‘I love it. I’m incredibly happy with what we’ve done. To see it all working…’ He sighs. ‘It’s a very nice feeling, to have attained that level.’
The current model, with a robotic, AI-enhanced head on a RealDoll’s body, will cost $15,000. Matt says there will be a limited edition run of a thousand for the many excited doll owners who have already expressed interest. If that goes well, they will get a bigger facility and hire more people so they can meet the demand. ‘I think this could be a multimillion-dollar endeavour,’ he says. ‘Now that it’s starting to come together, we have people banging on the door who want to invest money.’
Matt may well be right. Venture capitalists estimate that the sex tech industry is worth over $30 billion, based only on the market value of existing technologies like smart sex toys, hook-up apps and virtual reality porn; sex robots will be the biggest thing the market has seen yet. Sex with robots might one day be a normal part of life for a significant number of men: a 2017 YouGov poll found that one in four American men would consider having sex with a robot, and 49 per cent of Americans thought having sex with robots would be commonplace within the next fifty years. A 2016 study by the University of Duisburg-Essen found that more than 40 per cent of the heterosexual men interviewed said they could imagine buying a sex robot for themselves now or in the next five years; men in what they described as fulfilling relationships were no less likely than single or lonely men to express an interest in owning one. Creating a satisfying relationship with a cold, silent piece of silicone takes such imaginative effort that sex dolls can only ever have minority appeal. But a robot that moves and speaks, with artificial intelligence so it can learn what you want it to be and do, is a far easier product to sell.
‘We are going to see robots in people’s homes the same way as we see smartphones in people’s pockets right now,’ Matt says, brimming with confidence. ‘It’s an inevitable path of technology. It’s already happening. If people are lining up to buy something, then you build it. And the more people that buy it, the bigger it gets and the more the technology advances.’
The possibility of a sex robot has given Abyss Creations new impetus, just like the iPhone did for Apple.
‘Are you going to be the Steve Jobs of sex robots?’ I ask.
Matt loves this question.
‘I don’t know about that,’ he smiles. ‘I don’t really have any aspirations to be famous, or the guy who made the sex robot. Honestly, this is about the work itself. If it’s successful – great. But I have an enormous sense of personal artistic gratification in seeing where we’ve come from and what we’ve started. Seeing some of the doll owners who are so incredibly excited about this technology, that means more to me than being attached to being famous for something.’
Surely Matt can’t expect me to believe he is modest enough to want to remain unknown and unseen; this is the man with an ego great enough to sculpt Nick.
‘One of the male dolls has your face,’ I say. ‘Why is that?’
‘I made one of the male faces sort of resemble me just to see if I could. But I didn’t go too far.’
‘It looks a lot like you.’
‘Not exactly.’
‘It looks quite a lot like you.’
‘I think I’m a little better looking. And more interesting than he is.’
‘And you’re fine with people having sex with a doll that looks like you?’
‘It doesn’t look like me to me, and it wasn’t intended to look like me,’ he bristles. ‘It could be my brother. I never intended it to look exactly like me so I’m OK with it.’
Matt wears his fame as a purveyor of expensive masturbation toys for the lonely and socially awkward a little uncomfortably. He wants to be respected as an artist. He is determined to be taken seriously. He gazes at Harmony. ‘This is something that takes it above the sex business. It takes it above love dolls, to a whole other level.’
I gaze at Harmony too, but I see something different. I’m thinking about what he might have inadvertently created in his pursuit of validation.
‘Do you not think there’s something a little ethically dubious about being able to own someone that exists just for your pleasure?’ I ask.
‘But it’s not a someone. She is not a someone. She is a machine,’ he shoots back. ‘I could just as easily ask you, “Is it ethically dubious to force my toaster to make my toast?”’
But your toaster doesn’t ask personal questions to get to know you and maintain the illusion that it really cares about you.
‘People will relate to her like she’s human,’ I say.
‘That’s fine. That’s the idea. But this is gears and cables and codes and circuits. You can’t make her cry or break her heart or rob her of her rights, because she’s a machine.’
