# 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:** 2
### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/21 "2013-07-25T00:48:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> 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.
He was also taller than Danny DeVito.
> [@](#):
>
> 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.
Don’t forget the love of Hari Seldon’s life.
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### Author:  [@Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilvert_s_Pagan)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/22 "2013-07-25T00:53:09Z")
Simon Wagstaff and Chworktap in **Venus on the Half Shell** by Kilgore Trout (really by Philip Jose Farmer, for the few remaining Dopers who don’t know this…).
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/23 "2013-07-25T00:55:47Z")
> [@Seanette](#):
>
> Those “androids” were artificially produced biological beings, so does that really fit what the OP had in mind?
That’s what was usually was meant by “android” before **Star Wars** muddied the definition.
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### Author:  [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/24 "2013-07-25T01:14:19Z")
Another weird Asimov short is “Satisfaction Guaranteed” where “Tony” is one of the first robots to be given human-like appearance, and is set to work for a wan bureaucrat’s wife. Tony realizes that the woman needs to feel loved to be happy, so he pursues her romantically for a period of weeks out of a desire to build her confidence before a big house-party to help her husband rise in the ranks.
It’s oddly creepy, and fairly patronizing to women, but I think it somewhat fits to goal of the OP.
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### Author:  [@silvertone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silvertone)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/25 "2013-07-25T01:21:00Z")
do electric androids dream of electric sheep? by PKD the guy has a one night stand w/ an Android.
also was there a sex scene in TRON
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### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/26 "2013-07-25T01:38:00Z")
Lightray:
> [@](#):
>
> I’m almost certain that this occurred in Piers Anthony’s Phaze series… but damned if I’m gonna slog through that mess again.
Just what I came to mention: Stile (human) and Sheen (robot) in the original “Apprentice Adept” trilogy. (It didn’t become a mess until he started adding to it.
In the (old) DC Universe, the android Red Tornado and the human Kathy Sutton were in love with each other, and they had an adopted daughter.
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### Author:  [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/27 "2013-07-25T01:39:22Z")
Alan Ayckbourn’s [Comic Potential](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Potential_%28play%29).
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/28 "2013-07-25T01:55:21Z")
> [@Lasciel](#):
>
> Another weird Asimov short is “Satisfaction Guaranteed” where “Tony” is one of the first robots to be given human-like appearance, and is set to work for a wan bureaucrat’s wife. Tony realizes that the woman needs to feel loved to be happy, so he pursues her romantically for a period of weeks out of a desire to build her confidence before a big house-party to help her husband rise in the ranks.
Asimov also ends FOUNDATION’S EDGE on an off-beat note, with a politician concluding that Bliss (a) is a robot passing for human, and thus (b) should be stopped from marrying the man who loves her. Bliss neither confirms nor denies, but insists on arguing conditionally; _if_ I’m a robot, she says, _then_ I’ve been programmed to delight in acting like a perfect wife: shielding the man I marry from physical harm while reverently protecting him from even the subtlest threats to his psychological well-being.
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### Author:  [@Schism](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schism)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/29 "2013-07-25T02:33:53Z")
Ghost in the Shell: SAC has an episode where a man falls in love with an android which is part of a near defunct line called the Jeri. He uploads a virus to the lines maintenance/diagnostics mainframe in order to destroy the other Jeris making “his” Jeri unique.
ETA: didn’t see that there was questions as to androids fitting thread criteria.
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/30 "2013-07-25T09:59:43Z")
Back when Henry Pym was still Ant-Man, he once shrunk down to microscopic size, in order to do some repairs on the Vision. In that storyline, it was stated that, while the Vision’s internal organs performed functions analogous to biological functions, they did so through electrical and mechanical processes, rather than biochemical processes. Most other writers seem to have followed that paradigm. So I think he counts. In a more recent comic, he stated, “Some people have prosthetic arms and legs. I have prosthetic everything.”
John Byrne was only one writer. Other writers have strongly hinted that, not only is he anatomically correct, he has far more stamina than any flesh-and-blood man!
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/31 "2013-07-25T10:43:45Z")
Platinum, from the Metal Men, had the hots for Dr Magnus, but unfortunately for her he never reciprocated.
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### Author:  [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/32 "2013-07-25T10:51:53Z")
In the book version of _Millenium_ (although it was also made into a not-very-good movie), the heroine has a sometimes-sexual relationship with her robot assistant.
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### Author:  [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/33 "2013-07-25T11:05:34Z")
Mr Wizard from Serenity is married to a robot, although she doesn’t appear to be very animated, and may be more of a talking sex doll
Think there is a character in forgotten Arnie film “The Sixth Day” who is having a relationship with a hologram woman
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### Author:  [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/34 "2013-07-25T11:44:44Z")
Also in TNG, didn’t Riker had a relationship with Minuet on the holodeck. It was implied that it was more than once IIRC. It’s possible that Picard had been running the same program too
Didn’t Janeway have a holodeck relationship too? I know she spent quite a bit of time in later series, but I had lost interest long before that
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/35 "2013-07-25T11:51:40Z")
As ever, all you need to do is turn to porn. ‘DB Story’ has written quite a few stories about fembots at [noparse][Storiesonline.net](http://Storiesonline.net)[/noparse]. There’s also a few in
[Categories; rb](http://mcstories.com/Tags/rb.html)
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### Author:  [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/36 "2013-07-25T12:05:13Z")
Austin Powers married a fembot, baby. He just didn’t realize she was one until the start of the second movie.
The whole Pygmalion/Galatea story strikes me as a forerunner of this theme. He made her, fell in love with her, then Aphrodite brought her to life for him. I know, not a robot/android.
Silvertone in Post #25 mentioned _Do Androids Dream…_. In _Blade Runner_ [derived from /inspired by that story] our protagonist ends up flying off into the sunset with an android, apparently to live happily ever after.
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### Author:  [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/37 "2013-07-25T12:26:24Z")
> [@mbh](#):
>
> Back when Henry Pym was still Ant-Man, he once shrunk down to microscopic size, in order to do some repairs on the Vision. In that storyline, it was stated that, while the Vision’s internal organs performed functions analogous to biological functions, they did so through electrical and mechanical processes, rather than biochemical processes. Most other writers seem to have followed that paradigm. So I think he counts. In a more recent comic, he stated, “Some people have prosthetic arms and legs. I have prosthetic everything.”
>
> John Byrne was only one writer. Other writers have strongly hinted that, not only is he anatomically correct, he has far more stamina than any flesh-and-blood man!
Speaking of Pym, didn’t he have a relationship with Jocasta for a bit (after having uploaded the mind of his dead ex-wife first)?
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/38 "2013-07-25T12:46:35Z")
> [@Bakhesh](#):
>
> Mr Wizard from Serenity is married to a robot, although she doesn’t appear to be very animated, and may be more of a talking sex doll
That’s Mr. Universe, IIRC.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/39 "2013-07-25T13:06:47Z")
[PSA courtesy of Futurama](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtqGTn7PCBw)
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### Author:  [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2013, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-stories-in-which-humans-have-romantic-relationships-with-robots-or-androids/664430/40 "2013-07-25T13:13:09Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#):
>
> That’s Mr. Universe, IIRC.
Quite right. Thanks for the correction
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