Hardcore Hardware: An Interview with Kal Cobalt, Robot Fetishist

Just to be clear, robot fetishism, also known as "ASFR" or alt.sex.fetish.robots, is an unspoken sexual fetish involving an allure to humanoid robots what foot fetishism is to feet. A creepier, more fantastical version of this fantasy may involve an actual metamorphosis from human to machine, but for rambunctious role players, performing and dressing up in robot costume is all that's called for in the interest of erotic objectification. Others meanwhile simply yearn for an android partner, a sexual companion with a metallic heart. Few have made their affections as well known as Kal Cobalt, a writer who lives in Portland, Oregon.

Infamous for his essay, 10 Things You Always Wanted to Know About Robot Sex, Cobalt scribed his first short story at six years old and is currently a notable author who maintains a not-insignificant obsession with robots. In addition to contributing to a local food blog, Cobalt writes fiction and nonfiction of several varieties, and has been published in Circlet Press, Carnal Nation and Sexis Magazine. He's even got a robot-erotica novel in the works.

I interfaced with Cobalt by phone and email in order to find out what gives him a hard-on for, um, hardware.

How exactly does one become infatuated with robots?

You know, it's something that has always been very fascinating to me. The whole question of the pure logic of [machines] verses the emotion that tends to be the rule of biological beings has always been an interest of mine.

But there had to be a turning point, right? When you first discovered you were turned on by robots?

It's interesting you should say that because of course they just came out with Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix, so I've been binging on that lately. It came out around the time I was an adolescent and I remember being absolutely fascinated with Data, as a character and as an android. I have to assume that this had some say in my fetish to some extent. And while I won't try to speak for all robot fetishists, for me, there's definitely a BDSM element there. The concept of giving up power to one's partner, or taking responsibility for a partner giving you said power, is immensely erotic and just generally fascinating in terms of how humans work.

Robots are typically depicted as either the ultimate naive submissive, unaware of the world, wholly dependent upon its maker or partner for its entire understanding of the world, or deeply authoritative and impossibly smarter than humans, equally dangerous and protective depending on the context. Those depictions are almost like an exaggeration of what happens in any human relationship; there are things we teach our partners, and things we learn from them. So in that way, robot fetishism might be exploring the very nature of the less kinky, more common "power exchanges" native to any relationship.

So does this attraction simply revolve around robots or technology in general? You did say you would fuck your incredibly sexy Mac Book Pro. Elaborate please?

There's definitely an entire technology fetish happening for sure. I think it's just a very fascinating thing for people and I always assume it has something to do with logical and methodical way that I like to do things. I mean technology is the ultimate methodical and logical way to do anything really, so I think there's a design aspect to that as well. For example, steampunk is gears and leather, or the cyberpunk movement is a question of metals and whatnot. It's even a textural thing. It's a whole constellation of things that all interact. There's the design aspect, the logic verses emotion aspect of it, as in what can you do or what can someone do to you if that whole question of, "how far would you go or how would you feel about it" was completely out of the equation. There's all kinds of stuff in there.

What would be your ideal robot?

I am still trying to sort out what would be a realistic expectation if and when we ever get there. Definitely though, I'm not as fond of the whole human consciousness-in-a-robot body idea. What's really interesting to me is how thought processes change completely without that human aspect, and how something like that would navigate our society at all, let alone navigate the much more intimate personal interactions. That's the thing that I think is really my primary interest. Logic is a huge thing for me and the ability to thoroughly think something through, all of the possibilities, the possible outcomes, selecting one that seems most appropriate based on the previous programming, that methodical way of thinking.

I also think that there's a kind of naivete about it, especially at this point when we don't actually have truly artificially intelligent robots. But there's always that idea that when we get there, we're going to be teaching them everything they know, hopefully. There's a blank slate concept to it where a robot may be making "yes, no ones and zeros" decisions, but they're making all of those decisions based upon what humans are telling them. So, there's that ultimate reflection of society happening there.

Is there some sort of underground community for robot fetishists? Maybe a place for enthusiasts to enact these fantasies?

I wish there was some sort of large, centralized thing because I do think it would make life much easier for us, but mostly what I've found are these little pockets here and there. On Tumblr, there's a blog for "object heads" which are specifically things for human bodies that have some sort of an object as a head. It may be a television or a video camera, or something like that, and that's been quite the place to find like-minded folks. But, in general, I haven't found a large depository of robot-centric folks. I'm not sure why that is either, you think there would be. I mean the Internet offers that for everyone.

Describe your perfect date with a robot companion.

Awe, that's so sweet. It's funny 'cause the first thing that occurs to me would be to simply sit and talk, like an input output thing, and sort of get to know what their limitations are because there are such a large variety of concepts floating around right now that would be so fascinating to plunder and pick at.

As you write in your essay, "Teach a robot to give good head and they'll never forget." Can you elaborate on this idea? What was going through your mind when you even came up with "10 Things Everyone Wants to Know About Robot Sex" anyhow?

