They have soft skin, bright blue eyes and Chinese moans: sex dolls are now elaborate, lifelike and even interactive products. Sex doll development and business are booming, but love and sex with these characters remains a social taboo.
Despite the age-old fascination with lifelike female figures - even Pygmalion in Ovid's Metamorphoses made an ivory woman - and the booming doll industry, love for them, sex and tenderness are still taboo in our society. Therefore, it is impossible to speak to customers who book love dolls in brothels. But the latest doll trends also reveal something about our society: the inflatable rubber dolls of the past are largely outdated, and the so-called "realistic sex doll" made of silicone or TPE, which are popular today, are also very popular in Dortmund's doll brothels. Resembling mannequins, they are lifelike and often contain interactive elements such as the ability to mimic body movements and speech.
A Love Dolls was displayed at the entrance. The head of the Sex Doll Gallery doesn't call his dolls sex, he loves dolls. The doll stands upright with the help of the frame, hands forward, expressive, feminine, with make-up and bright green eyes. I touched the doll and immediately wondered how I could make a lifelike skin. It is made of TPE, explained the person responsible, since 2014 the material that has long been used in implants in the medical field has also been used in lifelike love dolls. TPE is softer than silicone, easier to work with and makes love dolls cheaper. Despite this, dolls are usually sold for between 1,000 and 1,700 euros.
Most customers who buy sex dolls are alone with them for about an hour, which is 80 euros. This is a one-time fee offered by a brothel for a longer period of time. In the hallway we then also encountered male sex dolls in the brothel. Female "real dolls" have 2,000 different models to choose from on the open market, while male models currently only have around 50. It is conceivable that the development potential of future sex dolls is still huge.
