Japanese Love Dolls – Taboo?
Love Dolls, Sex Dolls, Blow-up Dolls. Mannequins, albeit lifelike and realistic. Used for primarily sexual purposes, and stigmatised as ‘masturbation tools’.Popular j-blogger, haikyoist, adventurer, photographer and linguist, gakuranman guest writes the following article where he explores Japan’s love doll industry and the social stigma surrounding it.
Love Dolls, Sex Dolls, Blow-up Dolls. These are all commonly-used terms to refer to what are essentially mannequins, albeit extremely lifelike and realistic. They tend to be used for primarily sexual purposes, and as such have been stigmatised as ‘masturbation tools’ for people who are socially inept or as ‘unnatural and unhealthy’. But is that the whole picture? For some, it would seem that love dolls are the only way of providing companionship. In this guest post for loneleeplanet, I’ll be taking a closer look at love dolls, their owners and challenging the social stigma surrounding them.
Dutch Wives?
In Japan, love dolls are referred to as ラブドール (love doll), or the more interesting variant of ダッチワイフ (Dutch Wife). Why call them Dutch Wives? I discovered a site that might have found the answer. According to Gizmodo:
‘Dutch Wife’ describes a rattan bolster used in hot, humid countries to keep a sleeper’s limbs suspended away from their sticky sheets, ‘called thus because it was round, fat and just lay there.’
As one of the responses says:
When a Dutch man was stationed in a country (I forgot which) in Southeast Asia a long time ago, he found that it was so hot even at night that he could hardly sleep. One day in one way or another, he found that it felt cool and he could go into sleep when he hugged a bamboo pillow which was woven with thin strips of bamboo and was empty inside just as a bamboo trash box. He ordered his servants to make a larger one so that it could fit his large body. This big bamboo pillow became to be known as a Dutch Wife, and, somehow it became to refer to a sexy rubber doll in Japan.
So there you have it! Never has there been a better reason to grab-hold and cuddle-up! Next: What types of love doll are there?
Really real RealDoll
America’s answer to an inanimate partner. Realdoll manufacture lifelike silicone dolls, offering both female and male variants (although at the time of writing it appears that they are working on a new male doll) as well as having interchangeable parts and recently ‘comic-style’ faces, which I can only assume is due to the rising popularity of manga and anime in the West. Here are a few sample pictures from RealDoll’s website:
Finely sculpted
Ride 'em!
A ladies' man
My sweet Candy Girl
One of the more well-known love dolls in Japan is the ‘Candy Girl’, an upgradable doll sold by Orient Industries and other shops like Kanojo Toys. A standard doll might cost something in the region of $7000, placing it in the same market niche as America’s ‘RealDoll’. Just like the RealDolls, they are extremely realistic and sometimes almost indistinguishable from real human beings. An extremely interesting article on Orient Industries and how they are trying to appeal not to ‘Otaku’ or maniacs but to healthy adults, can be found over at JapanToday. Take a look at a few of the sample pictures from Orient Industries’ website:
Kimono-clad and stunning Koyuki
Blurs the boundaries between the doll universe and ours
Playing dress-up
Sex Dolls, Love Dolls – a social taboo?
At first the likely reaction to seeing one of these dolls is shock, followed by disgust and the thought ‘Who would own such a thing??‘. While it’s arguably true that resulting to using products like this is not the ‘natural’ thing to do, I think it bears important questions as to whether or not it is wrong for people to use dolls as a substitute for real human contact. If you were placed in a situation where you had the choice of a doll for companionship or nothing at all, which would you choose?
For some people, it seems this is reality. In the television programme ‘Guys and Dolls’ (linked at the bottom of this post), we see fascinating insights into the secret worlds of several males who own love dolls and we hear their personal reasons and thoughts for owning them. Everard from Dorset, England, for example, had his wife pass away after a long illness. Consider his thoughts on owning a love doll:
She just lies there; they’re very static. They just don’t react at all. But if you don’t mind that, they’re good fun. They’re certainly better than going without any female company at all.
