Interpreting the Commercialization of Sex Technology Brands: A Case Study of the Harmony Advertisement in the Guardian Blog

Athanasius Chinedum Okeke, M.Sc.

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Abstract The reconstruction of the cultural sociological meaning attached to the commercialization and the consumption of sex technology presents a dynamic conceptualization on particular sex brands. The interpretation of sex robot with the analytical tool of structural hermeneutics presents symbolic meaning induced from the interaction between the producer and the consumer. Applying the particular methods of advanced Panofsky interpretation and documentary interpretation, I present an analytic interpretation of the advertisement video and comments from the Guardian blog (2017). Among all, the interpretation underscores the dilemma of accepting the object of interpretation as an active participant in the social project with due consideration to the motif of the sacred and the profane. Thus, I seek to establish a cultural sociological conceptualization that verifies the object’s participation as a symbolic agency in the social project.

Keywords

Sex Technology, Sex Robot, Commercialization, advertisement, Icon, Rector, Actor, Other

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 11. 12. 2025

Thesis defence

• Date of defence: 13. 1. 2026
• Supervisor: prof. Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Ph.D.
• Reader: M.A. Beatrice Elena Chromková Manea, Ph.D.

Masaryk University

Faculty of Social Studies

Master programme / field:
Cultural Sociology / Cultural Sociology