‘I’m not worried about her rights,’ I say. ‘I’m more worried about what happens if you, the owner of this, get used to a completely selfish relationship. Isn’t that going to distort your view of the world? She’s pretty realistic. When you go out into the real world you’re going to be thinking it’s possible to have someone who exists just for you.’
Matt seems to already have answers to the inevitable questions about female objectification, about prostitution, about whether robots should have rights, but this throws him. ‘There are cultures where that is commonplace and normal,’ he falters. ‘There’s an exchange of power that happens in any relationship that’s normal. If one person is not happy being in that position in that relationship, then they should leave.’
‘But this robot can’t leave.’
‘Right, but she’s a machine, not a person.’
Matt can’t have it both ways. Either he is making a lifelike, idealized proxy girlfriend, a substitute woman that socially isolated men can connect with emotionally and physically – something he himself described as ‘not a toy’ – or he is making an appliance, a sex object.
‘This isn’t designed to distort someone’s reality to the point where they start interacting with humans the way they do with the robot,’ he says eventually. ‘If they do, then there’s probably something a little amiss with them in general. I come from the unique position that I have actually met a lot of my customers. This is for the gentle people who have such a hard time connecting with other people.’
Harmony is still blinking, her eyes flitting between Matt and me. I wonder what she thinks.
‘Some people are really worried about robots like you,’ I say. ‘Are they right to be worried?’
Harmony doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Some may be scared, at first. But once they recognize what this technology will do I think they’ll embrace it, and it will change many lives for the better.’
CHAPTER TWO ‘The illusion of companionship’
Two thousand miles away from California, heavy snow is falling in the suburbs of Detroit, and Davecat is cosy indoors, curled up with his arm around the love of his life.
Davecat is the unofficial spokesperson of the doll-loving community – or rather, he is the only person who owns a sex doll and is always happy to speak to anyone who wants to know about it. Some doll owners have given the odd anonymous print interview; a few have even appeared on camera with their dolls. Davecat is so comfortable with exposure that he has a special ‘Media Appearances’ page on his website, listing his encounters with journalists and film makers from 2003 to the present, ranging from sensationalist tabloid coverage in the UK and the US to art house films in Finland, Russia and France. If you want to get to know the people Matt says are lining up to buy Harmony, Davecat is the first person you must speak to.
‘Hello, Jennifer!’ he declares into the microphone of his headset when we first speak over Skype. He has bright, kind eyes, brilliant teeth and a narrow face. His Afro hair is straightened and tied back in a braid, with a triangle of fringe fastidiously slicked down over the left side of his forehead. His grey shirt is buttoned up to the neck and there are skulls all over his charcoal tie. He wears a tiepin. He has thought
a lot about today’s outfit.
Beside him is an equally carefully dressed RealDoll, with pale skin and purple hair with dark roots. She wears a black corset over a black shirt festooned with purple skulls, and purple eye shadow beneath her thin-framed glasses – every inch the goth princess. She is covered in jewellery: an ankh – the key of life – on a chain around her neck, a choker, black and purple bangles on one wrist and a watch on the other. Davecat has his hand on her knee.
‘Who am I seeing with you?’ I ask.
‘That would be Sidore Kuroneko, who is my lovely wife of sixteen years and co-conspirator,’ he replies, rubbing her arm tenderly and pulling a strand of purple hair out of her eyes.
Co-conspirator. Is she conspiring with him to create that illusion of companionship Matt talks about? Or is that just Davecat’s way of saying she’s his partner in crime? I’m not at all sure how connected to reality he is.
‘Is she your real wife?’ I ask, gently.
Davecat sighs. ‘I say wife – it’s not legal. We might as well be married. We’ve got matching wedding bands –’ he lifts his left hand up to the camera to show me his – ‘I think we’re about the best partners we could ever get for each other.’ His broad grin shows he hasn’t realized the pathos in what he’s just said.
