... own Real Doll line, introduced a new doll named Lena Nitro modelled after the porn actress down to the last detail. Ralph Belger, the CEO of Realdoll24, proclaims his big goal is “to design a doll that is absolutely lifelike, responds to touch, and can communicate.”
Realbotix, a company based in California, sells a doll with an artificial IQ superior to Siri and which can initiate simple dialogues according to the manufacturer. She knows her partner’s (or owner’s?) name, asks polite questions about work, whether his day was stressful, turns on music to fit the mood, and suggests cooking ideas. These Real Dolls are no longer meant as mere sex toys, but rather as a playmate and life companion who takes care of your physical as well as your emotional needs – and the doll can sometimes be a guy.
But what’s it like to live with a love doll?
Are they really more than a sex toy? It was time for a test. With Belger’s blessing, I got to choose a doll from the company’s own T-Line series. My new companion will be made out of TPE (more about that later) which means she will be more upper entry-level than luxury class. But you have to start somewhere, right?
FROM WONDER WOMAN TO REGISTERED NURSE On Realdoll24’s website, there are plenty to choose from. I browse through profile pictures and look into the blank stares of Becky, Leslie, and Adrianna. Their faces reveal that no one seems to be looking for a Real Doll with the average Jane Doe look any more. In fact, most dolls look like they’ve stepped out of a teenage boy’s tacky wet dream. The same goes for their clothes: ranging from traditional Bavarian dresses to leather catsuits to a stewardess’ uniform, yoga instructor to anime character to RN. I guess these roles are meant to spark your imagination, because, ultimately, the dolls are delivered naked or as the factory god created them.
More specific preferences, tastes, or whims are also catered to. How about a doll with a baby bump or a pointy-eared elf? The latter reminds me of my VR porn fantasy in which Wonder Woman and Princess Leia mount me in various virtual scenarios.
As I scroll through the profile pictures, like a sort of eerie dating site, I keep being drawn back to Claire: red hair, porn body, alert look. It’s her eyes that catch me. I’ve masturbated to looks women have given me before. I click on Claire’s photo; an extended image gallery opens with a box that contains some standard information about the available penetrable orifices of each doll. Next to Claire it says: anal, oral, vaginal; penetration depth: 13, 18 and 16 cm.
For a second, the brevity of these technical details makes me hold my breath. And so, I’ve made my choice. Claire it is. She will be my chosen one.
PREP WORK “Design your new love doll now” the screen below the picture gallery prompts me.
Claire can be customized along the following parameters: height, skin tone, breast feel, nipple size, and skin color, labia color, hairstyle, eye color, fingernail and toenail color, sturdiness, pubic hair, body type, and fixed or removable vagina. Of course, all these selected options come with an additional charge.
Does it feel strange to design your mate?
Yes, definitely. It feels misogynistic, patri-archal, odd. I try to sedate the last vestiges of my conscience. After all, real dolls are sex toys. Like a womanizer or a masturbator. Only with a face. And arms. And legs.
And a name. And in Claire’s case, with an alert gaze.
The feminist in me feels somewhat relieved by the fact that there are also a few male Real Dolls to configure like Nico and James. You can select their penis size or shape, for example.
UNBOXING After about three weeks of production, Claire arrives in what looks to me like a coffin made of cardboard. I had her delivered to my office since my busy home is not a suitable setting for our tête-à-tête. I decided to rent a room for us for a night. I open the package. On top lies a welcome folder with an instruction manual inside including information on care, handling, and repair.
Next is a starter set with water-based lube, a toy cleaner, special cleaner, interchangeable fingernails (and glue), stockings, a negligee, gloves, an intimate douche, and a love doll heating rod. More about that later.
Ralph Belger had warned me that dark clothes may rub off and leave marks on the doll so I’m super careful, strip down to my underpants and put on a pair of cloth gloves. I feel like someone about to dispose of a corpse for the first time.
A thin blanket of fluff becomes visible underneath the packaging material, revealing Claire’s figure. When I take a closer look, I realize that her head is stuck between her feet. I flip the cover aside and see her body for the first time. What strikes me is her super thin body and pink labia, which stand out strangely artificially from her otherwise completely unblemished skin.
I unwrap Claire’s bald head, feeling her skin for the first time. It feels like it looks: incredibly soft, almost velvety—too soft and too smooth to pass for natural. The top of her skull is also soft, which makes me flinch. After taking a brief moment to enjoy my personal Hamlet moment of holding her bald head in one hand, I lift her naked body out of the package, lean it against the wall, and free it from the plastic wrap. A discreet, slightly sour plastic smell hits my nose. I screw her head on as instructed and put on the enclosed red wig.
