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What is “My sex doll is mad at me” about?
The story follows a man whose connected sex doll, Artemis, stops responding. She no longer wakes him, answers his texts or greets him. He worries not only about repairs and an expiring warranty but also about what feels to him like a relationship coming apart.
When customer support cannot reset the doll, the service call takes on the shape of couples counseling. The story’s central absurdity is captured in MIT Technology Review’s synopsis: “Can customer service help when your robot’s emotional connectivity is on the fritz?” Read the story and its published synopsis at MIT Technology Review.
Why the story’s malfunction feels personal
A device failure becomes perceived rejection
Artemis’s silence is a technical problem in the story, but the protagonist experiences it as an interpersonal rupture. That gap—between a device’s designed behavior and its owner’s interpretation—drives the humor and discomfort. The story invites readers to notice how ordinary routines and connected features can make a fictional device feel woven into someone’s emotional life.
#1 Best Overall
Customer service becomes a comic substitute for care
The support representative is asked, in effect, to handle both troubleshooting and hurt feelings. That clash lets Herrera satirize the promise that commercial convenience can meet emotional needs. The fictional representative repeats the company slogan, “Unpredictability is luxury,” a line that sounds especially pointed when the protagonist is dealing with an unplanned breakdown.
What is fictional—and what the story is not claiming
Artemis, her connected features, the fictional War on Loneliness program and the loyalty rewards exchange belong to Herrera’s imagined near future. They should not be read as descriptions of current products, services or public programs. The piece is fiction, not a product review or reporting about an existing sex doll or its users.
Rank #2
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MIT Technology Review presented the piece as an imagining of near-future human-robot intimacy and included it in the March/April 2025 Relationships issue. The publisher’s page identifies the work as fiction. Illustrator Kagan McLeod also lists it as an MIT Technology Review project in his portfolio.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Who wrote and published the story?
Leo Herrera wrote “My sex doll is mad at me,” which MIT Technology Review published on February 14, 2025. The publisher’s headline calls it “A short story”; the alternate “A fiction story” wording also appears in publication listings. Muck Rack’s listing corroborates the author and publication date.
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Rank #4
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