She can speak four different languages fluently, listens to you, can be sexy and flirty or mothering and nurturing. To some she might be the perfect companion, to others she is stereotyping women by being the world’s first sex robot. By Edwina Carr.

RealDolls may be replaced in the future by sex robots with personalities. Image: robotman1974

“Roxxxy” is the beginning of the commercialisation of humanoid robots, yet experts are concerned that the sex robot is projecting a negative view of women.

Adult entertainment company, Truecompanion, unveiled Roxxxy at the Las Vegas Adult Entertainment Expo this January.

The robot comes with different personalities, including “Young Yoko”, a beginner at the sex game, and “S&M Susan”, an experienced lover who will have no problem with causing a little pain if requested.

Roxxxy can also be programmed into a “Frigid Farrah” personality where according to Truecompanion website, “if you touched her in a private area, more than likely, she will not be too appreciative of your advance”.

Nina Funnell, Board Member of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre and Researcher in the Journalism and Media Centre at the University of New South Wales, says that while she thinks that it is “perfectly acceptable for people to explore their sexuality in safe, respectful and consensual ways,” Roxxxy’s personality settings have the potential to incite inappropriate behaviour in social settings.

“While I don’t think they will necessarily encourage sexual assault, they certainly won’t discourage it…the fact that this robot has a “Frigid Farrah” setting, where men can have sex with ‘her’ when she makes it clear she doesn’t want to, normalises and reinforces rape-positive attitudes.”

Funnell says that while she has no problem with people using sex toys, she says that as a society, we need to take a more critical approach to how women are viewed.

“I also think it’s important to be critical of the many ways in which women today are treated like voiceless mannequins,” Funnel says.

“This [sex robots], to me, is the extreme form of that. I’m also anxious about men who want to substitute real live women with voiceless, passive, inanimate objects who serve as a constantly sexually avaliable servant.”

Whether she will encourage misogynistic attitudes or not, Roxxxy could be a source of company for single people.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirms that having a companion, particularly in one’s elder years, can increase life expectancy.

When comparing the rate of death per 1000 for married people versus single people, married people were shown to live longer in the majority of age groups.

Could robotic dolls help some people to overcome loneliness? Jade Alexander, CEO of Sydney Sex Therapy, thinks so.

“The potential is there for robot dolls like Roxxxy to meet some companionship needs in a minority of lonely individuals,” she says.

“In an age where we have vibrators to meet sexual needs and expensive cars for egotistical needs, how far-fetched is it to consider a pre-programmed, interactive lover to fill sexual and/or companionship needs?”

Gordon Griggs, 43, lives in Virginia and owns two RealDolls (realistic human dolls similar to Roxxxy) called Ginger Brooke and Kelly Sue.

While he’s not in a rush to buy Roxxxy, he believes that robotic sex dolls with inbuilt personalities could make their non-robotic sisters obsolete.

Griggs, who describes himself as “antisocial”, relies heavily on his dolls for companionship and prefers the company of Ginger Brooke and Kelly Sue because the lives of real women are too complicated for him.

“I like peace and quiet and for things to be simple,” he says.

“Most people always have some kind of problem going on. As soon as they solve one, they get themselves into another. I’m not into that.”

A typical weekend for Griggs is spending time with his dolls “lying in bed watching TV.”

“I dress them up and take photos or make videos for Youtube,” he says.

Alexander says that despite Roxxxy’s potential to fill a void in some individual’s sex or personal lives, the robot’s likeness to a woman could discourage people from socialising with real people.

“The danger in having programmable personalities is the increased risk that vulnerable individuals may stop seeking the companionship of actual people and become further isolated and trapped by their dependence on the artificial,” she says.

Peter Nowak, Science and Technology Reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News Online and author of Sex, Bombs and Burgers, was present for the unveiling of Roxxxy in Las Vegas.

While Nowak thinks Roxxxy’s debut was “a bit of a letdown,” he believes she represents the first steps towards attracting mainstream interest in robotic dolls.

Although most people aren’t aware of it, robotic technology has already become widely used in our society.

“iRobot has sold more than 3 million Roomba vacuum cleaners, and there are more and more household robots coming every day, from pool cleaners to lawn mowers,” he says.

“The bottom line is that everyone has tasks they hate doing – I hate cleaning the toilet, for example – so it’s only a question of the technology getting cheap enough to allow robots to take those over.”

Nowak says innovations in the adult industry almost always stem from breakthroughs in military technology which he says is where Roxxxy’s technology originates.

“Military Research and Development has definitely provided the sex industry with all of its technology…If we’re talking about sex robots being next, military R&D is definitely doing all the heavy lifting here in terms of recruiting people to work on robotics, spreading the knowledge and bringing the cost down”.

Nowak believes that it would be smart for sex doll makers (like RealDoll) to keep updated on military advances in robotics.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if, say fifteen years from now, there’s a Time magazine cover story on the man who invented the world’s first commercially successful sex robot, and it turns out that he, and it will almost definitely be a “he”, came from a military R&D background,” Nowak says.