Hidden (symbolic) necrophilia. RealDoll, sexrobots and fembots, or towards a new anthropology of sexuality and anti-cultural therapy

Abstract

The aim of the article is to describe the phenomenon of traditional sex dolls and modern sex-(ro)bots addressed to heterosexual men in the context of the main changes in civilization and morality that paved the way for new forms of human-humanoid relations. These changes have been gradually taking place in the countries of Western Europe and the USA since the nineteenth century as a result of the development of the industrial society, then - since the second half of the twentieth century - of the dynamic development of the consumer society, and since the 1980s - of the booming IT industry. Industrial and technological revolutions have had a significant impact on social relations, including heterosexual relationships, men’s attitudes towards women and society’s attitudes towards objects. They have also shaped the mental image of the ideal partner through the world (mainly American) cinematographic, advertising and computer game industries of the last century. This notion of the ideal woman then penetrated such industries as robotics, automation, user experience, and entered the field of new media based on the mechanism of artificial intelligence (AI) or human interaction with the machine in real time. The article draws attention to the socio-cultural determinants of new forms of sexuality, which refer to different types of relations and relationships between man and humanoid object. The latter resembles a woman on the “carnal level” (humanoid design), but also - with regard to sex(ro)bots - psychological and communicative. As a result, there is a need to reflect on a new direction of research on the anthropology of sexuality, where the “non-human” but artificial humanoid entity or computer-generated selected attribute of a woman (e.g. a voice) becomes a side of the relationship for man. Contemporary cultural production can provide space, strategies and tools to perpetuate paraphillic sexual practices, and in this context its anti-cultural therapeutic functions, structures and mechanisms leading to social alienation of man can be pointed out.