Member invitation for email interview re: academic research

Lady Wednesday · Post by **Lady Wednesday** » Sat Mar 14, 2020 11:20 pm

Dear TDF members,

I am a university lecturer conducting academic research on sex doll and sex robot relationships for my forthcoming book about intimacy, media and technology.

TDF Management has kindly given me permission to post this invitation to members who would like to be involved in the research via a voluntary email interview. I have received ethics approval from my university to conduct the research and have attached a participant information sheet and consent form that will give you more information about the project. I have also attached a list of the 8 questions I would ask you via email should you agree to be involved. All responses will be treated confidentially and interviewees will be assigned numerical codes so that any comments included in the published research will be anonymous.

I'm very happy to answer any questions you might have and my contact details are included in the attached documents. Hope this research is of interest and thank you very much for taking the time to read this post.

Best wishes,
Lady Wednesday

Lady Wednesday · Post by **Lady Wednesday** » Sun Mar 15, 2020 12:07 am

Dear TDF members,

My previous research of the love doll community has just been submitted for peer review to the scholarly journal 'Sexualities'. I received permission from TDF Site Manager to conduct the research and approval from my university's ethics committee UTS HREC ETH18-3125. One of the conditions of my university ethics approval was that I post a copy of the pre-published research article to TDF to give members who did not wish for their anonymous quotes to be included in the published research an opportunity to request their removal. I analysed the following five discussion threads as part of this research and please note that all posts have been strictly de-identified:

‘Harmony: The Intimate AI’
‘Harmony is here!’
‘Harmony on Facebook’
‘Considering the Harmony AI Head – What is your opinion?’
‘Factory of Dreams’.

Please see the attached research conduct statement for more information. If you would prefer your anonymous post be removed from the published research please contact me on the email address supplied by 29 March 2020.

I feel very fortunate to have conducted this research and thank you for your encouragement and support.

Best wishes,
Lady Wednesday

Post by **Nescio50** » Sun Mar 15, 2020 8:39 am

Thank you for sharing the pre-published article. It was an interesting read.

To all, TDF Management did grant a Research Account to Lady Wednesday. The threads that were analysed were all posted in public sections of TDF. All quotes have been anonymized. Still, if you want a quote of yours removed, please send a PM to Lady Wednesday.

notaflyingtoy · Post by **notaflyingtoy** » Thu Mar 19, 2020 10:53 am

I just wanted to bump this because I'm about to submit my own interview answers and hope I'm not the only one. I found this to be a welcome opportunity to reflect on why I own a doll and what it means for myself and society, and to speak out on these topics we often feel the need to hide from everyone else. Please consider reaching out to Lady Wednesday!

MattUK · Post by **MattUK** » Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:55 pm

Seems slightly more interesting than some of the other research "opportunities" that have been seen in these parts recently

However, am I correct in getting the impression that your interest is primarily in AI/robots rather than dolls? And as someone who has no experience or interest in AI/robots (at least in this sphere) that my participation would therefore not be particularly useful?

notaflyingtoy · Post by **notaflyingtoy** » Thu Mar 19, 2020 3:20 pm

MattUK wrote:However, am I correct in getting the impression that your interest is primarily in AI/robots rather than dolls? And as someone who has no experience or interest in AI/robots (at least in this sphere) that my participation would therefore not be particularly useful?

You can take a look at the interview questions in the first attachment to the original post above. Only one of the questions is specifically about sex robots, and I imagine that "I have no interest in sex robots" might even be a useful response to that particular question (my answer will basically be that, though I go a little bit into the reason why a regular doll is "enough" for me). I had plenty to say for the rest of the questions about how I relate to dolls and to TDF and I imagine almost anyone here would too!

Post by **Nescio50** » Thu Mar 19, 2020 3:28 pm

MattUK wrote:Seems slightly more interesting than some of the other research "opportunities" that have been seen in these parts recently

However, am I correct in getting the impression that your interest is primarily in AI/robots rather than dolls? And as someone who has no experience or interest in AI/robots (at least in this sphere) that my participation would therefore not be particularly useful?

Actually, I'm not looking for (current) AI/Robots too, I like my dolls to be dolls. Still I answered the questionnaire.

seagull · Post by **seagull** » Thu Mar 19, 2020 5:49 pm

Never thought I would see UTS with the XXX label

MattUK · Post by **MattUK** » Sat Mar 21, 2020 2:59 pm

notaflyingtoy wrote:
MattUK wrote:However, am I correct in getting the impression that your interest is primarily in AI/robots rather than dolls? And as someone who has no experience or interest in AI/robots (at least in this sphere) that my participation would therefore not be particularly useful?
You can take a look at the interview questions in the first attachment to the original post above. Only one of the questions is specifically about sex robots

Yes I'm aware of that, but the pre-published paper attached in the second post is concentrating on sex robots, AI and "human-machine interfaces". The five threads it focuses on are all about the Harmony AI doll. And the researcher is from the Univeristy of Technology, Sydney. It's therefore not unreasonable to assume this is the area of interest here.

Also, as it's a pre-published paper I wonder if it's worth pointing out the typo I found

siliconelover · Post by **siliconelover** » Sat Mar 21, 2020 3:16 pm

I am sure I am missing something but how do you choose to be involved ?

One comment after reviewing the questions, our dolls are Not 'devices'.

notaflyingtoy · Post by **notaflyingtoy** » Sat Mar 21, 2020 3:39 pm

MattUK wrote:Yes I'm aware of that, but the pre-published paper attached in the second post is concentrating on sex robots, AI and "human-machine interfaces". The five threads it focuses on are all about the Harmony AI doll. And the researcher is from the Univeristy of Technology, Sydney. It's therefore not unreasonable to assume this is the area of interest here.

Gotcha...my apologies. I didn't mean to insinuate that you'd made an unreasonable assumption.

siliconelover wrote:I am sure I am missing something but how do you choose to be involved ?

I joined in by sending the researcher a message at the email address in the "participant information sheet" attached to the OP.

seagull · Post by **seagull** » Sat Mar 21, 2020 5:23 pm

siliconelover:
A lump of plastic that can be used to stimulate an orgasm is in some peoples eyes just a device.
Whereas there are many on this forum who view their dolls as an essential part of their lives, physically and emotionally

MattUK · Post by **MattUK** » Mon Mar 23, 2020 6:43 am

notaflyingtoy wrote:I joined in by sending the researcher a message at the email address in the "participant information sheet" attached to the OP.

How did you go about "signing" the consent form? I have asked about this but not had an answer.

notaflyingtoy · Post by **notaflyingtoy** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 1:46 am

MattUK wrote:How did you go about "signing" the consent form? I have asked about this but not had an answer.

I was able to sign it by opening the PDF on my iPad and using the annotation tools to write my name. On a Mac you can fill in forms and signatures in Preview. On Windows you might be able to use Acrobat Reader for this. Another option would be to print it out and sign it, then scan it with a scanner or your phone (just snap a pic with the camera app or use Google Drive's document scanning function on Android or Notes on an iPhone).

If you don't get a response right away, please have patience; she's been great about responding helpfully but not always the same day.

Lady Wednesday · Post by **Lady Wednesday** » Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:46 pm

Hello Everyone, I'm sorry this reply is a little late. Thank you very much for your support and feedback on the article. If you find a typo please let me know! Thankfully the journals have proofreaders to check for these things. Happy to answer any questions too. I'm a little quicker on email so feel free to contact me there