Hello again friends! For this week’s Smut Vault, we need to discuss something that, for better or worse, may effect our collective sex lives moving into the future. Sexbot technology is improving at an alarming rate, and with additional advancements in artificial intelligence and Google being installed inside everything, we could be reaching the sexual singularity faster than we may have anticipated. In conventional sci-fi literature, it’s been the responsibility of the writers to “dream it” while the scientific community eventually makes it come to fruition in the real world, through years of trial and error. To that logic, what’s to be said when erotica takes on a futuristic subject? Veteran smut author Ava Sterling has an interpretation on just such a idea, as we take a look into the not too distant future…
Ready for Market: A Robot Erotica Story is an intriguing short story that attempts to tackle the subject of ultra-realistic sexbot companions from the perspective of the scientists that are designing them. While this isn’t the only story of Sterling’s that focuses on this subject, this particular smutty tale revolves around Amy, a key robotics engineer that’s taken it upon herself to perfect the male sexbot prototype, AN77, that’s racing ever closer to market. After yet another awful episode in what seems like an endless series of bad dates with human men, Amy heads back to the lab, and she decides to robo-nap the nearly complete AN77 to her house to…run some “field” tests.
At face value, a story featuring this subject matter could easily turn into a laughingstock of a cringe factory. Despite the high hurdle of the subject matter, Ready for Market takes itself as seriously as should be appropriate, without getting too hopelessly lost in the canonical science of what would make a nearly indistinguishable human sex companion possible. In my mind’s eye, AN77 has the physical properties of a Fallout 4 Gen 3 synth, with a mild amount of naivete in his voice to keep things interesting. Amy on the other hand, represents an interesting commentary on the progression of the social acceptance of sexbot culture.
Despite the story’s brevity, we’re painted a pretty clear picture that Amy is not someone who NEEDS a sexbot companion. She could probably have any person she desired as a sex partner, but the scientifically gifted Amy seems more “fed-up” with the human race in general, and is more than willing to take the plunge into discovering what an untested sexbot can do to improve her life, without the strings that humanity has. For this technology to work in real life, I think this is the interpretation to get it off the ground. Sexbots, up to this point in time are viewed in the public eye as a “last resort” for the sexually frustrated or “incel” community, and are often made into a soft target for ridicule. The universe Ava Sterling is writing however appears slightly more Utopian (depending on perspective): those that simply want to strive for something better, can be beneficial to the interests of science…while also challenging their own selfish sexual desires in the process. This is a balanced universe I want to learn more about, and I hope that this concept is expanded in her other works. While the sex is hot and unapologetic, I feel more desire for the characters and the world built around them rather than simply making sure everyone got their nut.
Rating: Ready For Market: A Robot Erotica Story is a surprisingly challenging piece of speculative fiction that presents a universe almost too interesting for the smutty content that the reader is pining for. If nothing else, this should teach us that sexbots belong in the hands, lips, and everything else of affluent intelligent people over those who currently feed the market. Read and enjoy this one now, before it becomes non-fiction in the not-so-distant future!
TEHBEN.COM 
One comment