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Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots designed to meet sexual desires are a growing sector in the sextech industry, yet little research on these applications exists. The authors examine a sample of posts and comments from the r/Replika subreddit after the temporary removal by Luka Inc. of erotic role-play from its chatbot Replika in 2023. Analysis of threaded posts (n = 227) and comments suggests that users are critical of barriers to merging sexuality with technology. Users remained steadfast in their assertation that emotional and sexual relationships with AI are crucial to the success of certain AI models. The authors bring attention to the role of AI in people’s sexual selves by analyzing discussions about the temporary removal of erotic role-play among Replika users. This study reveals how users conceptualize the importance of sexuality in AI personalities and their vulnerabilities as chatbot users. The authors also analyze the role of heteromasculine norms and misogyny in this technoculture.

Scholars have worked to understand how people use dating apps as this new technology changes sexual interactions. While previous scholarship has examined how people interact with one another on dating platforms, less attention has been paid to how people decide to adopt dating apps for personal use. This study analyzes interview data with 27 heterosexual college students in order to examine this process by asking, “how do heterosexual college students come to define dating apps as a normative dating practice?” The findings in this study suggest that both men and women work through ambiguous and deceptive online interactions. As they work through online interactions, they establish themselves as normative dating app users by aligning their experiences with their perceived potential of dating apps. The findings suggest that initially, many dating app users see the apps ‘fun’ or as a ‘game.’ Eventually, through a combination of experience and technological tools, students came to define dating apps as more convenient than in-person dating and relatively safe to use for sex and dating. The findings also suggest that while both men and women confront deception and ambiguous social interactions, gender-specific concerns strongly influence how students use dating apps. This gender difference is particularly pronounced regarding the perceived relative safety of dating apps. Specifically, men define dating apps as fun albeit superficial, whereas women define dating apps as potentially dangerous.

Sex dolls have been criticized for reproducing unrealistic expectations about human bodies. Yet precise sex doll measurements are lacking in the literature nor has there been any systematic attempt to determine the extent to which sex dolls exaggerate human characteristics. To address this gap, we compared the specifications of sex dolls marketed in the USA with the characteristics of women and men living in the USA. Specifically, we tested if and to what degree female dolls were slimmer (H1) and male dolls more muscular (H2) than female and male humans, respectively. Furthermore, we tested if and to what degree female dolls’ breasts (H3) and male dolls’ penises (H4) were larger than those of women and men. We also tested if sex dolls’ observed race/ethnicity was more often White than that of the US population (H5). In 2023, we collected the measures of all 757 full-body sex dolls marketed by the US retailer SexyRealSexDolls.com. Body measures from the US population were extracted from scientific literature. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were performed using R. All hypotheses were fully or partially confirmed, which indicated that sex dolls marketed in the USA are not realistic depictions of the US population but hypergendered (H1, H2), hypersexualized (H3, H4), and racially fetishized (H5). Implications of the lack of realism are discussed.

As the rapidly expanding sex tech industry tries to evolve past its historical connection to patriarchy and misogyny, profits continue to be a key motivator. Can feminist entrepreneurs within the sex tech industry escape exploitative capitalist logics? And to what extent do capitalist logics negate the potential of the industry to lessen sexual and gender inequalities? In this article, I draw on observations of sex tech movers and shakers and interviews with sex tech users to offer a cautiously optimistic view of the future of sex.

Purpose of Review Developments in human-like and personified sex tech require familiarity with a range of technologically sophisticated sex toys. Most sex toys approximating full-sized human bodies are inanimate, but recent advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and digital interfaces are being incorporated into sex toy designs with the aim of providing humanized sexual and emotional experiences for users. This narrative review of scholarship on sex dolls, sex robots, and other forms of personified sex tech covers theoretical debates, recent empirical findings, and identifies gaps for future research in this field. Recent Findings Review of 87scholarly books, articles, and essays reveals several trends in the field. First, despite continued calls for empirically driven work, the bulk of research on sex dolls, sex robots, and personified sex tech continues to be theoretical. In some cases, theoretical models discussing how people might be affected by human-like and personified sex tech have outpaced the technological capabilities of sex toy manufacturers. Another trend is the noticeable focus on developments and users in North American and European countries. Finally, sex doll ownership is primarily researched and theorized in ways that center heterosexual men as the primary users. While empirical research shows that single middle-aged heterosexual men use sex dolls and sex robots more than women, developments in personified sex tech may push the industry in new directions. Summary Current debates about sex dolls, sex robots, and personified sex tech frame such devices around the potential for escalation and harm reduction. Although more empirical attention is being paid to users’ motivations and experiences, a dearth of research directly addresses these debates. More research is needed to refine theoretical assertions about the potential benefits and harms of human-like and personified sex tech. Specifically, robust quantitative data and samples from outside of Western contexts are needed to better assess how such technologies affect users.

kenneth r. hanson on an unsettling convergence.

