Sex Robots Were Always Going to Be a Thing

There’s something off about Harmony’s face. All the human features are there, but her skin is poreless, as if she’s lived her entire life applying an unlimited supply of the world’s finest sheet masks. Her features are also perfectly symmetrical, but not in a Kardashian-after-surgery way—it’s more like a too-perfect Photoshop job. And her lips? Not even the most expensive fillers could form such a flawlessly pouty set.

Harmony’s fakeness isn’t her choice, though. Matt McMullen—Founder and CEO of Abyss Creations, a  US-based company that manufactures life-size sex dolls and bots—built her so that everything from her pristine forehead all the way down to her customised labia caters to, and satisfies, the libidinous gaze of her owner. Harmony is a moving, talking, moaning sex machine, made of state-of-the-art robotic technology. Her features are new-age, but really, she’s just the latest in a long line of sex robots dating back to antiquity. For thousands of years, people have been building hypersexual objects to bang.

The desire to have sex with something non-human may sound like a new concept, but once you dive into the wild world of ancient boinking statues, and ’80s-era molds of porn stars’ penises, the whole futuristic sex-robot craze feels surprisingly (and comfortingly) familiar. So, Harmony: please power down your perfect face while we take a sec to deconstruct your fascinating family tree....

 

A history lesson, but make it sexy

The ancient Greeks and Romans made their mythology stories ooze sex. But you’ve probably never heard Pandora’s box presented this way: “Pandora was really the first sex robot,” says Adrienne Mayor, a US-based historian of ancient science at Stanford University, and author of Gods And Robots. “She was supposed to be more beautiful than any living woman, and arouse lust in men.” This may be the earliest record of a female created for men’s sexual delight—and it dates back to about 700 BCE.

Seven centuries later, ancient mythology gave us the story of -Pygmalion—a dude so disgusted by real women that he made one to his liking out of ivory. Ovid, a Roman poet, writes that Pygmalion was turned on by how much his ivory lady resembled an actual woman, just like Harmony’s near-human features are built for arousal today.

Legends like this are sprinkled throughout classic lit, says Lissa Rivera, a curator at the Museum of Sex in New York City. And then there’s the real-life -evidence. Around the fourth century BCE, sculptors made life-size nude statues so realistic that people started -getting it on with them, says Adrienne. (Having a ‘lust for statues’ even has a name: agalmatophilia.) The urge to have sex with inanimate beings mutated rapidly from there.

 

Robots are *somebody’s* type

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and despite all the tech we have that the ancient Greeks and Romans didn’t, -companies still can’t make bots that are -perfectly life-like. But some people want to boink them for this exact reason. “Humans don’t have a choice of the body they’re born into, so people have a desire to transcend that,” explains Lissa. “Dolls are a part of fulfilling that desire.”

Consider the sex toys found in the Museum of Sex’s gift shop, for instance. While they stock -hyper-realistic, vein--riddled dildos, it’s the futuristic vibrators that look like something from the Apple store that sell best, says Lissa. “The toys that seem to be most popular don’t look anatomical at all, so maybe this idea of the human body is already a bit archaic.”

 

The future of fake sex

In 2015, Ian Pearson, a futurologist who claims to have an accuracy rate above 80 percent, made a bold prediction: by 2050, -robot-human sex will surpass human-human sex. What many sex-having people fear is that these man-made versions will be better than the real thing.

But as long as bots aren’t capable of actual intimacy, human sex won’t go the way of the dinosaurs, says Lissa. “What makes people feel crazy is having no-one to talk to or give emotional support.”

Instead, she predicts that “maybe artificial intelligence will be more like a coach.” Sexbots might tell you to get out of bed or masturbate. They might supplement sex. But the odds of them replacing you? Those aren’t high. Even if we’re headed towards a world where Harmonys are as -common as vibrators, human hook-ups will never go extinct, says Neil -McArthur, co-editor of Robot Sex: Social and Ethical -Implications. “Sex is one of the things that bonds us as people.” Maybe we can co-exist after all, and maybe we’ll even learn some fun new  tricks along the way.

 

A Brief History Of Sexbots

 

700 BCE

In Hesiod’s epic poetry, Zeus commissions Pandora, very possibly the first sexbot.

 

350 BCE

The sculptor Praxiteles ­creates a life-size statue of Aphrodite. Stains on her marble thighs are evidence of men’s secret relations with her.

 

 

8 CE

As told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Pygmalion falls in love with his ivory statue, Galatea, giving birth to the term ‘pygmalionism’, a sexual attraction to an object of one’s own creation.

1600s

Lonely sailors bring dames de voyages, sex dolls made of cloth or old clothes, on long voyages.

1880s

A British physician, Joseph Mortimer Granville, invents the first electromechanical vibrator.

1955

In Germany, stores sell novelty dolls inspired by a popular sexy comic-strip character, Bild Lilli (who is widely thought to have inspired Barbie).

1997

Matt McMullen, a sculptor in California, launches his first RealDoll, a high-end sex mannequin.

2010

Roxxxy by TrueCompanion, reportedly the first sex robot, makes her debut at an adult-entertainment expo in Las Vegas.

2018

Abyss Creations releases Harmony, an AI sex robot  capable of basic convos.

 

Photograph: shutterstock.com