Sextech – a space that encompasses dating apps, sexual entertainment platforms and services, networked sex toys, and AI- powered sex robots - has emerged as a site in which sexual pleasure, wellbeing and health are increasingly understood as data. Many sextech products collect significant amounts of intimate data about people’s sexual preferences, sexual behaviour and sexual health, which is both volunteered through user profiles and self-tracking platforms, and detected via sensors in smart sex toys. To date, most sextech has been developed by start-ups or by private enterprise. But is it possible to design and govern ethical sex tech at scale? Can sexbots consent? What happens when you ‘hack’ sextech? And what does community-led, public interest sextech look like? This panel offers insights and provocations from emerging ADM+S researchers whose work explores the challenges – and ethical potential - of focusing on sextech through the lenses of design justice and public interest. It draws on our recent experiences of participatory research with technologists, sexologists, designers and educators at the ADM+S Sextech Hackathon (supported by Thoughtworks and SexTech School). 

Speakers: 

Professor Kath Albury, Swinburne University of Technology (Host) 

Dr Jacinthe Flore, RMIT University

Dr Jenny Kennedy, RMIT University 

Anna Shimshak, Monash University 

Dr Zahra Stardust, Queensland University of Technology