La psicologia delle relazioni sintetiche: affettività e sessualità ‘alternative’ con i sexbot.

Sexbots constitute a challenge for what it has been meant up to the 21st century to be human. Social responses to sexbots are torn between resistance, when sexbots are seen as a threat to humanness, and interest, when they are considered an efficient substitute for human frailty. The aim of this paper is threefold. The first is to look at the scientific literature in order to explore the clinical, social, legal, and ethical implications of the entrance of sexbots into people’s life. Can a sexbot act and do everything as if it were a person? The second is to explore to what extent sexbots could either contribute to enriching people’s emotional and sexual life or could reinforce people’s deviant sexual fantasies. Can sexbots become lovers and companions? The third is to present the preliminary findings of a first Italian study that investigated whether sexbots are known by laypeople, and the extent of their willingness and readiness to have a sexbot in their life. Two critical issues are raised in this study, which seem to open more questions rather than providing responses. If sexbots are becoming subject to love and sexual desire, concepts such as love, human agency, and interpersonal attraction may need to be reconsidered. If sexbots symbolise a new direction towards which society is moving to, then people need to be prepared to face one of the most challenging tasks that relationships and emotions are called upon.