I think it’s this business that we – some of us, anyway – don’t really know how to cope when somebody dies. When your mother dies, particularly, it doesn’t seem to quite make sense. She’d probably have preferred it if I’d had a real woman but uh, I think she’d rather I have RealDolls than I remain completely without any female company at all. Because they, the dolls, have improved my quality of life immensely really. Heh…
As Everard talks in the programme, his face bears a burden and he seems to space out, as if remembering things in the past. Here’s another owner’s views on owning a doll:
When she first came into my life it was sex, sex, sex, sex, and now it’s just tapered off to where it’s just like we’re there for each other; we’re always there for each other. She’s an anchor, She-chan is an anchor to me, ‘cause it’s just like I know what to expect. With women you don’t really get that. – Davecat. Michigan, USA
Another owner, Gordon form Virginia, echoes similar thoughts:
I’ve found that relationships with humans are only temporary. And a lot of people think I’m cold and insensitive for saying it but, everybody just listen, think about when you were a 5-year old or 6-year old kid; think about the friends you got – how many of them are still friends today? See, I guess I’m different from most people. I can bond with inanimate objects. I’ve had that poster for over 27 years, the car, the garage I’ve had for my whole life. I just get attached to physical stuff.
Uh, this is Patricia (shows picture), this is the girl I had living with me about 10 years ago. She took this about a week or two weeks before she left.
Because, as good as the sex is with them, the piece of mind is even better. All the lies and all the deceit and all the times that I’ve been used – it’ll never happen again. That’s piece of mind to me.
This Reuters report about a Japanese man who owns 100 or so of these dolls also says similar things. Perhaps it’s just like being a kid again and having imaginary friends?:
But having said all of that, not all the doll owners think of the dolls as providing companionship. One owner, Mike, seems to view his collection of 8 dolls as merely a means to satisfying his primitive sexual urges:
As a doll the sex may be awesome, and it is, but still they provide zero companionship. Absolutely none. Have somebody to talk to, have somebody to have dinner with, have somebody to share a movie with – you’re gonna want those things and the dolls give you none of that.
And Slade, who runs his own business repairing other people’s dolls, describes his experience with them. Bear in mind that in the television programme he has a girlfriend and speaks from the position of someone who appears to view love dolls as a business, rather than as companions or sex aids like some of the above men consider them to be:
When that doll shows up there in a crate, I have a very serious sense about a job that needs to be done. I have a responsibility of an object that somebody spent a lot of time, effort and money to get and I wanna make sure that it’s cared for properly.
I’ve had sex with a couple of dolls, over the years that I’ve worked with them…This 100-pound doll came to life, like, it’s pushing back, it’s not just like, you know, I’m pushing on it, but all of a sudden its starting to push back and it’s creating motion and friction and the weight of the product and how it behaves in this manner is very stimulating. It was an amazing thing, you know. Very lifelike, very realistic, very odd. But it’s just a doll, you know. It’s a very high form of masturbation.
With such frank and thoughtful testimonies, it should come as no surprise that Realdoll attest to taking about 400 orders a year and shipping about 7 dolls a week, from all over the world. It would seem there is a definite demand for these sort of products, and that isn’t even considering the Japanese market for Candy Girls, or the rental market!
Did you know that love doll rental services are available in Japan? Keep reading as gakuranman examines the practice of renting love dolls in his complimentary post Renting Love Dolls in Japan.
But having heard the thoughts of several owners, what do you think? Would, perhaps, it not be better for these people to see a psychologist to help them overcome their fears of other women? Is there even anything psychologically wrong with them? Is it okay for people to exhibit affection for inanimate objects in this way? Or are love dolls just over-sized sex toys? Leave a comment and get the discussion started!
And finally, a couple of resources for those interested in exploring this area further:
Love Doll book: TokyoTimes
Evolution of the love doll: Revirgination
Guys and Dolls – a documentary on alternative partners is embedded below.
The Face Slimmer
Love Machine
I Love Oppai
The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife
Borat’s Mankini Swimsuit A Hit In JapanTrackbacks & Pingbacks
- Love Doll Rental in Japan – Gakuranman
- Hits and Misses of 2009 | loneleeplanet
- LLP’s Top 10 Search Terms | LLP
- LLP’s 2011 Year In Blogging | LLP
- Matéria Incógnita » Valeria Lukyanova, o fetiche da Barbie e suas concorrentes de silicone
- The Face Slimmer | LLP
- Japan, You’re Doing It Wrong | LLP
- LLP's 2012 Year In Blogging | LLP
Comments are closed.
