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Which genre mentioned the first "pleasure" (aka sex slave/sex toy) humanoid robot/android?

Was it Sci-Fi (the earliest example I can think of is "Tripping the Rift", but i'm certain there were earlier cases)? Or was it Pr0n (The earliest example I know of is from 1971 based on brief googling).

Based on one of the corollaries to Rule 34, I'm going to suppose that it was NOT sci-fi, but I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

To clarify based on comments:

  • Explicitly using the words "sex robot" is not required, but a reasonable average reader/watcher must clearly understand from the work that this was the primary purpose of said robot.

  • Doesn't matter if it was movie or book

  • Gender of the robot is irrelevant

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  • Westworld (1973) mentioned it well before Tripping the Rift.
    – Tango
    Jan 19, 2012 at 4:46
  • Do they have to use the word "pleasure" or is the implication that sex was involved/allowed enough?
    – Tango
    Jan 19, 2012 at 4:47
  • Implication is enough if it's clear/obvious to a reasonable reader/watcher. BUT it must have been the primary purpose of the robot - e.g Guri from Star Trek EU doesn't count - she was primarily a bodyguard. So "allowed" may not be enough.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jan 19, 2012 at 4:48
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    The TOS episode I, Mudd comes to mind. That was 1967, I think.
    – Adele- Nexus of Potlucks
    Jan 19, 2012 at 4:53
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    It wasn't explicitelly its main purpouse, it probably wasn't acceptable to talk so clearly about sex in the epoch, but the first (or one of the first) androids in literature was a copy a of a woman described as phisically perfect by the main character. The book talks about the android as being able of doing any human action or function. The android is Hadaly, and the book is L'Ève future published by Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam in 1886 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_Eve
    – Jaime Soriano
    Aug 12, 2015 at 22:21

4 Answers 4

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I think the earliest example of a humanoid robot being used in a sexual manner is Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a 1927 German sci-fi film, in which a robot is dressed as an erotic dancer and drives two men into a homicidal jealous rage. The robot's purpose within the plot is not pleasure, but the scene is very sexual (by the standards of the 1920s) in a way that the audience is meant to appreciate as such. Here's the scene on youtube. While it doesn't really fit your qualifications, this movie is often pointed to as the birth of technosexuality as a fetish. From there, you have a slow shift toward more explicitly sexual robots, until you get to the 1960s references that have already been mentioned. I'd recommend these articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_fetishism

http://www.p-synd.com/winterrose/technosexuality.html

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    Knew there was something there.
    – Adele- Nexus of Potlucks
    Jan 19, 2012 at 5:32
  • ^^ Yeah. I mean - the idea of a sexbot is something that probably would have hit some cultural taboos until the 60s-ish, right? #NotAHistorianAtAll But that doesn't mean it wasn't being implied left and right. ;)
    – abcooper
    Jan 19, 2012 at 5:34
  • Also, I didn't mean to steal your answer! If you want to post about Metropolis, I'll delete mine. You did say it first.
    – abcooper
    Jan 19, 2012 at 16:36
  • No, its fine. I wasn't sure, and didn't have the energy to do any in-depth searching.
    – Adele- Nexus of Potlucks
    Jan 20, 2012 at 2:18
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There are three references from the 1960s, but the word "pleasure" was not actually used. In three Star Trek episodes there are implications of possible pleasure androids. In What are Little Girls Made Of? (aired 12/22/1966) there's Andrea, an android made by Roger Corby whom Kirk doesn't seem to mind making out with. In the end, she is driven to kiss Dr. Korby. While she's not supposed to show emotions, she can be responsive to a kiss.

Censorship was strong in the 1960s, not even allowing an open mouthed kiss (and often a woman's navel had to be hidden by her costume), so nothing is stated directly in the show, but Dr. Korby was stranded on the planet for years alone, with only Ruk and the androids he made. It's pretty much inconceivable that a thinking and sexually aware adult would believe that he went out of his way to create a sexy android woman who would do whatever he asked without using her for sex.

There's multiple androids in I, Mudd, but none are specifically for pleasure only.

In the third season, there's Requiem for Methuselah (aired 2/14/1969) where Flint created Rayna. She's not just for pleasure, but it seems apparent that would be one intended purpose, since Flint wanted a lifelong companion.

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  • Sorry, "specifically for pleasure" is a requirement for this Q. "Fully functional" is a totally separate question.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jan 19, 2012 at 4:59
  • I was thinking of Rachel when writing the question, but I'm not certain if she was made as a sex robot, or merely as "fully functional" - thus Tripping as my example
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jan 19, 2012 at 5:13
  • @DVK: So that means for sex only, but not for relationships including sex?
    – Tango
    Jan 19, 2012 at 5:19
  • for sex primarily. Think of the distinction as the dropdown on match.com for what you're looking for: "long term relationship" vs. something else (sorry, didn't visit a personals site in mucho years, so the precise wording memory is rusty)
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jan 19, 2012 at 5:26
1

the Twilight Zone epsiode "The Lonely" November 15, 1959, has a convict imprisoned on an asteroid given a robot in the shape of a woman named Alicia.

He lives with the female robot companion for three months, so some viewers no doubt imagined that she served as a pleasure bot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_(The_Twilight_Zone)

I was recently reading somewhere that that it seems very certain that Andrea in "What Are Little girls Made of?" was used for that purpose - and certainly Christine Chapel believed she was sued for it.

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  • "some viewers no doubt imagined" doesn't quite measure up to the standard of "a reasonable average reader/watcher must clearly understand from the work that this was the primary purpose of said robot"
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jul 2, 2015 at 2:39
  • And the "somewhere" you read about Andrea is this very post, which has an answer mentioning WaLGMo episode since 2012.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jul 2, 2015 at 2:41
  • DVK -no it was not this post, it was in a review of the episode. Do you think this is the only website which includes Star Trek?
    – M. A. Golding
    Jul 2, 2015 at 22:24
  • Of course whether "What are Litttle Girles Made of?" or "The Lonely" may have been the first sex robot on television, I assume that there probably was a pleasure robot in some written science fiction earlier, since there was less censorship than in TV.
    – M. A. Golding
    Jul 2, 2015 at 22:28
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Maybe Lester Del Ray's Helen O'Loy, published in 1938, would qualify.

from the Wiki entry:

Two young men, a mechanic, Dave, and a medical student, Phil, collaborate on modifying a household robot, originally meant only to cook and clean. They are more successful than they intended; despite the robot's household programming, it develops emotions. The robot, named "Helen O’Loy", falls in love with Dave. Dave initially avoids her and rejects her advances, but after some time he marries her and they live together on his farm.

Over the years Phil assists her in artificially aging her features to match the changes that occur in her human husband. When Dave inevitably dies, she sends a letter to Phil asking him to dissolve her metallic structure and bury her remains with her husband. She begs him not to let anyone discover their secret. In the final line it is revealed that Phil, who had been narrating the story, had secretly been in love with her the whole time.

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  • Sorry but this utterly seems to fail the requirment of "clearly understand from the work that this was the primary purpose of said robot". Not an unexpected side effect of introducing emotions.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jul 2, 2015 at 2:37

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