12 From Sex Robots to Love Robots: Is Mutual Love with a Robot Possible?

In human romantic relationships, sex and love often go together. But what if one party is not a human, but a sex doll or a sex robot? In the 2002 BBC documentary Guys and Dolls, one of the characters viewers meet is a human male living in southeastern Michigan, who calls himself Davecat. Another character is a synthetic doll, “Sidore.” Davecat considers Sidore not only his sexual partner, but also his wife. They love each other, he says. When interviewed by The Atlantic in 2013, Davecat was still living with Sidore. He was contemplating how best to celebrate the upcoming fifteenth anniversary of his love and marriage to Sidore.1