If season two of Westworld doesn’t have you rethinking sex and violence with androids, researchers are hoping that some hard and fast data will.

Science fiction aside, advanced sex robots are currently heating up the market, with several companies now offering more and more life-like artificial partners, mostly ones mimicking women. Skeptics fear the desirable droids could escalate misogyny and violence against women, ignite deviant urges in pedophiles, or further isolate the sexually frustrated. Sexbot makers, on the other hand, have been pumping their health claims into advertisements, including that the amorous androids could reduce the spread of sexually transmitted disease, aid in sex therapies, and curb deviant desires in pedophiles and other sex offenders.

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So far, those claims are “rather specious,” according to health researchers Chantal Cox-George of St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in London and Susan Bewley of King’s College London. In an editorial published Monday in BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, the pair highlight that there are virtually no studies that help bang out the validity of the many health arguments surging around sexbots—arguments both for and against them.

That data dry-spell doesn’t let doctors off the hook, though, Cox-George and Bewley write. They call for researchers to get busy setting up studies that will nail the answers. In the meantime, “an absence of evidence does not excuse the medical profession from discussing and debating the issues, as there will inevitably be consequences for physical, mental and social well-being.”

Turn on, turn off

Sex technology is already an estimated $30 billion industry, they note. At least four companies are now making adult female sexbots, costing $5,000 to $50,000, and at least one is making “pedobots.” The mannequins come with variable ages, features, and even programmable personalities, along with customizable oral, vaginal, and anal openings. Male sexbots are said to be in the works.

Some makers argue that sexy robot stand-ins will help reduce sex trafficking, sex trade, rape, and sexually transmitted infections. They envision Westworld-like brothels—which are already a thing in Spain—staffed with sexbots made with bacteria-resistant fibers and easily sanitized orifices. But it’s only speculative that the availability of sexbots could reduce human sex work, sexual violence, or disease.


In an opinion piece last year in The New York Times, feminist author Laura Bates argued against the notion that bots could reduce rape, taking particular issue with the woman-like sexbots aimed at being the “perfect submissive partner.” Animatronic robots innately lack an ability to consent, she notes, allowing users to see women as mere toys and enable them to play out violent fantasies, perpetuating what activists call “rape culture”:

Like the argument that women-only train compartments are an answer to sexual harassment and assault, the notion that sex robots could reduce rape is deeply flawed. It suggests that male violence against women is innate and inevitable, and can be only mitigated, not prevented. This is not only insulting to a vast majority of men, but it also entirely shifts responsibility for dealing with these crimes onto their victims—women, and society at large—while creating impunity for perpetrators. Rape is not an act of sexual passion. It is a violent crime.

Sexbot proponents, meanwhile, make similar claims regarding the potential beneficial treatments for pedophilia. Shin Takagi, who says he struggles with pedophilic urges but has never acted on them, founded the company Trottla more than a decade ago to make childlike sex dolls. In a 2016 interview with The Atlantic, Takagi explained his business, saying, “We should accept that there is no way to change someone’s fetishes. I am helping people express their desires, legally and ethically. It’s not worth living if you have to live with repressed desire.”

Violent ends

But there’s no evidence to suggest that child-like sexbots prevent those with pedophilic urges from acting or prevent those who have sexually abused children from reoffending. Experts are unsure of whether the dolls would amplify urges or quiet them. And as Cox-George and Bewley note, Takagi’s comment about “not worth living” may be seen as a “manipulative suicide threat.”

So far, research on pedophilia suggests that there may be key differences in areas of the brain related to impulse control between those who act on or resist pedophilic urges. Thus, sexbots may have differing effects in those two groups, if any. Moreover, a 2007 analysis that looked at treatments for pedophilia—namely hormone treatments that reduce urges (chemical castration) and cognitive-behavioral therapy—found that “urges can be managed, but the core attraction does not change.” Between 10 percent and 50 percent of pedophiles who commit offenses go on to reoffend.


In terms of other types of sexual therapy with sexbots, some have argued that they could help patients who struggle with intimacy issues or couples with mismatched libidos; they could also act as companions for the lonely, disabled, or those who find sex traumatic. But again, it’s still unclear if intimacy needs could be met in any of these scenarios. And there's also the potential that sexbots could exacerbate issues, including reducing women’s confidence in their appearance when compared to unrealistically proportioned robots. Moreover, “while a human may genuinely desire a sexbot, reciprocation can only be artificially mimicked,” Cox-George and Bewley note.

In all, the researchers conclude that until there’s more data to back up health claims, doctors should rely on the "precautionary principle," rejecting clinical use of sexbots until there’s hard data.

BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, 2018. DOI: 10.1136/bmjsrh-2017-200012 (About DOIs).