
Six in a Bed
The Future of Love -- from Sex Dolls and Avatars to Polyamory
Roanne van Voorst(Author)
Polity Press
Published on 19. April 2024
Book
Hardback
344 pages
978-1-5095-5842-1 (ISBN)
Description
Love is the most important and intense experience of one's life. It pushes us to elation, to heartbreak, to sing for joy and sob in disappointment. Connecting in this way to others is an essential quality of being human: without love, we don't learn and develop properly as children and we don't flourish as adults - in short, we're starved of what we need.
But love is on the verge of monumental change. Not only is the impact of AI and robotics set to revolutionise how we relate to each other, but sex robots are already on the market, drugs are being developed which can make you fall in love, polyamory is gaining ground and debates about whether more than two people should be able legally to get married are heating up. At the same time, there is an increasing number of people who have decided to stay single and who go by the name of sologamists.
The futures anthropologist Roanne van Voorst spent three years researching love's fluid landscape and immersing herself in today's latest trends to gain insight into the human of tomorrow. She cultivated a virtual friendship, hired a rentable friend and an erotic masseuse, shared a bed with sex dolls and flirted with artificial intelligence. She dated and danced in a virtual world, spoke to polyamorists, sologamists, sex workers, pansexuals, asexuals, heterosexuals, homosexuals, men, women, and people who don't accept the binary gender label. She wanted to know how changes to love are changing our species. This book is her brilliantly engaging answer.
But love is on the verge of monumental change. Not only is the impact of AI and robotics set to revolutionise how we relate to each other, but sex robots are already on the market, drugs are being developed which can make you fall in love, polyamory is gaining ground and debates about whether more than two people should be able legally to get married are heating up. At the same time, there is an increasing number of people who have decided to stay single and who go by the name of sologamists.
The futures anthropologist Roanne van Voorst spent three years researching love's fluid landscape and immersing herself in today's latest trends to gain insight into the human of tomorrow. She cultivated a virtual friendship, hired a rentable friend and an erotic masseuse, shared a bed with sex dolls and flirted with artificial intelligence. She dated and danced in a virtual world, spoke to polyamorists, sologamists, sex workers, pansexuals, asexuals, heterosexuals, homosexuals, men, women, and people who don't accept the binary gender label. She wanted to know how changes to love are changing our species. This book is her brilliantly engaging answer.
Reviews / Votes
"Roanne van Voorst is one of the Dutch writers I admire most. She's radical and nuanced, idealistic and open-minded. Whatever she writes about, each time she broadens your horizons and opens your world."Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind: A Hopeful History
More details
Edition
1
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 233 mm
Width: 159 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
540 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5095-5842-1 (9781509558421)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
04/2024
1st Edition
Wiley
€21.99
Available for download
Persons
Roanne van Voorst is a futures-anthropologist, writer, columnist, and president of the Dutch Future Society. She is currently assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam.
Content
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Adventures with sex dolls
2. Six in a bed
3. From digital cupids to cheek cell samples in an envelope
4. Quarrelling with your lover? Just take a relationship pill
5. In love with an avatar
6. On unhappy robots, programmers in attic rooms and artificial stupidity
7. Rented friends, sologamists and co-living spaces
8. The future of sex work: sex care, digitalization and inclusive pornography
9. On sexless youngsters, elderly people in love and ethical pornography
10. A gender revolution and the end of the heteros
Afterword
Sources
Notes
Preface
1. Adventures with sex dolls
2. Six in a bed
3. From digital cupids to cheek cell samples in an envelope
4. Quarrelling with your lover? Just take a relationship pill
5. In love with an avatar
6. On unhappy robots, programmers in attic rooms and artificial stupidity
7. Rented friends, sologamists and co-living spaces
8. The future of sex work: sex care, digitalization and inclusive pornography
9. On sexless youngsters, elderly people in love and ethical pornography
10. A gender revolution and the end of the heteros
Afterword
Sources
Notes