Abstract
How to characterize the object status of the sex robot? Although its global anthropomorphism, based on its hyper-realism, confers on it an indisputable reality, we seek to show that its mode of existence is floating. Either as an auto-erotic device whose role would be to close the body of the subject on himself/herself – even more elaborately than by the use of a sex toy or a sex machine. Or, as a fetish when it comes to a sex doll deprived of its genitals, a mute a-sexual figure who returns, in particular, the male subject to his unreachable and therefore untouchable female daydreams. Or, finally, as a transitional object, touchable, treatable, comforting but which places the subject in an area of illusion where, according to the very terms of Winnicott, the subject is in danger of dementia.
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Tondu, B. (2021). Sex Robots: Auto-erotic Devices, Fetishes or New Form of Transitional Object for Adults?. In: Li, H., et al. Social Robotics. ICSR 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13086. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90525-5_12
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