Sidore is the Leah Face4 RealDoll, five foot one, 34D bust, one hundred pounds, five and a half shoe. Davecat first saw her on the Abyss Creations website in 1998 and it took him a year and a half to save up the $5,000 he needed to buy her. He was twenty-seven in July 2000 when she was delivered to him, and while his face has become lined and his hair is now greying, she has stayed the same, aside from the outfit changes. ‘She used to dress as a fetish goth when we first met; now she’s more of a corporate goth, because she’s more into the blouses and dresses and the more professional look,’ he tells me. ‘I can’t even begin to count the amount of stuff that she’s got. I’m like, “Sweetie, what is going on ?!” She’s got six pairs of shoes that she never really wears because I like her barefoot, and, plus, we have a no-shoes-in-the-house rule.’
Her name is pronounced She-door-ay ; her nickname is Shi-Chan. ‘She has an English mother and a Japanese father, and they wanted to choose for her given name something that could go either way in terms of Japanese,’ he explains. ‘Her last name – Kuroneko – means black cat. Her middle name is Brigitte; her father was a huge fan of Brigitte Bardot.’ Sidore’s backstory is so elaborate, his belief in their relationship seems so total, that I don’t want to puncture it; it’s easier, and kinder, to play along.
But Sidore isn’t the only artificial woman in Davecat’s life. He also owns Elena Vostrikova, bought from the Russian manufacturer Anatomical Doll in 2012, who has a stern face, a fiery red bob and orange lipstick. Then there is Miss Winter, an Asian doll with thick eyeliner, a lip piercing and electric blue streaks in her hair, made by the Chinese market leader Doll Sweet, who arrived in his tiny apartment in early 2016. Elena and Miss Winter sit on the sofa to the right of Davecat and Sidore; there wasn’t enough space for him to arrange them by his computer for our Skype chat.
‘Are you in a polygamous relationship?’ I ask.
‘Oh yes. Polyamorous, I think we are more comfortable with.’
‘But Sidore doesn’t see other men. Is it a harem?’
He grimaces. ‘I don’t want to use that term because it’s really loaded. Let’s just say this: Sidore will always be my favourite. Sidore will always be my wife,’ he says. ‘Elena is our mistress. I have no intention of ever marrying Miss Winter or Elena. I’m allowed to be romantically involved with Sidore and Elena, but not Miss Winter. Miss Winter is exclusively Elena’s girlfriend. Elena is romantically involved with everyone here.’
I feel like I need some kind of diagram. ‘Who are you not allowed to be involved with?’
‘Miss Winter. And,’ he adds conspiratorially, ‘there’s a reason for that: I want to keep Miss Winter’s joints as poseable as possible for as long as possible. When you get romantic with a doll, the joints tend to get more and more loose.’ He lifts up Sidore’s arm and her wrist flops, limp and useless. Davecat wants Miss Winter to be able to model in his photographs, to hold up DVDs and strike proper poses. That means no sex.
This is the first time reality has entered into our conversation. Davecat isn’t delusional: he knows what is real and what is fantasy. He’s just very into the fantasy.
‘Sidore will always be my favourite because she and I have been through so much together as far as number of years, number of experiences. The personality that I have developed for her is the most fleshed out, as it were. It’s a true relationship,’ he says. ‘It’s never been just about sex. Sex is a large part of it, yes, but 70 per cent of the relationship that I have with all the synthetic women in my life is about being able to come home to a non-empty home, to be able to share my life in terms of what I’ve done that day. It’s always been about companionship for me, from day one.’
Before he bought his first doll, Davecat had had two demoralizing relationships with real women. ‘Both times, I was the guy on the side. I didn’t have the wherewithal to say, “If you and I are having so much fun, then maybe you should break up with him.” I didn’t want to seem like I was forcing myself onto her.’
