Robosexuals Are Creeps

"I dunno, you'd have to be pretty desperate to do it with a robot."

— Homer Simpson, The Simpsons

Fiction commonly uses sexuality to show characters' negative qualities. Villains may be shown engaging in incest, paedophilia, bestiality and/or garden-variety rape, or their lack of sexual desire can be a sign that they are evil. Unlike those tropes, this one isn't a sign that the character is necessarily evil, just creepy.

Robosexuals Are Creeps is about works portraying people attracted to robots as creeps, usually by having other characters get creeped out by it. This might be because the character is unable to convince actual people to date them, which might be why they screw robots, which disgusts everyone. These characters are usually socially inept. If they develop romantic feelings for the robot, the other characters will try to end the relationship now that it's gone too far. If the robot gets destroyed, the robosexual will cry over it like they lost the love of their life, even though they have no reason to be sad since the robot can just be rebuilt.

Whether this is actually justified or not depends on how sentient the robot is. If it is simply a programmed, unaware machine, then it's effectively just a very sophisticated sex doll, and would lead to the human being seen as somebody who is either too socially inept to have a sexual relationship with an actual human, or objectifies other people to an extreme degree. If the robot is fully sapient, then there may be concerns about whether it is consenting, or whether it has been forced in some way to be a Sex Slave.

Despite the name, the mate the organic is attracted to doesn't have to be a robot. If the nonhuman mate is artificial, like a hologram or Artificial Human or something else similar to a robot, it counts.

This a subtrope of Fetishes Are Weird. Compare Kiss Me, I'm Virtual. Compare and contrast Bestiality Is Depraved.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Count Burg, the Big Bad of the original Astro Boy manga's classic Blue Knight saga is an early example. He marries a Robot Girl because he wants a wife who'll be completely subservient and then has her destroyed when she finally stands up to him. Relationships between humans and robots treated more sympathetically turn up a few times elsewhere in the manga.
  • Zigzagged in Tezuka's later manga, Phoenix: Resurrection. Much of the story revolves around the romance between the protagonist, Leon and a robot named Chihiro. People around them find this bizarre because Chihiro is a spindly, only vaguely humanoid robot with an insect-like face, but Leon sees her as a beautiful woman because part of his brain was replaced with cybernetics after he suffered brain damage. A brief story arc later in the manga involves a lecherous businessman suffering a Karmic Death at the hands of his personal Sex Bot.
• Chobits: While Chi is kidnapped and held captive, Ueda confesses to Hideki that he was married to Yumi, his persocom. During his marriage he had to put up with friends and neighbors cracking jokes at his expense, and says that since his parents had passed away long ago, they couldn't have objected. When she started to malfunction she couldn't be fixed, since she was a discontinued model, and he was devastated every time a persocom expert nonchalantly told him to just get a new one. After Yumi "died" by pushing him out of the way of a speeding car, Ueda held a funeral for her, which became a media sensation due to the fact that no one would mourn a broken down persocom as much as he did. Ironically, though, one of the reporters in the flashback notes that a lot of people have actually been holding funerals for their persocoms.
• Ghost in the Shell: Sexbots appear to be a common possession among the rich and powerful, but given how many people are full-body cyborgs it doesn't seem to matter as much. One in particular likes switching brains with the Sex Bot, which is used as a plot twist rather than being commented on.
• Saber Marionette J: At least during the early series, Otaru was often seen as weird for treating his marionettes as human beings, though in his case, it was due to their Maiden Circuits giving them emotions and sentience. Somewhat justified given that, as Terra II only had biological men, homosexual relationships were seen as normal. Played more dramatically with Otaru's sensei Soemon Obichi, who actually suffered discrimination (even violently) because he'd fallen in love with own marionette Koyuki.

Comic Books

• In the Judge Dredd universe, lifelike sex robots are both widespread and legal in Mega-City One. However, they're still just that: robots. One curious case Judge Dredd investigated involved a nerdy teenager whose rich parents bought him a sexbot because he couldn't get a real girlfriend. He subsequently murdered his stepfather for using it without his permission and then attempted to run off with his "girlfriend". When the robot is destroyed in the process, he's heartbroken, much to the confusion of the judges.
• The Transformers (2019): Inverted and downplayed with Nautica, who's considered a weirdo by other Transformers for her interest in organic species (though in her case it doesn't actually appear sexual).
• Scarlet Witch is this Depending on the Writer. Some writers will portray her relationship with The Vision as a valid, heartwarming one that has given her the happiest moments of her life. Others will attempt to pair her off with Wonder Man reasoning that since Vision is based on his brainwaves, he's the real person that Wanda fell in love with, while Vision is just a facsimile of the true thing - nothing other than a robot, that couldn't give her real children (even though it's established that Simon is just as sterile). The most extreme examples make her relationship with Vision a toxic, self-destructive affair, and have the rest of the Avengers act like they're indulging in a weird quirk of Wanda, with most of them hoping that Wanda falls in love with a real human being.

