# Let's talk about stories in which humans have romantic relationships with robots or androids.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 24, 2013, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430 "2013-07-24T22:46:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/1 "2013-07-24T22:46:28Z")
Preferably I’d like to talk about _literature_ rather than movies, television, or comic books, but I figure I’ll get ignored if the thread goes more than 10 responses, so screw it.
A couple of things, though. It’s not one-night stands I want to talk about. Data’s one-night stand with Tasha Yar doesn’t count; nor does the android gigolo played by Jude Law in AI. What I want to talk about are stories in which a human being of either gender has an affair or marriage with a mechanical humanoid. (Clones don’t count either, incidentally)
Thoughts?
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### Author:  [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/2 "2013-07-24T23:00:20Z")
Since you opened it up…
Scarlet Witch and the Vision from The Avengers… although technically he’s a synthezoid (an exact copy of a human but made from synthetic parts). In a way it was a nice look at inter-racial relationships at the time. They were married and even had kids (through some magic) and then one writer thought it was stupid and destroyed it all.
Gloria and the robot from “Heavy Metal.” They talk about getting married at the end at least.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/3 "2013-07-24T23:01:34Z")
Asimov wrote about various human-robot marriages, made especially interesting due to Three Laws ramifications.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/4 "2013-07-24T23:04:31Z")
Decker and the Ilia-Probe from _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_, who joined and became one and ascended to a higher plane of whatever, and who I still maintain went back to the all-machine planet and founded the Borg.
[del]Tasha and Data from _Star Trek: The Next Generation_[/del]
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### Author:  [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/5 "2013-07-24T23:10:11Z")
Minerva from _Time Enough for Love_ was in love with her human, is that close enough?
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/6 "2013-07-24T23:13:45Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#):
>
> Since you opened it up…
>
> Scarlet Witch and the Vision from The Avengers… although technically he’s a synthezoid (an exact copy of a human but made from synthetic parts). In a way it was a nice look at inter-racial relationships at the time. They were married and even had kids (through some magic) and then one writer thought it was stupid and destroyed it all.
John Byrne, in West Coast Avengers, who also went to the extent of drawing the Vision naked and showing him from the front to make it incontrovertible that he was a Ken doll, despite years of stories making it clear that Vision had a basically human (if super-powered) body. That’s why they called in a synthezoid, in story. He wasn’t a robot; he was an artificically created human,with the same organs as anybody else plus whatever mojo was used to give him powers.
I’ve hated Byrne since that moment. I thought about mentioning Vizh & Wanda in the OP but I was too busy frothing at the mouth.
Wait, what was I talking about? Vizh & Wanda, right.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/7 "2013-07-24T23:27:24Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#):
>
> Minerva from _Time Enough for Love_ was in love with her human, is that close enough?
I’d say not. As a computer, Minerva never had sex with Ira; she coulnd’t, lacking hte proper ports. As a human, she had a completely orgnic body. Yes, it was created through genetic engineering, but it wasn’t gears and wheels and metal; it was flesh & blood.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/8 "2013-07-24T23:30:37Z")
Tanith Lee’s _The Silver Metal Lover_ is about a woman who falls in love with a robot; a sliver android designed as the perfect lover. The problem is, when the uproar caused by the creation of these perfect lovers causes them to be banned and recalled by the factory…
Robert Sawyer’s _Mindscan_ involves among other things a love affair between two androids housing human minds, which may or may not count.
In the short story _Miles to Go,_ the human Captain Paul Merrit and the [Bolo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_%28tank%29) Nike fall in love. Both died, but not before Nike eliminated the traitor responsible (forbidden to kill a human without orders, she sealed him up alive in his command center with no air), then she went on a suicide run against the enemy before the lethal failsafe the traitor triggered managed to kill her.
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### Author:  [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/9 "2013-07-24T23:31:04Z")
**Bicentennial Man** , the movie. It’s been a while since I’ve read it but I don’t think Asimov included Andrew Martin and Little Miss’s granddaughter marrying and falling in love in the short story.
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### Author:  [@Orr\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orr_G)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/10 "2013-07-24T23:33:37Z")
Tanith Lee’s **Silver Metal Lover**. I read it in my early teens one month when I forgot to send back the postcard from the SFBC. I don’t remember much about it, but I seem to recall it was about a young woman’s love affair with her vibrator.
Oh, but what a vibrator!
> **[The Silver Metal Lover: Lee, Tanith: 9780553581270: Amazon.com: Books](https://www.amazon.com/Silver-Metal-Lover-Tanith-Lee/dp/0553581279)**
>
> The Silver Metal Lover \[Lee, Tanith\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. The Silver Metal Lover
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### Author:  [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/11 "2013-07-24T23:37:01Z")
Tanith Lee wrote [Silver Metal Lover](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_S.I.L.V.E.R._Series), where the teen girl protagonist falls for an android named Silver.
