Fembot Dissertation Complete!

[Miss Pris]

Hi All!

I've finished my dissertation on Technosexualities and the Fembot Central community, gotten my PhD and all that, and will start writing some articles based on the research with the intent of publication. I want to thank all of you who participated yet again, as none of this would be possible without you! Also, a big "thank you" to all of you here at Fembot Central, as well, for tolerating all this, and to Robotman and the other admins! For anyone who would like to read the dissertation, either for personal interest or to make sure the technosexuailties and the community itself are represented appropriately, please PM me with an email address to send the file to, and I will happily send you a copy. (I was considering just finding a site to host the doc, but I doubt a lot of people will want to read a long-ass dissertation, so emails should suffice; if that changes, I'll revisit the idea of posting the doc somewhere where only we can view it - without "outside" public access before those in the community who want to have had a chance to look it over.)

The dissertation (and the information in it) has NOT been distributed and published as articles yet, so now is a good time to bring up any concerns about the way the community is portrayed or anything else that you have concerns about before this information becomes more public. Not everything in the dissertation will be in the articles, as a dissertation has to appease a committee of researchers with their own particular interests and demands; if there is anything in particular that concerns you though as you read the document however, please do let me know so that I can take a look at it and find ways to address concerns (or let you know that the area of concern was only included for the dissertation committee) before any "real" publication of the material can happen.

Alright - that's all for now on this. I'm looking forward to just chilling and being a regular member of the community now, and (hopefully) being a little less busy. Once again, thank you all from the bloody, squishy depths of my heart for all you've done to make this dissertation possible!

- Dr. Pris!

[tully]

Well that's just fantastic.

Congratulations, and thank you for sharing your good news.

[--NightBattery--]

oh
It feels like a lifetime since I heard of your Thesis!
I would love to read it.

Congratulations on your Ph.D.!

[Svengli]

Congratulations!

I'm looking forward to whatever you share.

[Extyr]

I might be interested in reading it too.

Anyway, congratz on finishing.

[JeffCapes]

Congrats Dr! Can you give us a TLDR of your phesis?

[Miss Pris]

Sure, Jeff! Here's a "summing up" of the summation at the end:

"Online technosexualities has a clear group with a sense of community in the Fembot Central forum. Most of its members believe Fembot Central is a community, albeit a diverse one in terms of technosexual interests. Where it is not diverse however is in the race and ethnicity of the community members, with the majority of research participants identifying as white/Caucasian and from North American or North European cultural and ethnic groups."

"Community members at Fembot Central are interested in a wide range of technosexualities, with male research participants responding that they were primarily interested in various types of intimate relationships and assemblages with machine bodies and most female participants expressing a desire to be a machinic body of some type. Many of these female participants expressed a desire to be controlled and/or programmed as a machinic body, citing innate, submissive personality traits as the reason for this desire. None of the female research participants suggested that their personal submissive tendencies nor desire to take a submissive role in sexual interactions had anything to do with their sex or gender, nor did they suggest any kind of naturalized discourse around femininity as being the reason for their individual preferences. Although I occasionally found a reference to those types of naturalized cultural discourses in the Topic pages at Fembot Central, it was in no more a frequency than I observe or experience in the public spaces and discourses of the physical world."

"Additionally, nearly all of the female participants cited traits such as physical strength, "perfection" and immortality and/or invulnerability as being the reasons behind their desires to be machinic bodies. These participants wanted to "perfect," and to repair or augment their human form, which they found somehow lacking in health, strength and/or appearance. This is unsurprising given that female and women’s bodies are heavily subject to hypermedicalization and naturalized discourses surrounding innate weakness, submissiveness, inferiority and a state of having an uncontained and uncontrolled body without restrictive body disciplines, garments and other paraphernalia (see Chapter II, “Ideal (Female) Bodies”.)"

"The great majority of research participants were also able to cite SF (science fiction/fantasy and/or speculative fiction) as a formative element in their early developing desires for machinic bodies. This association is also discussed by group members at the Fembot Central site, in the Discussion pages. Technosexualities appear to be a normatively-arising set of desires that may extend from the normalization of particular bodies (machinic bodies) in media. Framing technosexualities as arising from some form of psychopathology, or as a result of social inadequacy (as they are often described in academic or popular media depictions of this group) does not match up with the data nor the analysis of this dissertation project."

[DZiegler]

Congratulations! Finishing a dissertation and earning your PhD is a very big deal! Great job.

[BD]

Neat!

[Miss Pris]

Thanks All!

[JeffCapes]

Very cool. Congrats again!