Sex robots are here, and here to stay--and more are coming. This book explores how the emerging and future development of sexual companion robots might affect us, and our society.
Witty and optimistic ...The opening chapters are effective introductions to these concepts for anyone unfamiliar with them. However, anybody already interested in sex technology, robots and science-fiction is certainly going to be familiar with much of this material already ... Devlin proves to be a rational voice amid a sea of speculation and concern ... Devlin’s pro-sex feminist stance is refreshingly well-informed and empathetic. She understands sex and fantasy in a way that many writers approaching these subjects fumble with ... While the first half of ‘Turned On’ is a witty journey through well-worn territory, the second half of the book is a creative, optimistic, open-minded exploration of sex robots.
Devlin is an academic. The way she tells it, she has found herself largely by chance in this research topic — and was then surprised by the media interest. She shouldn’t be. Sex robots throw up some wonderful dilemmas, from the salacious, to the existential, to the philosophical, to all three at once ... This book at times romps through philosophy, technology and social history. One of Devlin’s achievements is to humanise the sex robot makers and the users — we are invited not to laugh at them, but to understand them. However, the breadth of its ambition can leave Turned On feeling a bit shapeless. There are points where it is not always clear where Devlin is leading the reader. Ultimately, though, her conclusion is that society has nothing to fear from the sex robot, and the 'future of intimacy is not bleak.'