Films — Live-Action

• Downplayed in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. As the authorities have instituted Population Control, sex robots are seen as a viable alternative. Gigolo Joe is the most prominent such character; his counterpart Gigolo Jane only appears in one scene. Most of Joe's clients are either adulterers or painfully shy, while in the film's opening scene their designer is playfully mocked by his fellow roboticists for indulging too much in his own product.
• The 6th Day: Adam's best friend Hank has a holographic "companion" at home which he claims to be better than a real wife. Adam, a devoted family man, just finds it creepy and pathetic. Indeed, outside of his friendship with Adam, Hank is shown to have no social life to speak of.
• Ex Machina: Software programmer Caleb is invited to study a robot built by his company's CEO Nathan. The robot, Ava, resembles an attractive human woman, and Caleb is unnerved by how he seems to be falling for her and accuses Nathan of making her attractive so as to incline Caleb towards giving a favorable review. He then discovers that Nathan has built many other artificial women before Ava, most of which he abused and discarded and the last which he keeps around as a housemaid and sex slave, much to Caleb's horror. As for Ava, she was indeed built to take advantage of Caleb's affections, and his suspicions aren't enough to prevent him from falling for her and obliviously helping her until she discards him when his aid is no longer needed.
• Jason X: It's implied that Kay-Em is the sex partner of Tsunaron, her owner/creator. He also happens to be the most socially withdrawn of the students. His classmates are too busy screwing each other, screwing their teacher, or getting butchered by Jason.
• Averted in the MCU regarding Wanda and Vision. The other Avengers are shown to be accepting of their relationship and even the observers in WandaVision see them as no different than any other couple.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show has a slight variant in the form of Tim Curry's Horny Scientist character Doctor Frank-N-Furter creating an Artificial Human named Rocky to have sex with. But in this case, as with Frank's crossdressing, he's portrayed not as a loser but as an exciting deviant.
• Solo: Qi'ra is noticeably unnerved by Lando and L3-37's relationship, particularly when L3-37 says their relationship "works."

Literature

• "Good Hunting": Yan is forced to work as a prostitute in Hong Kong after losing her magical powers and eventually becomes the mistress of the British governor's son, who has a robot fetish and turns her into a cyborg against her will. The story was adapted into an episode of Love, Death & Robots.
• In Saturn's Children, the protagonist and her fellow SexBots are both sapient and Three Laws-Compliant with all the implications of coercion that entails.
• In Alien in a Small Town, Indira's boyfriend Aleksie dumps her for a female android. Indira believes that if Kim is both sentient and free, then this is "a little kinky" but not unethical; but on the other hand, if she's sentient but not free, that's monstrous; and if Kim isn't even sentient, it means she's been dumped for a mindless sex toy, and that sex was all Aleksei had ever wanted Indira for.
• Played With in The Space Trilogy. In That Hideous Strength it is mentioned that the wicked inhabitants of Sulva built artificial bodies so as to allow them to be inhabited by dark eldila, enabling sexual relations between them and the Sulvans, and this is certainly evidence of their utter depravity. But the Sulvans are not, strictly speaking, robosexuals: they want to have sex with demons, and the robotic bodies were only to make this possible considering that demons are otherwise pure spirits that lack bodies.