MY FIRST IMPRESSION I carry Claire to the couch. She’s pretty heavy actually. With some effort, I bend her knees and hip joints to sit her up. The physiognomic difference between her and the product photo is hard to ignore. No wonder some sex doll owners invest a lot of time in clothing and making up their playmates – powder, make up, perfume and all.
They do their hair and fingernails or pierce or tattoo them.
I crouch in front of her as she looks past me. What bothers me is her teeth. They are made of soft TPE for oral sex but they are more skin-toned than white. I eye her silhouette and follow the urge to encircle her waist – which I can easily do with both hands. A real woman with this figure would feel quite bony. Claire’s body, on the other hand, is super soft. Even her shins. Her toes have no bone structure; they feel like mollusks. When I tap her toes, they wiggle like Jell-o. Claire stoically endures my prodding.
Claire’s breasts (B-cup) are oblivious to the pull of gravity. Chalk it up to good genes, eh? They are firm and soft at the same time, a good handful, and feel as pleasant as they do disconcerting. They are adorned by eternally protruding nipples, which I interpret as a counterpart to the perpetually erect dicks on the male Real Dolls. Always in a state of arousal and ready to go.
Next, I devote myself to inspecting Claire’s love openings. To give her an opportunity to get some practice, I turn her onto her stomach. Still squatting, I look at her tiny butthole. But there’s no rose. Poor thing. I turn her back onto her back and inspect her labia. Her vaginal hole is larger and stretches wider as I spread her legs. Lastly, I examine her mouth. Out of curiosity, I stick my finger down her throat and past her teeth that are in serious need of some bleaching.
She endures the ordeal without gagging once. I wonder if the oral orifice leads up into her head or down to her stomach. I feel like a pathologist performing a post-mortem. Finally, I tear myself away, disinfect all love holes as recommended and carry Claire’s 29.6 kilos or 65.2 pounds over to the bed.
OUR FIRST TIME
Before Claire and I make out, there are more instructions to follow. The manufacturer’s most important advice: Use a condom and be generous with lube. It reads like one of the Ten Commandments of safe sex. Or this one: “Do not put your full weight on the doll.” Whereas the following statement struck me as rather ambitious or perhaps optimistic: “These are your sex doll’s favorite positions: spooning, missionary, doggy style, and 69”. I’m a little hesitant of the latter, but let’s see what the evening has in store for us.
Finally, the “included in delivery” heating rod with attached USB charging cable comes into play. I insert the rod into Claire vagina, like an ultrasound probe. Now the cable with the USB connection hangs out of her like a tampon string with charging function. Some images of this evening will stay with me for years to come.
Claire is lying on her back in front of me, her legs bent and spread wide apart. But the visuals don’t translate into anything even close to erotic on my part. Although I’m tempted to find out what it’s like, there’s also a question nagging at my mind: What biographical abnormality has led me to this?
“ Did I break Claire’s fingers? ”
With Claire lying on her stomach, I pull a condom onto my getting there, but soft cock, put on lube, and rub myself between her ass cheeks with my eyes closed. That’s usually a sure-fire number. And indeed, the pure mechanics of the act help.
I quickly turn Claire back onto her back, apply more lube – precious seconds pass – and try to manually navigate my penis into Claire. It’s a sex attempt from hell as I stuff, squeeze, and jam my cock into her. Even writing these words causes me shame and makes me contemplate a need for therapy.
By now I’m sure I’m doing something wrong: not just in this situation specifically, but in life in general.
More attempts ensue, following a pattern something like this: Every time I get half an erection, it immediately fades as soon as I attempt insertion. If I do manage to get it in, my erection disappears as I try to find a rhythm.
My arousal level is never high enough for a boner to last very long. Dirty talk would help, but Claire is despondent. After a cock ring also provides only insufficient aid, I realize I literally need to put all my eggs in one basket.
HELP, I NEED SOMEBODY REAL I finally break down and call my phone joker, a friend of mine whom I had previously told my plan to. If need be, she’d promised, she’d come and help out. She rings the doorbell 25 minutes later and her tongue provides me with the first aid I so desperately need. Purposefully and immediately effective. She’s a real friend! I really owe her one.
I’m ready to go now, bend over Claire and slide into her but I don’t look at Claire, I only feel her. Slightly warm. A strange, even tightness. Her vagina seems oddly off-center.
