answered yes to normalizing sex robots. This question was one of the last ones on my survey and I added it to see how people would feel about others utilizing this technology. This is important because like I mentioned earlier, Dr. Pearson and David Levy, author of Love and Sex and Robots, predicts by 2050, robot human sexual relationships will be common. To see that 29% of my respondents are open to this technology shows that it’s likely sex robots will be ubiquitous in the future.
Lastly…
On the basis of the survey results, most people are against the use of sex robots and believe we should be having sex with humans instead. I have compared my results to experts such as Futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson, sex robot developer Matt McMullen, and author David Levy to see how might 28 San Francisco State University student compare to surveys done by larger numbers of people. This survey has taught me that as of right now, people are “scared” of the technology which is probably because of the robot’s human-isk qualities. The general view may be influenced by their surroundings which lacks these newly developed technology. Perhaps the reason why people aren’t ready to accept sex robots is because they have not encountered one. It would be fair to conclude that once more companies perfect the technology, people would be more willing to engaged with one.
Work Cited
“50% Of Men ‘Could Purchase’ Sex Robots in Five Years.” Imagineering admineering,
Institute, imagineeringinstitute.org/50-men-purchase-sex-robots-five-years/.
Horton, Helena. “By 2050, Human-on-Robot Sex Will Be More Common than
Human-on-Human Sex, Says Report.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 29 Sept. 2015,
“Sex Robots Are Becoming A Reality, But Are They Dangerous For Society?” Fight the New
Drug, 18 Oct. 2018, fightthenewdrug.org/futurologist-says-sex-with-robots-will-become-reality-by-2050/.
