Uncanny attraction: intercultural remarks on the aesthetics of gynoids and sexbots in pop culture

Abstract

This article offers some examples of female pop culture robots and shows how gynoids and sexbots suggest a simplified and stylized human relationship model. In some cases, this representation is ironic and/or edifying. In other cases, the artificial being offers a more complex representation of human destiny not influenced by moralism. In doing so, on the one hand gynoids become the occasion for an insight into the conditions of human existence or even an implicit criticism of sex as a power strategy. On the other hand, as my intercultural analysis suggests, gynoids introduce a stylization of desire that allows for an increase in freedom from social and economic pressures, as a playful and liberating opportunity of exploring the possibilities and limits of human relationships.