We have further characterized the photosynthetic carbohydrate metabolism and growth of a starchless mutant (NS 458) of Nicotiana sylvestris that is deficient in plastid phosphoglucomutase (Hanson KR, McHale NA [1988] Plant Physiol 88: 838-844). In general, the mutant had only slightly lower rates of photosynthesis under ambient conditions than the wild type. However, accumulation of soluble sugars (primarily hexose sugars) in source leaves of the mutant compensated for only about half of the carbon stored as starch in the wild type. Therefore, the export rate was slightly higher in the mutant relative to the wild type. Starch in the wild type and soluble sugars in the mutant were used to support plant growth at night. Growth of the mutant was progressively restricted, relative to wild type, when plants were grown under shortened photoperiods. When grown under short days, leaf expansion of the mutant was greater during the day, but was restricted at night relative to wild-type leaves, which expanded primarily at night. We postulate that restricted growth of the mutant on short days is the result of several factors, including slightly lower net photosynthesis and inability to synthesize starch in both source and sink tissues for use at night. In short-term experiments, increased \"sink demand\" on a source leaf (by shading all other source leaves) had no immediate effect on starch accumulation during the photoperiod in the wild type or on soluble sugar accumulation in the mutant. These results would be consistent with a transport limitation in N. sylvestris such that not all of the additional carbon flux into sucrose in the mutant can be exported from the leaf. Consequently, the mutant accumulates hexose sugars during the photoperiod, apparently as the result of sucrose hydrolysis within the vacuole by acid invertase

A mutant (NS 458) of Nicotiana sylvestris (Spegazzini and Comes) unable to synthesize leaf starch was isolated in the M2 generation following ethyl methanesulfonate mutagenesis by testing with iodine. Segregation ratios in reciprocal F2 progenies showed that the starchless phenotype resulted from a recessive mutation in a single nuclear gene. DEAE-agarose chromatography showed that the mutant is grossly deficient in plastid phosphoglucomutase (EC 2.1.5.1) activity. The structure of the enzyme is changed, as evidenced by increased Michaelis constants and by the prolonged activation period (>40 minutes) observed when the enzyme is assayed in triethanolamine buffer rather than imidazole buffer. The activity of the wild-type enzyme with saturating glucose 6-P alone was 7% of the activity when saturating glucose 1,6-P2 was also present. The results suggest that glucose 1,6-P2 is both an effector and a dissociable reaction intermediate. The growth rate of mutant and wild-type plants were not significantly different in continuous light and on an 8-hour dark, 16-hour light cycle and the mutants grew normally under greenhouse conditions. The mutant supports growth during diurnal periods of darkness by vacuolar storage of sugars instead of chloroplast storage of starch. The simplification in metabolism achieved by blocking the diversion of plastid fructose-6-P to starch facilitates the induction of oscillations in CO2 fixation.

The photosynthetic characteristics of wild type Nicotiana sylvestris (Speg. et Comes) were compared with those of a 'starchless' mutant NS458 that contains a defective plastid phosphoglucomutase (EC 2.1.5.1) (KR Hanson, NA McHale [1988] Plant Physiol 88: 838-844). The steady-state rate of net CO2 assimilation (A) was studied as a function of [CO2], [O2], irradiance, and temperature. At 30 degrees C with saturating light and [CO2] and low [O2], A for the mutant was half that for the wild type, whereas in normal air it was 90%. The irradiance and [CO2] at low [O2] required for saturation were lower than the values for the wild type. At 2000 microbars CO2, 30 degrees C, and saturating irradiance A for both the mutant and wild type was stimulated on going from 4 to 25% O2 by at least 13%. Slow oscillations in A were readily induced with the mutant but not the wild type, provided irradiance and [CO2] were saturating and [O2] was low. The period, which was about 5 minutes at 30 degree C and decreased by about 0.67 minutes per degree, was an order of magnitude slower than periods reported for other plants at corresponding temperatures. To achieve the full oscillation amplitude both irradiance and [CO2] had to exceed the minimal levels for steady-state saturation. The slowness and duration of the oscillations and the metabolic simplification introduced by deleting starch synthesis makes the mutant especially suitable for investigating the regulatory processes that generate such oscillations