What I meant by that in particular was that humans have their own way of doing things, and so when you start interacting intimately with someone else you bring along all this baggage with you and all of the things you want to do and how you want to do them. Whereas in a robot scenario, you would essentially be teaching them a program. You will never have to worry about unbreakability. Basically in terms of how I was coming up with all these ideas, this is the kind of stuff that floats around in my bed all the time. This is how I am, and this is why I write stories about it. These are the things I ponder while doing the dishes. Do you have any other fetishes I should know about?

Oh gosh, how much time do you have? To be honest, there is not much I would turn my nose up at. I think to me, part of the fun of living in a culture that, at least in some ways, is sexually open is having the opportunity to talk to other people about what turns them on and try to see it from their point of view. And you know, that goes with the writing too. I want to understand what makes people tick. There isn't much I have come across where I'm like, "Oh, that's icky." Because I know there are some people who feel that way about the things that I like.

There's this great sex toy that I've been wanting to get. It's called the Oh Mi Bod vibrator, and you hook it up to your iPod or any other stereo output and it pulses in vibration to the rhythm of the song. I've been fascinated by that because I'm a huge music fan, especially electronica. There's a joke actually that the entire dubstep genre sound is the sound of two Terminator robots fucking. So, the idea of mixing all of these together – the music, the technology, the vibrator, the sexuality – would just be awesome.

I think there might be, for some people, a connection or continuum of fetish encapsulated by cyberpunk aesthetics – robots, gadgets, latex, metal, implants, and industrial/electronic music all fit together. I had a full-on latex fetish before I was even six. I loved the smell of tire stores, for example. I loved Short Circuit and Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in my preteen years, and moving on to The Matrix's fairly overt technology/sexuality overtures and the Old Guard leather aesthetics of the BDSM community just sort of naturally happened.

Are there any authors you admire or have used as inspiration to your own work?

Absolutely, M. Christian is incredible. He has this collection called The Bachelor Machine that's mostly erotic sci-fi and he's got some awesome stuff in there. He has been a huge inspiration to me in regard to this genre. He writes about whatever he wants to. William Gibson wrote a sex scene in "Neuromancer" in a very cold and mechanical fashion, while the description of jacking into cyberspace feels like erotica of the highest order. Charles Stross is one of the few authors I know who's writing sci-fi with a truly realistic eye toward how sexuality and relationships will evolve, up to and including plenty of artificially intelligent bonking. There's also a wonderful M. Christian story in which all prostitutes are robots, so a human who fetishizes prostitution must pretend to be a robot in order to get johns. Although not specifically robotic, Kij Johnson has smashed some of the walls between non-human erotica and "mainstream" sci-fi with "Spar," a tale of a woman trapped in an interminable sex act with an inscrutable alien blob. It won a Nebula Award. Now there's some wall-smashing for you.

Do your friends and family know about this robot obsession of yours?

My partners know and have absolutely no issue with it. My family knows I like robots, but I'm not sure exactly if they know just how much I like them, but it's not something that I particularly hide form them either. They're pretty cool about the whole thing. They know what I write and what I talk about. Maybe not to a certain level of detail though. We talk about the work, not what I'm up to.

You mentioned that you are genderqueer and prefer to be referred to by male pronouns. Your transition is interesting in the context of your sexual interest, how do you think the two connect?

A quick point of order, I'm not transitioning. Very broadly speaking, those who are in the process of transitioning their life or body to another gender are referred to as transgendered, while I'm genderqueer, which is kind of the Jeopardy! "potpourri" category of gender expression. In my case, I have no intention of making permanent surgical or hormonal changes to my female body and I'm not "out" at my day job at all. I generally consider myself a guy, and when I'm away from my day job I like to be around people who will consider me a guy as well. That said, if English actually had a decent neutral pronoun, I would use it in a heartbeat — and so my gender identity is absolutely part and parcel of my interest in robots and artificial intelligence.

I could rhapsodize for a few days about how we have made "it" an inappropriate pronoun for people and what that means in the dual context of "neutral" genderqueers like myself as well as society's lack of readiness to accept artificial intelligence. When we get it, it will be genderless, and we are so not ready for that! I've written pretty extensively about my gender stuff. There's a personal essay in Toward 2012 that might be of interest to you.

My view on gender definitely gets incorporated into the robot fiction I write. One of my favorites, "Charlie," is about a robot who becomes sentient and selects his gender. There's some concern amongst his makers about how he made his choice, and whether he was influenced by the homosexuality of his male handler. There's another, called "The Sex Drive," where a straight couple buy genital attachments and sexual programming for their companion bot, essentially treating gender as a cool add-on.

It's still unusual to find people who give this kind of thing genuine consideration. I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of your question about the connection here.

Absolutely. I understand you also like knitting and cats. Do you knit your cats robot costumes? Wait, do you even have a cat?

Yeah, we have four cats and a dog. I actually just got back from this giant sock summit thing that happens here every two years and I dropped about a hundred bucks on yarn. I constantly knit them these tiny toys and put cat nip in them to make them crazy. I actually did try to make one of the cats a sweater once, but he didn't like that very much.

-Kimberly Haddad

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