Edit: Damn you both! (He was a musical vibrator.)
Edit again: Mine was via a relative’s SFBC cast-offs. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/12 "2013-07-24T23:37:03Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> John Byrne, in West Coast Avengers, who also went to the extent of drawing the Vision naked and showing him from the front to make it incontrovertible that he was a Ken doll . . .
>
> I’ve hated Byrne since that moment. I thought about mentioning Vizh & Wanda in the OP but I was too busy frothing at the mouth. . . .
I got and read WCA, but didn’t remember that. Sigh…
(My “I Hate John Byrne” moment was the first issue of Wonder Woman, after he took over from William Messner-Loebs. Byrne went out of his way, not merely to negate everything Messner-Loebs had done, but to piss on it in derision.)
There’s quite a bit of anime on the theme of boy and robot, all too often visualized as a robot maid. (And, no, I’m not thinking of Rosie from The Jetsons!)
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### Author:  [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/13 "2013-07-24T23:43:36Z")
Hyperion: Brawne Lamia and Johnny, if you stretch the definition of “robot” to include [cybrids](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybrid_(disambiguation)).
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/14 "2013-07-24T23:50:45Z")
2003’s [Natural City](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0378428/) is a South Korean film that features a protagonist in love with a robot. Unfortunately, it badly mishandled a great premise so that the film falls short of what it could have been.
Also, I’m surprised that no has yet mentioned Tanith Lee’s excellent _Silver Metal Lover_.
😃
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/15 "2013-07-24T23:55:06Z")
I had the impression that, while Yar/Data might have started with a pseudo-drunken one-night stand, that it developed into an actual romantic and sexual extended relationship. He was just more discreet about it than, say, Riker was.
For Asimov, the most obvious case was Gladia and Jander in _The Robots of Dawn_, who definitely had an extended (if somewhat one-sided) affair. But there are also hints of a romantic relationship between Dr. Susan Calvin and Stephen Byerly in _I, Robot_, and it’s very strongly implied that Byerly was a robot. I don’t know about _Bicentennial Man_: Andrew didn’t have a love interest in the short story, but it was also expanded out to a novella, which I wouldn’t be surprised to find had a love story subplot.
I read a short story once, an experimental piece intended to prove that a story could exist without a plot, that consisted of a love letter written by a female human to a computer. I don’t remember what it was called or where it was collected, though. And in any event, there’s no evidence that the computer reciprocated or was even aware.
There’s also Tiptree’s short story “The Girl who was Plugged In”. The title character is originally human, but is given telepresence control over a lifelike (and beautiful) automaton, in which body she has a romantic interlude. Even after the wi-fi connection is severed, some trace of her personality remains in the mechanical body, which attempts to embrace her lover.
And if we’re expanding from printed media, then there’s obviously several such relationships in _Battlestar Galactica_, though it’s unclear to what extent the Cylons are mechanical vs. biological (they can reproduce biologically and fool even advanced medical tests, but they can also interface directly with fiber optics, and their spine glows red when aroused)
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/16 "2013-07-25T00:02:16Z")
Lester del Rey’s “[Helen O’Loy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_O'Loy)” – the ur-text of the entire trope. It’s a little dated, but still a story every SF reader should read.
Tanith Lee’s **The Silver Metal Lover**.
Robert Silverberg’s **Tower of Glass** has a subplot of a love affair between a human and an android.
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### Author:  [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/17 "2013-07-25T00:12:44Z")
I’m almost certain that this occurred in Piers Anthony’s _Phaze_ series… but damned if I’m gonna slog through that mess again.
In Gene Wolfe’s _Book of the New Sun_
the sailor Jonas is in love with Jocasta. although it originally seems that Jonas is a human with robotic prostheses, he’s actually a robot with _organic_ prostheses. he goes away to become a Real Boy, basically, then later returns with tragic effect.
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### Author:  [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/18 "2013-07-25T00:14:25Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> I’d say not. As a computer, Minerva never had sex with Ira; she coulnd’t, lacking hte proper ports. As a human, she had a completely orgnic body. Yes, it was created through genetic engineering, but it wasn’t gears and wheels and metal; it was flesh & blood.
But the persona she migrated into the flesh!body was _her_, so that’s hardly an objection.
She loved Ira as a machine and as a meatbot- but only made love to him with wetware.
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### Author:  [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/19 "2013-07-25T00:45:02Z")
_Cherry 2000_ [Cherry 2000 (1987) - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092746/)
Man has a robot wife who gets wet and blows a fuse, he then goes in search of a replacement.
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### Author:  [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/20 "2013-07-25T00:46:28Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> Robert Silverberg’s **Tower of Glass** has a subplot of a love affair between a human and an android.
Those “androids” were artificially produced biological beings, so does that really fit what the OP had in mind?
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