Loving Androids

Detroit: Become Human is a video game made in 2018 that focuses on a semi-futuristic world where sentient androids live alongside humans. Androids can be bought for the cost of a relatively low-grade car (around 8k-16k depending on the android, how new it is, the features it has, etc.) and there are numerous different models in this game, each one built for a slightly different task (crimonology, psychology, house maid, etc.). Some androids are built almost exclusively to engage with humans in romantic and sexual like relationships. If an android goes against what they were programmed to do, they become "deviant".

I have been enjoying video games for about two decades at this point. I started playing them when I was five or six years old. I fell in love with Detroit: Become Human but it also raised a few excellent questions about the idea of androids and humans being romantically involved with each other and/or sexual contact with each other (like issues of consent).

As it stands now, we live in a world with sex dolls becoming more and more advanced (in both body designs and interactive options with their human companions). One of the most advanced dolls on the market now (at least when it comes purely to aesthetics) is the RealDoll. It was featured on the show World's Strangest Addictions on TLC. When it comes to vocally interactive sex dolls, this feature is also getting rather advanced. While these companies primarily seem to sell dolls with voluptous breasts, the "penile variation" of dolls are also available. In Detroit: Become Human both male and female dolls are avilable for purchase (for both the sex industry and everything else within the game).

One robot in particular from Detroit: Become Human is an android known as North. North became deviant because she was made to be a sex android for humans to "play" with and realized she couldn't tolerate it anymore. As she puts it: "I was nothing...A doll in a distributor program to satisfy humans...Just a toy designed for their pleasure...One day, I was with a man who rented me...And without knowing why, I realized I couldn't take it anymore. I strangled him, and I ran away." North doesn't go into detail about what exactly happened between her and her client, but the way she goes about saying it made it seem like the life she had was pretty rough up to that point in time.

As it stands, there are not a lot of studies in regards to humans and their doll companions (either strictly romantic relationships with their dolls or strictly sexual relationships with their dolls). Many people are creeped out by the idea of android or doll romantic and/or sexual relationships. Many people who have these dolls believe that as these dolls become more common, less people will have such a negative knee jerk reaction to them.

Will our dolls and sex robots get to the point of being like the androids featured in Detroit: Become Human? Yes, I believe we will. Yes, I believe that there will be a point where (at least by legal standards), an android and/or doll will be deemed "fully sentient" and therefore have the same legal rights as a human might have. This brings up a lot of interesting ethical questions that we likely will not be able to answer until this hypothetical situation is staring us in the face.

In similar news, in case you are curious, the term agalmatophilia is the fetish (or kink, depending on your feelings) that involves being attracted to a doll, status, mannequin, android, or similar object. Mechanophilia involves attraction towards cars, bicycles, ships, helicopters, anroids, domestic appliances, and similar technological things.