Why Do People Own Sex Dolls
If you’re familiar with my blog, you’ll know that I love to write about sex dolls research; I find the topic fascinating and it intersects directly with my work, too.
The controversy over child sex dolls stirs up very strong feelings and hard and fast opinions made without any actual data to back them up.
Today, I’m excited to share new research so that we can start to put some facts behind our opinions.
Opinions on Sex Dolls
When it comes to child-like sex doll ownership, opinions tend to fall in three camps:
- “Allowing someone who is minor attracted access to a child-like sex doll will enhance their risk of moving on to a contact sexual offense with a child.”
- “Allowing someone who is attracted to children access to a child-like sex doll will serve as a protective mechanism and decrease their likelihood for offending against a child.”
- “Child like sex dolls serve other functions either in lieu of or in addition to a sexual function.”
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A Study on Sex Dolls
Doctors Harper and Lievesley recently published a research article in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior on their research about child-like sex doll ownership.
As there is so little research on this topic, the goal of this study was to provide an initial “snapshot” into the characteristics of individuals who own or would like to own a child-like sex doll.
The authors provided anonymous, IP address protected surveys to individuals on online forums and asked them questions regarding:
- Doll ownership
- Sexual interests
- Emotions
- Personality
- Attachment styles
- Sexual objectification
- Sexual offending
In total, 205 men answered the survey, and their answers were used in the data analysis.
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The Results
They found that child-like doll ownership was not just something sexual.
Dolls were used for sexual reasons but also for emotional reasons and “other” reasons which included art, non-sexual intimacy, non-intimate care, improving quality of life and to prevent offending behavior.
Those individuals who used the dolls for sexual purposes had sex with the dolls on average 8.08 times per month which was significantly more often than they engaged in partnered sex.
Other findings showed that doll owners, based on the Interest in Child Molestation Scale, were significantly less likely to express a desire to engage in a contact sexual offense.
They also were less likely to score as having an anxious attachment style.
The characteristics of child sex doll ownership from this study indicated that:
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“…doll owners were significantly older than non-owners. They were also more likely to exhibit schizotypal personality traits, to report engaging in sexually objectifying behaviors than non-owners and reported more anticipated enjoyment in relation to hypothetical child sexual abuse scenarios.”
The doll owners were also less sexually preoccupied than those who did not own a doll and were less antisocial.
They were also self-reported less arousal to child sexual abuse scenarios.
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Takeaways
Let’s go back to those thoughts on child-like sex doll ownership and what the data from this study shows.
The authors state that they did not find any evidence in their study to support that child-like sex doll is inherently risky and promotes in person child sexual abuse.
The authors stated that their data supports a functional model of child-like sex doll ownership meaning that most people own a doll to serve a functional need.
Limitations on the Study about Sex Dolls
As with any research study, there are limitations, and they should be noted:
- This is a preliminary study, which means the results are not definitive and should be replicated before they are taken to be 100% truth.
- As with any survey study, there is no way to ensure that the participants answered questions 100% truthfully.
The way the survey was presented did provide anonymity, but that may not have been enough to inhibit some people’s tendency to answer in a socially desirable fashion.
This study is a great first step toward creating actual, scientific evidence that can then be used to support fact-based opinion and legislation about child-like sex doll ownership.
Reference: Harper, C.A. & Lievesley, R. (2022). Exploring the Ownership of Child-Like Sex Dolls. Archives of Sexual Behavior, doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02422-4
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October 3, 2022 @ 2:01 pm
My partner and I are not capable of having children of our own and are not wealthy enough to adopt. So we purchased two of these child size dolls. Although we both have minor attractions, the dolls are very rarely used to fulfill sexual desires.
Most the time, the dolls fill a deep need to express nurturing feelings. We dress them, hold and hug them, brush their hair, and attend their skin care needs (a requirement to keep TPE skin healthy).
The very notion that dolls are used as “training” on how to commit child abuse is blatantly absurd. Those that are inclined to do such a thing, would not be inhibited by their sexual proficiency or lack there of.
I can only see net positives if only one child was saved from abuse because the potential abuser found fulfilling sex with a doll.
Isn’t that what we are told whenever governments want us to forfeit personal freedoms and privacy? If it saves just one child, it is worth it.
October 3, 2022 @ 10:11 pm
Thank you so much for sharing your personal experiences. This topic tends to inflame people’s emotions without thought to facts or people’s actual lived experiences. I can’t express enough how much I appreciate you sharing yours.
October 5, 2023 @ 8:00 am
I’m a doll owner. I own 5 dolls, i regard them as adult.
The last part of what i said is probably the immediate problem with regulation ‘i regard them as adult’ but maybe if i was forced into a courtroom after an arrest regarding one or more dolls the jury might have a different opinion.
Here in the UK child dolls are nationally illegal and it carries up to 7 yrs in jail. Now so far sentences publicised have seemed to be fair, those caught was also caught with thousands of indecent images of children and other offences, some having previous offences for sexual assaults involving minors.
I have no problem with those people being locked up since they wasn’t demonstrating any de-escalation in behaviour . However that’s one sided in the sense that the news is unlikely to cover arrests made in error, it is unlikely to cover men being arrested and jailed for the doll alone. There is a risk someone be branded a paedophile in a complete error , a misstep by authorities.
The reason this will happen is simple: there is no clear guidance on what a ‘child-like doll’ actually is. All they use to sentence people is using a 200+ old law relating to obscene or pornographic images. This law essentially originally made any and all pornography illegal , today it is repurposed for use in the ‘obscene’ sense.
Do you go by official documents, birth certificates, passport? dolls have none, they are not human.
Do you do medical inspections to see if doll is passed in age by puberty ? dolls are not human, there is no medical examination possible.
Do you go by breast size? maybe but does that imply an adult with A-cups is under 18?
Do you go by height? maybe but does that mean midgets or generally short people are under 18, can short adults no longer consent to sex? if the argument is height= age in the dolls case then why would the law not work the other way if that’s part of a decision in relation to you being jailed or not?
What does it objectively mean to be a child-like sex doll. The only pure legal definition part which would be less disputable would be the sexdoll part, if it has penetration holes and seems to be engineered that way then thats what it is. But that legal aspect for definition applies to adult dolls too.
It seems like a case of do-gooders and ‘think of the children’ types to usher in policies either to signal virtue or more insidiously to perhaps use as a back door to push straight up bans on anything they don’t like.
Now to be fair and clear here i do not condone some of the potential practice used to make child dolls, i know how adult dolls are sometimes made, it often involves a human subject being 3d scanned and/or parts put in plaster of paris , and might involve photographs naked, this is then handed to an artist to make the pre-mould out of clay, you might call it the master copy .
It’s possible some of the same processes are used to create child dolls, this means these Chinese factories would be using children by parental consent in exchange for money. The government there might either not care or turn a blind eye.
But a child cannot consent and we can’t regulate, oversee or set legal constraints on a foreign power.
I would suggest undercover journalism to see how the factories get from point A to B regarding the child dolls to clear that up.
If that’s not the case then there is less of a true moral issue, some dolls the master mould is created entirely by imagination and an artists hands and do not involve peoples images or parts.