Sex dolls have evolved significantly over time. From early figures made of cloth, rubber, or simply inflatable materials, they have transformed into flexible, human-like characters composed of silicone, featuring lifelike hair and recognizable faces. With the rapid advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence, these dolls will become even more realistic and possibly more mainstream.
Given the rising popularity of sex dolls, psychologists at Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom sought to learn more about the people who use them.
“We present the first analysis of the personality, sexual interest, and risk-related characteristics of sex doll owners,” they wrote in a new paper published in the Journal of Sex Research.
Dr. Craig Harper and his colleagues Dr. Rebecca Lievesley and Katie Wanless recruited 158 male sex doll owners for the study via advertisements on prominent online discussion forums for doll owners. They also recruited 135 male control subjects who responded to a survey on a crowdsourcing platform exploring psychological predictors of sexuality and sexual behavior. Both groups were given a series of anonymous surveys probing their sexual fantasies, personalities, emotional functioning, relationship styles, and sexual aggression.
What did these surveys reveal?
“Sex doll owners were significantly more likely to see women as sex objects, to report greater sexual entitlement, and to view women as unknowable compared to non-owners,” the researchers reported. They also reported lower sexual self-esteem, although they were no more or less prone to sexual aggression, fantasizing about coercive sex, or having issues with emotion and attachment.
These findings are politically relevant, as some have proposed banning lifelike sex dolls, particularly those resembling children, arguing that they promote pedophilia and increase sexual crimes.
Contrary to this belief, the researchers suggest that their results indicate that the use of sex dolls may lower users’ risk of sexually offending. Dolls could serve as a harmless outlet for managing sexual and relationship insecurities.
“In general, our data suggest that men who own sex dolls are not notably different from non-owners in many important ways,” the researchers added.
The study’s findings must be taken with caution as they are based on self-reported data. Though the researchers took great steps to ensure subjects’ anonymity, they cannot guarantee that participants were entirely honest when responding to some very personal survey questions on a controversial subject.
“This first psychological investigation of sex doll owners appears to support the view that doll ownership is a functional response to a history of poor-quality or broken relationships, which in turn are possibly attributable to various beliefs about the unknowability of potential sex partners, less secure attachment styles, and lower-than-average levels of sexual self-esteem,” the researchers concluded.