Roborotica

In 14 years of doing the dirty, I've had my share of robotic sexual encounters. Alas, not with real robots, which would at least be more novel if not necessarily more entertaining. Nope, I'm talking about the real deal with real humans, you know the kind ndash; where one or both of you is too drunk or tired or bored or inexperienced that it all becomes tediously mechanical. I've had at least one lover who took 'pomping' as verbatim instruction rather than crude description.

But while Alabama is still fighting for the right to party for one with sex toys (mechanical aids are outlawed in that prudish state), the rest of us may be a lot closer to robot sex than you imagined.

From Pygmalion to Ryan Gosling and Charlie Sheen
We've been steadily moving that way for a long time, from that ancient Greek kinkster, Pygmalion, sculpting his perfect woman in ivory to the rise of the creepily lifelike Real Doll, which has become so popular that its starring in movies (Lars and the Real Girl) with Ryan Gosling now, a chance most 'real girls' would kill for.

The last ten years has also brought us new progress in teledildonics, where webcam girls and guys hook themselves up to vibrating sex toys that can be controlled remotely by paying viewers.

Of course, having it off with a remotely controlled sex toy or a doll is not exactly the same as sex with a robot. Hunks of plastic don't tend to respond. (Luckily in Charlie Sheen's case. Allegedly, when he suggested a foursome with two breathing women and his $6000 Real Doll, the breathers mocked him and in humiliation he disturbingly took a cleaver to his plastic pet and dumped the body parts in a dumpster)

Stellar Barbarella
If we're going to do this properly, surely we have to aspire to the technical prowess, as it were, of interstellar bombshell, Barbarella (Barbarella), who was interfacing with mechanical humanoids way back in 1962 already. That queen of the galaxy not only outshagged androids, cyborgs and her giant robo-doppleganger, but also fried the circuits of the death-by-pleasure machine, the Orgasmatron. Now that's the kind of robo-sex I'm talking about.

But... loving robots? Some people already do.
David Levy, the author of Love and Sex with Robots (Love and Sex with Robots) due out 1st November, feels much the same way. Extrapolating on the way people treat their Tamagotchis and Furbys and Aibos with real affection, he forecasts that it'll be a smooth transition to loving a robot, if it acts human enough.

Based on the way one of my friends adores her robo-raptor to the extent that she and her ex boyfriend had a custody battle over the thing, Levy might not be far off.

Sociologist Sherry Turkle got freaked out when she brought realistic robotic dolls called My Real Baby to nursing homes only to find that the oldsters responded to the dolls as if they were real. Which is not to say that they were fooled. They knew full well that the squalling baby dolls they were caring for were robotic devices, but they engaged with them emotionally in the same way they would if they were real. Turkle hopes the dolls could be therapeutic, that by caring for them, it would help seniors or terminally ill patients through depression, but there is a catch.

As toys, the dolls were considered too creepy for kids, part of a phenomenon in robotics called the Uncanny Valley. The term does not refer to the place between a Real Doll's thighs, but rather the point where an object "looks alive enough to trigger biologically-programmed responses, but not quite alive enough to pass for human – and as a result can be unsettling or even repulsive." (Open the future)

Learn to love with Moaning Lisa. Ick.
Unfortunately the closest thing we have to a sex robot right now looks like she falls into the repulsive category. Showcased at the Arse Elektronika sex show, Moaning Lisa (moaning Lisa) is more of a Rubiks Cube than a lover. With her massively inflated boobs, knob nipples and motion-detecting camera lens eyes (all the better to judge you with, my dear), she was designed, apparently, as an educational game to teach the fine art of foreplay.

The goal of the game is to get her to orgasm, in a slightly different way every time, by hitting her erogenous hot spots. Her responses are randomised, but you'll know you're getting closer by how loudly she moans. Interestingly, the designers don't plan to make a male version, because, they claim, the game would be too easy – just go for the groin and you've won.

I can think of some of those overly-robotic human lovers in my past who might have benefited from a session or two with Moaning Lisa, but in spite of all the advances, there's still a big problem with the idea of robot sex dolls and that's because they'll get in the way of human relationships. Like Pygmalion who found himself too repulsed by real women to try and engage with them, aren't we setting ourselves up for a generation of people who are only capable of mechanical loving?

Could you have sex with a robot? Or love one?

Pop Tart is a 30 year old Capetonian who may or may not keep a bottle of WD40 in her toy drawer.