Lonely nights filled with sexual frustration are bound to happen to everyone once in a while. Maybe you’ve just gone through a breakup, perhaps you’ve been too busy with work to date or maybe the hooking-up lifestyle just really isn’t your thing.
Society is currently in the height of dealing with such occurrences, with sex toy usage being more popular than ever. A study conducted by AdamandEve.com, one of America’s largest sex toy distributors, found that $15 billion are spent on sex toys annually, with 82 percent of the surveyed adults claiming to have used a sex toy before. The overall trends from this data suggest that within the last decade, these devices have become more popular for both couples and singles.
The response to such a demand is a more innovative product. Walk into any sex store and you will surely see something that is supposedly for your lady parts but looks NOTHING like what you usually encounter down there. The same thing goes for the products geared towards men. All these strange shapes and sizes promise sensations beyond your wildest sex dreams.
The Adult Entertainment expo this year featured a variety of these products, as well as a “new” company that is taking the idea of artificially generated pleasure to a new extreme. A line of sex dolls called “Real Doll” is not entirely new, but the feature of being able to turn whoever you’d like into a realistic sex bot certainly is. The line of dolls showcased at the adult expo included those that looked incredibly like famous porn stars.
While there are “pre-made” dolls starting around $6,000, customers can also design their own doll from scratch. There is a range of body types, facial expressions, nail colors, eyeliner styles, and specifications that involve their most intimate places. Don’t worry, you can even add elf ears for just an extra $150.
In an effort to do some research on this company, I started by scrolling through its website and felt, well, immediately disturbed. The realism shown in some of the dolls was amazing but also unnerving in how they just weren’t quite natural. It reminded me of walking through a wax museum, being in awe and getting the creeps all at the same time.
“I don’t think that I could choose to partake in that or use one,” said Bre Wright, a senior criminology major. “Modeling them after real people seems so creepy and almost makes me feel that in a way it could lead to an obsession with someone because of that. People obviously do whatever they please behind closed doors, but the dolls being modeled after real people makes me feel uneasy and uncomfortable.”
My initial thought was the legality of it all. There was no way that someone could get away with making a doll of their ex-girlfriend or celebrity crush and have it be okay, right? Well, kind of. The company’s site (realldoll.com) states, “We cannot legally do a likeness doll in an exact likeness of any person, celebrity or otherwise, without their explicit consent.” It does, however, go on to explain that they will look at photographs in order to help you obtain the closest possible match without achieving exact likeness. Still creepy.
But there are still people who seem very excited about owning one. Take a customer testimonial from the company’s website: “I have purchased three of the most beautiful forms of art I have ever seen. To just look at these dolls makes my heart melt. I truly love them from within.” Others talk about thinking they can actually communicate with their doll, and some enjoy “spoiling” their dolls with expensive gifts.
As a woman, looking at these dolls gave me the same concerns involving guys who watch a lot of pay-per-view porn. Having sex with a real woman is not like what you see on the screen. There is an endless amount of variety between women’s body types. Parts aren’t always proportional, things jiggle, blemishes and birthmarks happen and I’m fairly certain the average female college student doesn’t get her pubic hair waxed into crazy shapes every week.
While the shapes and sizes of Real Dolls are somewhat varied, they all still fall into the range of society’s ideal for a female body. The curviest model donning gel butt implants and a DD cup still has a flat stomach and a 25-inch waist. I understand that these things are for the ultimate fantasy, but what happens when someone who has been using one of these dolls encounters the imperfections of a real female body?
Women can also be guilty here; it’s not just men who appreciate an ideal image of the opposite sex. The Real Doll company also has a male doll. In the same fashion, men in porn and in movies can also be portrayed idealistically with cut abs, massive biceps and larger-than-average male parts. The male dolls exhibit similar (but customizable) features.
The whole thing seems to suggest a general trend, a moving away from personal intimacy and a focus on pure physical sensation. But is that really ultimately satisfying? We all go through dry spells every now and again and perhaps get a little antsy. But even if I was stuck in a desert of sexual deprivation, I can’t imagine being in a state of mind where getting it on with a realistic looking doll would feel anything but strange.
And then when it’s all over, you are just laying there with a piece of glorified plastic that will certainly not partake in pillow talk. In some ways, the lack of emotional connection makes sense when you consider today’s hook up culture, a world with more one night stands and less relationships.
While the idea of using a doll personally freaks me out, there is so much diversity in personal sexual preferences and behavior that I could never bring myself to actually condemn someone who uses one. But I do believe there could be consequences for our culture as a whole if these types of interactions became the norm. Unrealistic ideals of the human body and sexuality are already clearly present. Dolls that can be engineered to exactly what you think someone should look like wouldn’t exactly help to discourage that. The fact that our generation has also been deemed “the hook up generation” says something about an increasing trend toward emotionless sexual satisfaction.
There has to be a line drawn somewhere between what is “just for fun” and part of someone’s normal sexuality and what constitutes abnormal behavior. Everyone finds a different way to cope with times of loneliness, but I definitely believe there is no substitute for real human intimacy. I can only hope that the future doesn’t suggest abandoning that as a whole in favor of a personalized sex robot.
Hannah Webster can be reached at hannah.webster@spartans.ut.edu