Abstract
Sex robots may present an opportunity for a clinical management of individuals with paraphilic interests whose realisation would result in infliction of harm and/or legal consequences. We explored the prevalence of desire for sex robot experience in a control group and two target groups: one with paraphilic interests in minors, the other with interest in non-consent/violence.
We expected both target groups to express a greater desire for sex robot experience than the control group, because sex robots would enable them to express paraphilic sexuality within legal limitations. We used data from two samples of male respondents.
The control sample consisted of respondents from a representative online Czech sample (N = 806). Target groups of individuals with paraphilic interests consisted of 48 subjects sexually interested in minors and 57 subjects sexually interested in non consent/violence against adults.
Sex robot experience was desired by 18% of respondents in the control group, 37.5% of respondents in the group interested in minors, and 26% of respondents interested in nonconsent/violence. This indicates that individuals with paraphilic interest in minors are slightly more open to the idea of sex robot experience.
Studies exploring preferred features of sex robots and interest in their use in therapy are needed.