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Sorry if it is inappropriate.

Of course not, they are robots you dummy, on the other hand the COBRA guys......

M.

Um, gay like Brokeback, or gay like lame?

I assume gay like Brokeback, because gay like lame wouldn't make for much of a university psychology project.

I haven't seen the movie though, so I can't weigh in.

Well saying as robots tend to lack...um...gender, it would be hard for one to be gay. However, people often tend to associate genders to inanimate objects (ask a room full of random people if their cars are male or female) and some languages (spanish for example) imply gender to all nouns. So if people perceive them as male and then also perceive them as either engaging in activities that they deem to be "gay" or affectionate, then people will likely see them as gay.

If you are particularly interested in psyke studies involving robots and homosexuality, I think a more interesting take on it would be to have people watch some videos (live action or animated) of various robots performing various activities. You could then have some dubbing over the videos in various voices that could make the robots seem gay, neutral (or purely robotic), or heterosexual and see how / if people identify each.

Examples of possible video clips.
1) 2 robots cautiously approach each other and snuggle. No voices
1.1) same as 1, but both robots say “I love you” in identical gender neutral robotic voiceovers
1.2) same as 1, but both robots say “I love you” in male and female intoned robotic voiceovers.
1.3) Same as 1, but both robots say “I love you” in male intoned robotic voiceovers.
1.4) Same as 1, but both robots say “I love you” in female intoned robotic voiceovers.

You could then run the gambit again with human sounding voiceovers (although finding a gender neutral one might be difficult).

You could then run another batch of similar videos of the robots doing something that’s really gay (rear mounting perhaps) and, again, vary the voices to see what people think.

Gender association with inanimate or abstracts isn't too hard. Consider these shapes:
1. []
2. )(
Of the two, which is male, which is female?

JohnHwangDD wrote:Gender association with inanimate or abstracts isn't too hard. Consider these shapes:
1. []
2. )(
Of the two, which is male, which is female?

The ones I want to do.

I think the Go-Bots are the gay ones.