Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Mar 4, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 3, 2020
Design, Use, and Effects of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots: A Scoping Review (1993-2019)
ABSTRACT
Background:
While sex toys representing human body parts are widely accepted and normalized, human-like full-body sex dolls and sex robots have elicited highly controversial debates.
Objective:
Against this backdrop, the first systematic scoping review of the academic literature on sex dolls and sex robots was conducted to examine the extent and type of existing academic knowledge and to identify research gaps.
Methods:
A comprehensive multi-discipline, multi-database search strategy was used. All steps of literature search and selection, data charting and synthesis followed the leading methodological guideline, the PRISMA-ScR checklist. For sex dolls, N = 29 publications (17 peer-reviewed), and for sex robots, N = 98 publications (32 peer-reviewed) were included.
Results:
According to its topics and methodologies, the sex doll and sex robot publications were divided into five and six groups, respectively. The majority of publications are theoretical papers. So far, no observational or experimental research exists that uses actual sex dolls or sex robots as stimulus material.
Conclusions:
There is a need to improve the theoretical elaboration and the scope and depth of empirical research examining the sexual uses of human-like full-body material artifacts, in particular concerning not only risks but also opportunities for sexual and social wellbeing.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.