Live-Action TV

• In The Big Bang Theory, Howard and Raj's ineptitude with real women occasionally led them to seek out artificial ones. Howard tried to build several SexBots with varying success, and Raj tried to have a relationship with Siri the iPhone software until his insecurities rendered him unable to talk to his iPhone. Each instance was treated as creepy, pathetic or both.
• Foundation (2021): Cleon XVII is a very villainous example. His sexual relationship with Demerzel is considered disgusting by his elder brother, and Demerzel herself may or may not even truly consented to have a relationship with Cleon XVII given her programming to love every Cleon in existence no matter what and to obey their orders.
• In Made For Love, Hazel's father is in a "relationship" with a sophisticated, albeit uncanny, sex doll named Diane, which earns him the ire and mockery of his neighbors. Hazel herself seems a bit squicked out by the whole deal, but at least makes an attempt to treat their relationship as normal.
• The Outer Limits (1995) has dealt with sexbots in a number of episodes, notably "Valerie 23" and "Mary 25", especially the moral ramifications of such technology. In the first episode, a man working at a cybernetics company is selected to test their first prototype Valerie. He feels insulted at first, stressing that he's more than capable of attracting real women. He later goes for it anyway and does have sex with Valerie, but when he tries to discard her in favor of another human, she becomes a Yandere. Whether Valerie is truly sentient is debatable, but the ending leans towards "yes" when she fears her own death. In the second episode, the guy's boss is shown using a house android designed to be a nanny for sex, which is presented as predatory. It turns out that he also replaced his human wife with an android after murdering her to cover up his crime, then mistreated the android "wife" until she wanted to kill her "husband".
• Westworld:
  • In Season 1, the titular park has human-like robots called hosts and they cater to the human guests who want to indulge with their fantasies without any moral consequences which include violent and sexual desires. Unlike the 1973 film which the show is loosely based on, the main characters are the hosts and they experience repeated cycles of abuse, usually sexual. And there are already instances that the park employees take sexual advantage of hosts during maintenance. However, the guests and employees are unaware that the hosts are slowly gaining consciousness which is exactly what the park's founder intended as he was disgusted with the guests' worst behavior, causing him to have a misanthropic view on humanity. By the end of the season, he eventually gives the hosts the means to take revenge on their abusers.
  • William and his future brother-in-law, Logan, went to Westworld to have some relaxation. He meets and falls in love with Dolores, a beautiful host who lives on a ranch. However, Logan repeatedly warns him that Dolores is not human and reminds him that he's still engaged with his sister. Later on, William becomes obsessed with Dolores to the point of killing all the Confederate hosts and abandoning Logan in the middle of nowhere. When he saw Dolores again in the town, her memories are reset and she doesn't remember him. This causes William to become the Man in Black, a villainous guest who frequently goes to the park and torments Dolores. This despite having become one of the primary owners of the park after he advised his father-in-law to purchase a controlling stake in it. In other words, he could have taken Dolores out of the park whenever he wants to (and has), or even reprogram her to love him unconditionally. He actively chooses to rape and kill her repeatedly for more than thirty years out of pure spite. His obsession with the park and Dolores ultimately cause him to lose his grip on reality and ruin his marriage, resulting in his wife's suicide. As one character notes, William's repeated abuse of Dolores causes her to despise humanity to the point of wanting to destroy it.
• Years and Years: The first episode establishes its 20 Minutes into the Future setting through a male side character who owns a roughly humanoid domestic service robot. When Rosie goes on a date with him, she discovers right as they're about to get it on at his place that the bot also has carnal applications that its owner apparently forgot to mention when he showed it off. She ends the date right then and there and wastes no time regaling her extensive family with the story the next day. They all share her opinion that the guy is equal parts disgusting, creepy and hilarious.

Music

• The Mechanisms: Played for Laughs in that Jonny, who is known to have committed "literally every crime we have a name for, but nothing sexual," is grossed out by Nastya's relationship with the Aurora, their Living Ship. No one else seems to really care, possibly because every member of the band has at least one mechanical body part (hence the band's name), meaning that, technically speaking, they're all cyborgs.
  Jonny: Fuck the ship!
  Nastya: I do.
  Jonny: Ew.
• In this Dark Parody of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins, it says that the most depraved sexual act in the world is "Sadomasopedorobonecrobestiality", which is doing BDSM on broken-down, underage, robot animals.

Tabletop Games

• The tabletop RPG for Firefly cautions that characters known to own love bots, like the film’s Mr. Universe, are viewed this way. The Companions' Guild, who are the 'verse's High-Class Call Girl group, will blacklist them.