With Claire still lying on her back. I angle her outstretched legs skyward, spread her wide, and press myself, dripping with lube, into her anal opening. My hands next to her head on the sheet. After feeling some initial tightness, it feels deeper, similar to real vaginal penetration. I press her hands into the sheets. It’s the best position so far since the thrusting comes quite naturally from my pelvis and hips and I immediately fall into an ideal rhythm.
Unlike any of my previous anal experiences, I don’t need to be gentle. My Real Doll likes it really hard! The absurdity of the act slips into my mind. I am fucking a doll! In this brief moment of self-reflection, this grotesque fun is quickly shadowed by a feeling of guilty discomfort.
The fleeting moments of enjoyment do not come from any physical or emotional sensation, but from the sober attempt at grasping the situation rationally: I have no mental ability for dealing with this situation, no psychological tools to classify it. Penetration itself is pure mechanics. But my head is not in it. I don’t care about Claire. I don’t want to look at her. Her face is a mirror of my clumsy, lust-filled actions which I’m not ready to face under any circumstances.
Dull, undefined guilt.
One half-hearted and failed attempt at mouth-fucking later – because I can’t actually get myself into her mouth – Istop, the sharp claws of guilt tearing into me. For testing purposes, I would have liked to 69 her. But my body decided that my blood was more importantly needed elsewhere.
Claire doesn’t care. Squatting next to her, I take a deep breath and leave the site of her deflowering.
MORE OF A COMPANION THAN A FUCK BUDDY?
Before I started researching this topic, I had assumed that Real Dolls were just fuck buddies. I dismissed the mention of everyday companions as marketing bullshit. And now? As a masturbation tool in human form, Real Dolls make far less sense to me now. There’s a serious imbalance between their expense and their benefit. For a mere sex toy, they are simply too expensive and too high-maintenance. Who would pamper any other conventional sex toy with baby oil or perfume? That’s why Real Dolls are intended to be part of their owner’s everyday life, similar to a life companion.
Whether it be a Claire, a Juliette, or a Nico.
They are no longer just a sex doll.
This is exactly where danger meets opportunity, depending on your perspective. Sex therapist Eilert Bartels compares Real Dolls to social media bubbles that only feign human closeness and connection, but that ultimately have the opposite effect. “Basically, love dolls lead to people falling into increasing isolation because no conscious interpersonal interaction is learned anymore.”
Sex coach Claudia Elizabeth Huber is concerned as to “how Real Dolls could affect people’s sense of entitlement but also their relationships and the excitability of aging bodies.” A more mature Real Doll is not in sight. The Austrian sex counsellor for women, Doris Kaiser, on the other hand, also sees some therapeutic potential “for people with social phobias, handicaps, or who can’t live out their sexuality with other people for other reasons.”
There is certainly some truth and merit to this view, but at the same time, this focus pathologizes the entire user group as it paints every Real Doll buyer as being sick and in need of therapy. It’s the same token taken by those who think the money people invest in Real Dolls would be better spent on therapy. It’s pure generalization on the one hand and understandable in nuances on the other. One’s behavior towards a Real Doll should not be misunderstood as a learning process for making contact with real people. Personally, Claire has let me get away with a lot of things that I would have had to pay dearly for with a real human being, or that would simply be considered physical abuse.
EMOTIONAL OUTLET OR PLUS FACTOR?
My vague impression: Real Dolls seem to be used mainly where there is something missing: closeness, sex, experience, courage (for example in men who do not (yet) dare to live out their homosexuality openly). Or a loved one who has died. For a low five-digit sum, your beloved can return to your sex life as a Real Doll. Objectionable or condemnable? We are human. And in that, we are fallible.
What I personally find reprehensible is that most dolls are designed to look way too young and extremely petite. The Realdoll24 store also sells a short doll. The fact that the model has a D-cup leaves a highly ambivalent aftertaste. Ralph Belger says they discussed the inclusion of this doll internally and ultimately came out in favor of it. Offering such a doll – modelled on real women but at a reduced scale – would be aimed primarily at people with handicaps, such as wheelchair users or people with intervertebral disc damage. I can understand the argument after having just handled a doll of a more realistic size. Belger says that he categorically rejects inquiries as to whether these very small Real Dolls are also available without breasts. Such a notion is an absolute taboo.
According to Belger, Real Dolls should be seen as a perk as they enhance their owners’ everyday life. There are plenty of motives for trying out a Real Doll. For me, the joy of experimentation and curiosity were enough. ♥
