How many readers find themselves isolated from their lovers right now? Unable to touch or know when next they will be touched, due to travel restrictions, quarantine, or self-isolation? How many couples have to live in separate homes because one is immunocompromised, or works on the healthcare frontline? And how many sex workers can no longer earn their regular livings because the business of interpersonal touch is too risky right now?

The interesting thing about this dilemma is that in the not-too-distant future technology will have solutions. They won’t be perfect answers, because there will always be a place for human-human intimacy. And yet they might make intimacy at a distance so much more bearable, and altogether safer.

Sex robots

Let’s get this one out the way early. Sex robots are, according to breathless and weak-punning media reports, a-coming. The sex dolls of recent decades are now being quickened by robotics and a breath of fresh AI. Their manufacturers call them sex robots.

I’m a little more reserved and have been calling them “dollbots”. That’s not to say I’m pessimistic. Sex robots are getting better, and if you read the best thinkers on the topic, like Kate Devlin, they are also likely to diversify. That means — in my words, not Kate’s — that they won’t always look like they are designed to serve a heterosexual male imagination.

So if isolation, a trip to Mars, or a severe case of InCelibacy narrows your options, then sex robots are an easy-to-imagine solution.

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