Hot for Robots! Sexual Arousal Increases Willingness to Have Sex with Robots

ABSTRACT

Robots designed to elicit sexual arousal are coming. Sexual arousal can increase our willingness to engage in risky or unconventional sexual behaviors. However, researchers have yet to examine whether this effect extends to robots. Hence, this study provides the first empirical evidence that state sexual arousal can increase our willingness to engage erotically with robots. Based on previous research, we hypothesized that levels of sexual arousal would positively predict willingness to engage erotically with robots (Hypothesis 1); and that men would be more willing to engage erotically with robots than women (Hypothesis 2). A convenience sample of 321 adults (≥18y) completed a two-part online survey measuring their willingness to have sex with, love, engage in an intimate relationship with, and be friends with a robot and a human before and after viewing a sexually explicit video. The results partly support Hypotheses 1–2. They show that state sexual arousal increases willingness to have sex with a robot, and that men are more willing to have sex and engage in an intimate relationship with a robot than women, pre- and post-manipulation. These findings are important given the rise of sex robots and their potential influence on our intimate decisions and behaviors.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank members of the Concordia Vision Labs and the Research on Sexuality, Violence, and Personality Lab (McGill University) for their feedback on this study and manuscript. The authors would also like to thank Aki Gormezano, PhD student, and Dr. Sari van Anders (Queen’s University) for their help setting up the experiment on Qualtrics and Prolific, as well as their input on gender/sex measurements. Finally, the authors would like to thank the Fonds de Research du Québec - Santé (FRQS) and Fonds de Research du Québec - Société et Culture (FRQSC) for financially supporting the research activities of Simon Dubé and Maria Santaguida.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The anonymized data related to this article are available on the Open Science Framework (OSF) at: Doi: https://osf.io/htzny/