Stanford University

A new study has found that humans often become aroused when touching the "intimate areas" of robots.

The findings come from a new Stanford study due to be presented at the 66th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association in Japan in June.


Participants were asked to touch thirteen areas of the body of a robot called Nao, developed by Aldebaran Robotics, while fitted with sensors on their non-dominant hands that measured skin conductance and reaction time.

When they were asked to touch the robot in "intimate areas" – which included the robot's buttocks and genitals – they were "more emotionally aroused when compared to touching parts like the hands and neck". Participants were also, unsurprisingly, "more hesitant" to touch intimate areas. "Our work shows that robots are a new form of media that is particularly powerful," said Jamy Li, co-author of the study. "Social conventions regarding touching someone else's private parts apply to a robot's body parts as well."

But Campaign Against Sex Robots (CASR) activist and De Montfort University research fellow Kathleen Richardson told WIRED that arousal was "more than 'skin conductance' and 'reaction time'".


"Prior to any of the participants touching a robot, they've touched themselves and other bodies, and thought an awful lot about it," she explained. "I think the paper proves more of a Pavlovian dog view of human sexuality, but human desire is more complex than this. It may have triggered a physiological response because it felt dirty or dangerous".

The debate around human-robot sexual relations has been growing in recent years. In 2015 the creators of Pepper,a "social companion for humans" that can respond to human emotion, added a clause to ban buyers from having sex with it. The edict includes "sexual or indecent behaviour", the logistically confusing task of actually having sex with it, programming it to "stalk people" or "developing any sexual, obscene or violent apps or actions for Pepper".

CASR has also received considerable publicity with its claims that human-robot sex could "further reinforce disturbing human lived experience". "We are not proposing to extent rights to robots," a statement on the campaign group's website reads. "We do not see robots as conscious entities. We propose instead that robots are a product of human consciousness and creativity and human power relationships are reflected in the production, design and proposed uses of these robots. "As a result, we oppose any efforts to develop robots that will contribute to gender inequalities in society."