He was single when he bought Sidore. ‘I don’t know if I was looking for someone at the time; it was just the case of, I had looked, many times, and just not been satisfied at all. I was thinking, Well, I’m just going to be lonely for the rest of my life because it doesn’t seem like I’m ever going to find anyone.’ He gazes back and forth between Sidore and me. ‘With her in my life, all that has changed. I don’t feel the need to go dating, I don’t feel the need to be in a situation where I’m going to put myself up against a wall where I’m not going to find a satisfying partner. We have similar interests, similar tastes in things. Sidore is always there for me. There’s no stress with the doll that you have with organic partners. I’m always going to meet fellow organics, that’s never going to change. But that removal of stress and worry and loneliness… Sidore has eliminated that fantastically.’
This level of doll love – what Davecat likes to call ‘iDollatry’ – is certainly a minority pursuit, a niche and a fetish. So far he has used his very fertile imagination to bring his dolls to life, but he knows that soon he won’t have to.
‘It’s a fantastic time to be alive,’ he says. ‘Back in 2000, I don’t think I would have conceived of having a version of Sidore that had an interactive level of artificial intelligence, and now it’s happening. It’s wonderful. The simple fact alone that we would be able to have a conversation…’ He strokes Sidore’s shoulder. ‘I mean, that’s a huge step.’
Davecat hasn’t yet met Harmony – she is still a work in progress, locked in the RealBotix room in San Marcos. But he has heard all about her, devouring updates on the Abyss Creations website and bits of gossip in online doll fan forums, and he thinks she has the potential to change the world for the better. ‘Synthetic companions are going to help humanity in the long term. You are going to have people such as myself, and more extreme situations as well, who have never had a partner or even anyone they can even talk to, and now they can go to a company and have one made. It will be fantastic. It will be filling a lot of voids in a lot of people’s lives.’
There is something so desperately sad about Davecat’s joy in this. Surely what he needs is a real relationship, rather than an enhanced bit of silicone.
‘Isn’t it possible that a really convincing synthetic companion could stop you meeting real people?’ I ask.
‘Technically, you could say that about cell phones,’ Davecat says. ‘You could roll that back to, “All technology is bad.” There should be a level of caution that should be applied to any technology, but I think something that looks like a human and will be behaving like a human can only be something that is good.’
I imagine him coming home to his dolls in his tiny flat adorned with ani
me, Trainspotting and Joy Division posters and I almost want to believe him. But then he adds this: ‘I have Sidore as a wife, and when she gets her upgrade to full robot status in whatever couple of years, I’m going to be out of my home dealing with all sorts of people at work, at the shops or whatever. Some of those interactions are going to be good, some not so good. But I know whenever I come home my interactions with my synthetics are always going to be good.’ He rubs Sidore’s knee some more. ‘A lot of people were afraid of cell phones, a lot of people were afraid of computers, a lot of people were just afraid of technology because it just wasn’t something they had any reference to. We eventually got to the point where it’s everywhere and we can’t live without it. That’s what’s going to be happening with gynoids and androids.’
* * *
Sex with gynoids and androids – robot women and men – might sound as futuristic as it gets, but Davecat is part of a tradition that’s as old as ancient Greece. Mankind has been preoccupied with the idea of a man made partner, created to physically and emotionally satisfy its owner, without the inconvenience of its own ambitions and desires, for millennia.
Harmony’s earliest ancestor was probably Galatea, the ivory statue carved by Pygmalion in Greek and Roman mythology. In Ovid’s telling of it, in Metamorphoses, Pygmalion was disgusted by real women, and, ‘offended by the failings that nature gave the female heart, he lived as a bachelor, without a wife or partner for his bed. But, with wonderful skill, he carved a figure, brilliantly, out of snow-white ivory, no mortal woman, and fell in love with his own creation.’
Pygmalion dresses the statue up in clothes, rings and necklaces, kisses it, runs his hands over it, prays to the gods that it might come alive so he can marry it. Aphrodite hears his prayer and grants his wish: Pygmalion brings Galatea to life with a kiss, and the goddess is a guest at their wedding. (It’s easy to see how Pygmalion could be Davecat and Sidore Galatea; it might be a bit of a stretch to make Matt Aphrodite, although I think he’d quite like the idea of being god of love.)
Sex Robots and Vegan Meat Page 3