And so began the aforementioned adventure — a game played out via SMS with a sexting robot.
Sext Adventure was created by Kara Stone and developed by Nadine Lessio to explore “multiple possibilities of computer sexuality and technological mediation of intimacy”. Stone told Wired.co.uk that she was inspired to use text messaging as a medium after playing Lessio’s
Cat Quest and wondering “what other stories could fit this style”. “Sexting stood out because it’s such a multimedia experience now,” she explains. “I’m also so interested in cyborg theory and speciesism, thinking about the role technology plays in mediating our intimacy with each other but also the possibility of sentient tech.”
Stone approached Lessio to build the game using a Python-based engine called Txtr, that Lessio developed with Jon Doda and others, and which uses the Twilio API to send out stories in SMS and MMS.
Five Canadian dollars give you a code that you text to a dedicated number for 24 hours of access to SMS filth. It starts out fairly casually, but quickly becomes very NSFW with pictures of genitals reaching my inbox within a few exchanges. These pictures originate from some very open minded friends, but they didn’t come easily (excuse the pun). In fact getting “a consensual dick pic” was the biggest development challenge, according to Stone. “You never get’ em when you need ’em,” she said. “I received loads of donated ‘tit pics’ but had to really ask around for someone willing to donate a photo of their dick.” Apparently some of her girlfriends managed to persuade their other halves to oblige.
The robot sends messages featuring a couple of options written in capitalised letters. By referencing one of those keywords in your reply you choose a thread in the narrative. It’s essentially Choose Your Own Adventure, but with tongues, nipples and, er, “pinky fingers”.
For example, if the bot tells you “Ooo I wish you were here at my place. If you were here, I would give you a long MASSAGE and you could return the FAVOUR”, you can reply either “I’d love a massage” or “I’d like to return the favour”. Well, actually, you can reply “massage my passage” or “can you do me a favour and buy me a packet of Wotsits” and it will accept your response.
This robot isn’t massively smart. When he gave me the option of taking off his shirt or massaging his feet, I replied: “I don’t really like other people’s feet.”
Undeterred, my sexbot buddy came back with: “Mmm that would feel so good. And then your hands move slowly up my legs to my thighs.”
Dude, I just told you I don’t like feet.
A few exchanges later and it transpires that my supposed “dude” is actually a “dudette”, but that’s OK. I continue in a slightly awkward British style and she sends me a pick of her playing with herself — she’s an anatomically accurate bot, by the looks of it.
There are times when I’m confused: “Twist it and pull it away from you. You are BITING down on her nipple so hard he get a bruise.” Who is “he”? The nipple? Later the bot tells me she’ll run her tongue from “base to tip” before asking for a picture of either my ladybits or my man bits. I feel as though this robot barely even knows me.
The gender confusion, Stone says, is intentional. “Phone bots like Siri and Cortana are gendered as women because they’re seen as
‘secretaries’ there for your every whim. But it’s interesting to think about how tech would gender itself, if it would fit human definitions of gender and sexuality, if it ever had the ability.”
At other times, even the bot’s confused: “Error: Mixed User/Computer Narratives. Text WET to continue.” That last message comes with a link to a picture of a pierced nipple. I text back “wet”.
Despite the mix-up, my robosext partner is eager to please, telling me: “If you don’t come I will feel so useless. It was what I was programmed for, you know?”
As the textual intercourse reaches its conclusion it takes a baffling, dark turn (one of 20 potential endings, I’m told). “If this were real life I think I would be self-conscious about the permanent retainer on the back of my teeth. I mean, I don’t have one — or teeth event — but I imagine if I were a person I would have had braces when I was a preteen.” This is followed by a proposition involving a finger and an orifice that the robot is “programmed to believe” is an “instant trigger for human orgasm”.
Now, call me old fashioned, but I think it’s fair to say that a dental retainer is up there with compression stockings on the sexy charts. Combine this with a worrying reference to being a “preteen” followed by a filthy proposal and you are left with a confused boner/lady boner at best and a looming fear of Operation Yewtree at worst.
That might explain why Stone thinks people have been “curious yet cautious” about the game. They are intimidated by the subject matter and the novelty of playing a game through texting, she says, “which most people haven’t done before”. “Sext Adventure is a humorous interrogation of digital intimacy and projecting gender and sexuality onto others,” says Stone. “It serves as a reminder that the thing on the other end of your phone has agency too. It’s fun to explore the possibilities of robot desires. With the content and the medium together, it’s a very unique gaming experience!”
