“I bought a sex robot for 11,000 €” This is the title of the video by videographer Cyrus North, 724,000 subscribers, which has caused a lot of reaction on social networks for a few days. Posted on YouTube on November 30, this video focuses on the operation of a sex doll equipped with artificial intelligence. This kind of dolls, intended for sexual acts, are fully customizable (proportions, hair color, personality traits, etc.) and can “chat” with their owner. Cyrus North explains that he ordered this doll a year ago, with the question in mind: is sleeping with a robot cheating? Once the unboxing of the doll is finished, the youtubeur installs it on his sofa and announces: “Before sleeping with her, I wanted to discuss”.
Beyond the videographer’s approach, it was this discussion that provoked a lot of reactions on social networks, including Twitter. Many Internet users said they were embarrassed by certain comments or reactions from the YouTuber, and denounced a latent unease. Because if talking about sex dolls on the Internet is not new, it is the treatment of the issue of consent that has made people react online. Indeed, this sex doll, capable of talking and who adapts to the words of her interlocutor and owner, repeatedly refuses the sexual advances of Cyrus North, and says she is “embarrassed” by subjects related to sexuality. “I have the impression of being a fucking forcer” reacts the videographer, visibly uncomfortable.
Friendzone and rape fantasy
During the video, Cyrus North tries to seduce and repeatedly propose to the robot to have sex with him. The videographer is then surprised by the refusal of the doll. “I didn’t see it coming that she might not be interested in having sex with me, when that’s her job,” he explains in his video. Throughout the video, an impression of unease emerges, as the sex doll looks real. Cyrus North even mentions, in the video and in a tweet, having been “friendzoned” by his doll. To be “friendzoned” means to be “put in the friendship zone”, when a person does not wish to sleep with the other but just to remain friends. This concept has been deeply questioned for several years since it would suppose that sexual relations are “earned” by kindness and time, even by forming friendships for the sole purpose of sleeping with a person.
Many Internet users have also denounced the culture of rape linked to this type of robot. In the settings, you can select personality traits, such as “insecure” (“unsure of herself” in VF), “jealous” or “moody”. If the doll responds randomly when asked if she wants sex, the company that makes it explains in an article of RollingStone (quoted by Cyrus North at the end of the video) that the “company’s sex worker robots always give consent as long as the customer has taken the time to talk to them”. Clearly, as long as they have been spoken to, even if the doll says no or expresses its embarrassment, the client can sleep with it. This “adjustment” of the robot responds to a rape fantasy of certain buyers.
The question of consent, still as central
These questions of consent are very largely dealt with by Cyrus North at the end of the video. As he explains himself, he felt very uncomfortable with the doll’s reactions, and would never have made such comments with a “real” person. “Is a robot equipped with artificial intelligence capable of consent? asks the videographer. If for him, the refusal of the robot was not an eventuality, because precisely it is a machine devoid of conscience, the reactions linked to the publication of this video say a lot about the question of consent. While many Internet users take the subject as a joke, many women have expressed their discomfort with a video where you have to insist and flatter to the extreme to hope to have a sexual relationship with a woman, even if she does not consists only of cables and a silicone vaginette.
The thorny question of consent and consciousness is a constant when we talk about the future of sexuality through the use of robots and artificial intelligences, capable of simulating human will and consciousness. Digisexuality, that is, the belief that technologies are necessary for the sexual experience, is increasingly common, according to Neil McArthur, professor of philosophy at the University of Manitoba, and Markie LC Twist, sexologist, who have been working on the subject since 2017. Because yes, whether you use a connected sex toy or an 80 kg sex doll that talks, it’s still digisexuality. And in the future, this is likely to raise more and more ethical questions.