Video Games

• Detroit: Become Human: Since Ridiculously Human Robots with burgeoing sapience are now commonplace throughout society, sexbots are also featured, and the game takes a rather dim view on them. During one of Connor's investigations, a dead customer found inside a robot brothel turns out to have basically been a Serial Killer who enjoyed destroying "Tracy" models, which caused one of them to snap and kill him in self-defense. His partner Hank further bemoans that people are no longer interested in human-to-human relations. North's Dark and Troubled Past is that she used to be a sexbot who was similarly abused before she ran off to join Jericho.
• Fallout: New Vegas: James Garret, a casino and brothel owner who hires the Player Character to recruit new staff for him, claims that some "disgusting robot fetishists" have been pushing him to add a sexbot to his roster, and that he wouldn't normally want a sexbot within 100ft of him... but if he's going to make money out of it, he should be professional about it. All of your discussions about the subject have a clear undertone of I Have This Friend and if you do recruit a sexbot, he's quite excited about it...on behalf of those weird robot fetishists, of course.
• Knights of the Old Republic: A sidequest involves searching for Elise Montagne's missing droid. Once C8-42 is found, the droid explains that it ran away because it was freaked out by her treating it like her husband. The dialogue options allow the player to be freaked out by it.
  C8-42: She... she tried to treat me as her dead husband. It was not healthy for her.
  The Player: Er... ALL the time?
  C8-42: You don't want to know...
  The Player: Um... probably not...
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
  • The Sheikah scientist Robbie built himself an intelligent robot assistant named Cherry, who was named after his first love. However, his wife Jerrin grew upset about the attention he gave the machine, so he dropped the name and reprogrammed it to be less articulate. He still occasionally slips up and calls it Cherry, though.
  • At the south coast of Hyrule, a woman named Loone can be found snuggling with a Sheikah orb she's named Roscoe, who she speaks to as if it were a lover. However, if Link brings her pictures of Guardians, the mechanical menaces of Hyrule too dangerous for most people to approach, Loone will be so enamored by them that she'll ditch the orb and act like she never cared about it. Subverted, however, if Link lures over a real Guardian, to which she'll scream and run for her life (without Roscoe).

Visual Novels

• Comes up periodically in the Danganronpa series.
  • In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Hifumi Yamada, the resident Otaku, takes a shine to resident AI Alter Ego, to the point of communicating with it after explicitly being told not to since it was the only entity who would listen to him nerd out. He also treats Alter Ego as a girl, when its late creator and basis was not. His favor for it was so obvious that it was used to manipulate him into killing someone else before becoming dead meat himself.
  • In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Kazuichi Soda, the Ultimate Mechanic, makes an offhand joke about the girly robot mascot Usami starting to look cute early on. This builds into him becoming the game's slightly more subtle token pervert after the untimely demise of Teruteru Hanamura. Far later, once Nekomaru returns as a robot, he immediately geeks out and requests to disassemble him with great vigor at least twice, eventually being responded to with "NO MEANS NO!"
  • And in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, Miu Iruma, Ultimate Inventor and crass as anything, gets very up-close and personal with K1-B0 while inspecting him.

Western Animation

• American Dad!:
  • Steve builds a robotic girlfriend by decorating a vacuum cleaner. Stan doesn't like this and tells Steve to disassemble it before he gets home from work. In an alternate future where Stan dies retrieving gold, Steve still has the sexbot and is viewed by everyone as a freak for it.
  • In a different future, Steve is in a relationship with another robot, one which he routinely pleasures, something which baffles even an Extreme Omnisexual like Roger.
• Futurama:
  • "Space Pilot 3000": Bender doesn't want others to mistakenly believe that he's dating Fry and be disliked for it.
    Bender: Well, ok. But I don't want people thinking we're robosexuals. So if anyone asks, you're my debugger.
  • "I Dated a Robot": The Planet Express crew is disgusted with Fry dating a Lucy Liu-bot, and they show him a propaganda film to try (and fail) to make him stop.
  • "Proposition Infinity": Subverted. Once robosexual marriage becomes a pretty clear gay marriage allegory, most characters become more accepting of robosexuality, with Farnsworth being the only member of the main cast unaccepting of robosexuals, and that's only because he is the one who tried to suppress his robosexual urges after a robot lover of his cheated on him with another robot.
    • Also inverted in the same episode, where robots who were attracted to humans were considered weird and even sinners by Reverend Lionel Preacherbot.
• Gargoyles: Within the Quirky Miniboss Squad the Pack, Hyena is attracted to Coyote; and even more so after learning that he's an android. Her brother Jackal, who is himself labeled a sociopath by Word of God, disapproves and has deadpanned "That's sicker than usual."
• Rick and Morty: In the "Raising Gazorpazorp" episode, Morty's family is concerned about him spending all his time in his room with a sexbot. Jerry blames and scolds Rick for this since the latter bought the sexbot.
• South Park: In the "AWESOM-O" episode, Cartman disguises himself as a robot, and he and Butters eventually get taken to a film studio. One of the producers mistakes Cartman as a "pleasure robot," so Cartman freaks out and flees the studio's boardroom.

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Don't! Date! Robots!

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