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New Materialist Perspectives on Sex Robots. A Feminist Dystopia/Utopia?

Author

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  • Tanja Kubes

    (Gender Studies in Science and Engineering, Technical University of Munich, 80333 Munich, Germany)

Abstract

Feminist discourses on sex robots and robot sex largely focus on the dystopian fear of an exponentiation of hegemonic masculinity. The very possibility of robot sex is put on a level with slavery or prostitution and is rejected as a continuation of male dominance over women. Proceeding from a feminist new materialist perspective and building both on the refutation of normative definitions of sex and a general openness to the manifold variants consenting adults can engage in in sexual matters, the article presents a queer alternative to this outright rejection. Leaving the beaten tracks of pornographic mimicry, sex robots may in fact enable new liberated forms of sexual pleasure beyond fixed normalizations, thus contributing to a sex-positive utopian future.

Suggested Citation

  • Tanja Kubes, 2019. "New Materialist Perspectives on Sex Robots. A Feminist Dystopia/Utopia?," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-14, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:8:y:2019:i:8:p:224-:d:251913
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    3. Diana Coole, 2005. "Rethinking Agency: A Phenomenological Approach to Embodiment and Agentic Capacities," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 53(1), pages 124-142, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Beatriz Revelles-Benavente & Waltraud Ernst & Monika Rogowska-Stangret, 2019. "Feminist New Materialisms: Activating Ethico-Politics through Genealogies in Social Sciences," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-6, October.
    2. Ana Oliveira, 2020. "Subject (in) Trouble: Humans, Robots, and Legal Imagination," Laws, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-16, March.

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