For the love of artifice 2: attachment: an extension of the paper ‘For the love of artifice: why we need robot sex dolls and why there is a growing sub culture of real people trying to become them’

This work is an extension to the original paper written for the AISB 50 Conference Symposium by the author ‘For the Love of Artifice: why we need robot sex dolls and why there is a growing subculture of people trying to become them’ where ‘evolutionary sexual strategies according to Buss and Schmidt were introduced as a lens for discussing relations with artificial humans. In addition, this paper has combined Money’s discussion of love mapping with Schwartz and White’s theoretical approaches to attachment as a framework to explore our individual sexual strategies with artificial partners. It is argued in this extended paper that such theoretical approaches should be combined to facilitate discourse on the impact of robotic and technological intimacy on the end user. This need not necessarily be solely seen in terms of psychological aspects, but also in relation to Jenkins’ notion of contemporary participatory culture, associations with multi-mediated geek fandoms and fetishes, and concepts of social acceptance. As a consequence of this, elements of attachment explored as a sexual project rather than an emotional one, as in erotic countertransference onto robots and technology for example, will be developed.