What is China going to do about sex robots and VR porn?

Photo credit: Pixabay.

In China’s tech industry, both virtual reality and robotics are hot topics. Both industries have seen massive investments over the past few years and are expected to grow rapidly. Investors and entrepreneurs alike are falling over themselves to get involved.

But there’s little discussion (or investment) in one potentially-lucrative area where virtual reality and robotics intersect: sex.

You’re probably already aware of virtual reality porn, which exists currently and which is expected to be a billion-dollar business by 2025. And you’re probably also aware that in this era of smart wearables, sex toys are getting smarter and more interactive too. You likely know that humans are already making creepily-realistic-looking sex dolls. And you may even have seen this Japanese VR sex suit, which combines smart sex toys and animated VR porn for a more immersive, ahem, “experience.”

It’s hard to imagine anybody paying for that, of course. But technology always gets slicker and more appealing as it develops (remember the first mobile phones?). Combine all of the technologies from the previous paragraph and throw them a decade or two into the future, and it’s likely that we’ll have some form of sex robot and/or extremely immersive VR sex experiences. Some scientists have even hypothesized that by 2050, robots could replace prostitutes in many of the world’s brothels, reducing STD rates and human trafficking in the process.

There’s an interesting moral and social discussion to be had about all of this, of course. But China’s government faces a different and interesting question that will be my focus here: how should VR porn, sex robots, and even robotic prostitution be regulated?

China’s government and sex

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Photo credit: Jonathan Kos-Read.

On the one hand, it seems like China’s government would never allow sex-tech industries like VR porn or sex robotics to flourish openly. China’s government has taken a conservative hard-line stance on pornographic depictions since its founding in 1949, and the advent of the internet age has done nothing to change that. Internet porn is illegal in China. So is prostitution. Outside-the-mainstream sexual behavior is also frowned upon; gay marriage remains illegal and even consensual group sex can be punished criminally.

In other words, from one perspective, China’s government is kind of a prude.

But on the other hand, Chinese society is not nearly as prudish as those laws might imply. Sex toys and sex dolls are sold openly both online and in retail shops. In fact, last I checked, sex shops were more common in many Chinese cities than they are in most of the “sexually liberated” West. In my old neighborhood in Beijing, you could barely walk a block without coming across a faux-neon chengren yongpin (“adult products”) shop sign.

And while prostitution and porn are both technically illegal, enforcement is often quite lax. Yes, pornographic websites get shut down and brothels get raided. But at the same time, porn is widely available enough that Japanese porn star Sora Aoi is a huge celebrity in China. And prostitution is so common that at US$73 billion, China is estimated to have the largest prostitution market on earth.

None of that necessarily reflects on the government’s attitude, though. Richard Burger, the author of Behind the Red Door: Sex in China, told Tech in Asia that the government acceptance of sex shops came about because those shops “were seen as a type of wellness center.” A solution to health problems, in other words, not a source of titillation. “The Chinese government has long felt that a sexually satisfied population contributes to a healthier society,” Burger said. But that doesn’t extend to porn, which Burger says China has equated with “Western spiritual pollution” for decades.

How to regulate the future