Hi Mike, great article! Thanks for the contribution.
Your article on Love Doll Rental in Japan is very interesting too! Hahaha… MyHole, a special discount off the rental price if you bring your own hole.
No problem Lee! I had a lot of fun writing and research for these articles. I hope they enlighten people and get them to look beyond the surface feelings or shock and disgust. ^^
These love dolls look fantastic to me and I can fully understand the attraction. Although the price tag is rather steep. Maybe given time the price will be more affordable for the average guy.
I really like the jap dolls but like someone said, they are costing a lot of cash. I have come across, while searching the net for sex dolls this blog http://www.candygirlsexdoll.com/ it talks about cheaper sex dolls along with the deluxe ones.
Surf around and you’ll find sites talking about it for sure. Of course we all want the deluxe dolls but $$$$
Those are made with tin cure silicone so they leak oil all over the place and smell horrible. You should check out http://www.MiniLoveDolls.com They make a very realistic high quality silicone sex doll and the price is low. Plus, they’re made in America so you don’t have to import them.
What happens when you go on holidays? Does Dolly travel with you on the plane or do attach a baggage tag around her neck at check in and collect her at the other end? Would she be treated as excess luggage or permitted like a set of golf clubs? If she was seated next to you on the plane would you order a special meal for her? Would you give her the window seat? So many questions!
YoMama, sounds like questions you need to ask the sales guy at your local love doll proprietary.
“…and that isn’t even considering the [..] the rental market!”
Uh dear God.
Improve on the skin a bit (reduce the plastic look) and the line between reality and fantasy is gone.
Very true The Envoy. The skin does have a plasticy gloss. When the skin becomes more life-like the line will definitely be even more blurry.
Dude, I would seriously buy one of those! lol…. no really…
Let me speak for the perverts out there, not the guy from England that bought one after his MOTHER died, but the average joe who, you know, enjoys “a little alone time”
Wait, okay, yeah, If it was a cybersuit and you were having a little cybertime that would be cool right? or maybe, just maybe if a guy was a lonely contractor and he need a little girl time in his hotel room, so he bought one, or a cheap inflatable type, and everything was great in their little relationship, until one day he caught he watching porn without him, and his dinner wasnt made after a hard day out at the oil derrick and he flys into a rage and taking his genuine “from the frickin movie” highlander sword he starts to go crazy in the hotel suite, knocking over furniture and screaming “I’ve got all the aces, I’ve got all the aces” until finally in a rush all the air hisses out of Veronica, cause shes got a name you know, and on his knees sobbing, breathing in that delicious “new pool toy” smell, he gouges out her plastic eyes too keep in his pocket, so he can look at them and smile sometimes.
I mean, that would be okay too, right?
Me? I think its a over priced wank device. But thats me.
Hmm, the highlight of the article!
(the Highlander sword is the icing on the cake.)
Agree it’s a great post, but I can bring my own Highlander “Sword” and provide my own icing…
A Fleshlight is an alternative to a love doll, but these dolls are at least more life like and not just a hole..
Awsome… i would love to promote and push the love doll industry even faster by doing a site where i would test the doll on camera and give a review. I would give examples of all the fetish ideas you could perform. Just awsome… Things are expensive but there is a major market and i would love to be apart of it.
I don’t understand the closed minded shame sticking for these.
They are modern masturbation. I mean chicks went from fingers to vibrating elongating multi colored laser guided gspot finidng dilido’s. Then double dildo’s. Then ones that have tentacle like effects and get every hole.
Men went from piles of mud on a proper sized log (I guess wasn’t around in 40000 bc mastubutorary age) to hand magazine. To hand tele. To hand internet. To inflatables (and due to the crappiness reverted back to hand) To silicone inserts/molds.
Now it is just the inserts and molds come with a very visual effect.
I suppose the next thing for
Women- leave in place dildo- automatically comes on when horny, preset timer to determine length and frequency of gisms.
Men- the silicone objects will learn simple predetermined sexual response and be capable of simple dirty talk. Maybe some implement of things like realtouch/virtual sex machine where the movement of the body corresponds with a porno program.
