Drawing from gender studies, cultural studies, and feminist technoscience literature, this dissertation employs an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the androcentric imaginaries through which humanoid sex robots ("sexbots") emerge. Specifically, I utilize sexbots to interrogate and reflect on issues such as consent, whiteness, and humanity. By situating sexbots as proxies for feminized and racialized humans, I argue that the production, portrayal, and proliferation of sexbots are reflections of how we treat marginalized people, reifying existing hierarchal power relations. This project begins by analyzing the creation and dissemination of sexbots by popular sex technology ("sextech") companies. Critically surveying published papers, interviews, and research from various sexbot texts, I attend to gendered and racialized discourses of sexbot consent and companionship in human-sexbot relationships. Next, I analyze the overwhelming presence of whiteness with/in sexbots, exploring how anti-Black racism manifests in sexbots, and underscoring how both the present and "future" of sextech remains rooted in the past. Then, I catalog and dissect the published materials and interviews of prominent sextech creators, critically juxtaposing the marketing discourses of sexbots and evincing how both the sextech elite and science journalists—specifically writers I refer to as "sexbot journalists"—influence, change, and inform the meanings of sexbots. Finally, I turn to robots and robot alternatives found in feminist speculative fiction, utilizing these stories as a way of looking elsewhere in order to theorize what is possible for sexbots as well as our (current and future) relationships to these emerging technologies. At its core, this dissertation is an invitation to question white heteropatriarchy mediated through the controversial existence of sexbots. While synthetic women are the ostensible "subjects" of investigation—as well as commodities exchanged by creators and subsequently praised by enthusiasts—it is the "real" feminized and racialized humans who lie at the heart of this project. Through a much-needed feminist intervention, this project offers an in-depth analysis of humanoid sex robots and what they reveal about violence and power in the world around us. / Doctor of Philosophy / Humanoid sex robots ("sexbots") have served as inspiration for countless inventors, scholars, and writers of science fact and fiction. Sexbots, as I intend to show, are also shaped by gendered and racialized imaginaries, leading to their condemnation by feminist and race-critical science and technology scholars. At the same time, sexbots are popularly advertised as suitable alternatives for human companionship, promoted as emerging technologies designed for users uninterested in, or unable to, have sexual relations with "real" or "organic" women. Interrogating the troubling imaginaries behind these synthetic women, I analyze the creation, production, and dissemination of sexbots by popular sex technology ("sextech") companies. Specifically, I use sexbots to explore urgent issues such as humanity, consent, and whiteness. Unable to consent to the acts they are programmed to perform, or combat the abuse directed toward them, sexbots are often associated with sexual and gender-based violence. By situating sexbots as proxies for feminized and racialized humans, this project argues that the production, portrayal, and proliferation of sexbots are reflections of how we treat marginalized people, reinforcing existing problems related to patriarchy, misogyny, and anti-Black racism. While this project is deeply interested in sexbots, its heart is intimately human. Ultimately, I use sexbots to critically reflect on issues of power and violence in our world, as well as to (re)imagine feminist relationships to these emerging technologies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/115083 |
| Date | 16 May 2023 |
| Creators | Wenger, Sara Elizabeth II |
| Contributors | Political Science, Labuski, Christine, Halfon, Saul E., Caraccioli, Mauro J., Johnson, Sylvester A. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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