Whats the big deal everyone wants to get off and so long as it ain’t with your cattle or underaged daughter help yourself to any inventive orgasm. It is only the entire purpose of life (screwing) and with global food/water shortages due to waste and overpopulation coming to a country near you THIS IS A GOOD THING. Maybe the for every sperm thats wasted god gets quite irrate mentality will die down.
> I don’t understand the closed minded shame sticking for these.
I don’t think it’s a matter of shame. I find them repulsive. Maybe the “uncanny valley” thing explains it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
I actually run the doll business in Japan and Asia. If you guys are interested, just give me a buzz on fgxdesign@gmail.com We no mass produce them at a cost of $500 to 1000 US per a doll.
Laters
They look like alot of fun, and are very attractive, but how would I ever explaine this to my next girlfriend???
Who needs a girlfriend?
juz keep it under your bed.
i want one or ten lol
On the ones that look like little girls, If it would save one child from being molested, I’m all for it.
One the older ones, perhaps my ex wife could get the man doll, she always wanted to tell me about her day , and not have me react to it.( Women want to have you just listen, not fix it). It would be perfect for her.
G’day gakuranman,…
I am interested in your comment: “But having heard the thoughts of several owners, what do you think? Would, perhaps, it not be better for these people to see a psychologist to help them overcome their fears of other women? Is there even anything psychologically wrong with them? ”
What part of their comments make you think they require psychological help?
Just sounds like they are fed up with the games people play and the hurt people can do to each other and they have found a way around this sort of thing.
Should’nt they be congratulated for still doing somthing that makes them happy and allowing them to continue to interact with society?
They did’nt become recluses or hide from other people, they did something posative!
So I think negativity like quetioning their mental state says more about those who would try to link the two be it directly or in-directly.
Caroll.
G’day again,…
Another point, you said: “Would, perhaps, it not be better for these people to see a psychologist to help them overcome their fears of other women?”
At what point did any of them say they were afraid of women?
Is’nt that an assumtion on your part?
The artical on the dolls is great but your conclusions/comments on those who have them needs re-evaluateing I think.
Caroll.
I find this totally fascinating. As a fan of science fiction, I can totally see androids in the future made out of these!
i dont think some of the people here should judge the men who buys these sex dolls. there is really nothing wrong with what they do.
they have a choice to buy these dolls to fulfill their sexual needs or use other forms of sex toys like the tenga from tengatango.com ( http://tengatango.ecater.com ) and really, it does not matter.
I have no problem at all with these sex dolls in society. they are necessary and serve a purpose. in fact some of the girls are very attractive and i could easily see myself with one.
Dont any of you remember “Cherry 2000″? I mean; What? Are only cell phones allowed to advance?
Have never seen Cherry 2000 but now my interest is piqued. It’s now on my ‘to watch’ list.
Great article Gakuranman! In 2011 there was also a documentary about a couple that owns 240 love dolls.
http://www.love-doll.org/brits-echtpaar-met-240-love-dolls/
Very interesting!
just found a site that is selling to outside Japan. Wow, pretty wild stuff…
http://www.japleasure.com/sex-dolls-c-37.html
very interested.. I’m middle aged business woman who collects and sells realistic vinyl and silicone child dolls. The full solid silicones are rare and in high demand as are highly realistic feel and detailed beauty for vinyls.
These companies could also perhaps produce some toddlers and children. Its also company , engaged maternal instinct.. companionship of a engaging sort even though different.
see reborns on ebay– some sell for over 5K and they lot smaller than these
The pinnacle of this industry will be when robotics, artificial intelligence, and these love dolls come together. Then after that you could order a whole family, wife, kids, pet dog or cat, all robots. Wow, what are the social implications of that. Extinction maybe?
Japanese love dolls are nice, but none of them have an anal feature and most of them can’t be used by European men. I bought a very realistic silicone sex doll from http://www.MiniLoveDolls.com that is just as good if not better. It has an articulated skeleton and the silicone is very soft and stretch. It’s really nice and a lot of fun! The life-sized love dolls are just too heavy to use so my Mini Love Doll is perfect! Plus it’s made in America so you don’t have to pay any crazy import fees. lol