I doubt if many owners of a realistic sex doll have given thought as to whether it can “consent” as they pound its artificial vagina, but it is a question that is keeping feminists and Guardian writers up at night. Recently, the left-wing mouthpiece published an article bemoaning the fact that the sex doll industry is booming. I su probably this that is keeping them up at night, but being radical feminists (at least they would have been a couple of decades ago), and just as they do with AI girlfriends, they carefully intertwine spurious claims that “ill-treating” an inaminate object (a sex doll) leads to ill-treatment and abuse of real women, with more blunt (and honest) complaints that men are preferring sex dolls over the real thing.
The sex doll trade is flourishing. A 2026 market analysis estimates that the global market was valued at US$6.6bn in 2025, with a projection that it will more than double, to US$13.4bn, by 2033. As the market booms, and involves increasingly lifelike facsimiles of women, does how these dolls get treated matter?
And when a sex doll with “bruises” and rain-matted hair is tucked into a suitcase and left on a roadside, should we be concerned?
Johannes Fuss, chair of forensic psychiatry and sex research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, tells the Guardian that “the disposability and desecration of the female form in these contexts cannot be viewed entirely in isolation from broader cultural hostilities toward women”. Working with researcher Jeanne C Desbuleux, Fuss has published papers on the link between the anthropomorphisation of sex dolls and gender-based violence.
The research remains inconclusive. “We currently lack robust longitudinal data to definitively prove whether such doll use is protective or, conversely, is a behavioural stepping stone that increases real-world offending risk. I think we urgently need research on this question as more and more technologies enter the market to simulate human sexuality,” Fuss says.
No doubt some feminist funded advocacy research is on the way to “definitively prove” that “sex doll abuse” leads to real world abuse, rather than simply provide a safe outlet for men who might otherwise abuse women in real life. It seems to me, however, that feminists want to have their cake and eat it. If their research “proves” that a man “mistreating” a sex doll is more likely to go on to mistreat a real women, then we should apparently ban sex dolls. However, in the same breath, they complain that men are choosing sex dolls over real women. Which is it to be? The very next two paragraphs from the Guardian article:
However, he is suspicious of their appeal. “To put it provocatively: it boils down to total availability, a youthful and attractive body, and zero emotional demand or dialogue.”
A quick scroll on the Doll Forum website finds members regularly pit real-life women against their silicone knock-offs, one writing that “girlfriends are for guys who haven’t found the right doll yet”, and that “no matter how pretty she is, there is a man out there who is sick of her shit”.
Read the full article at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/30/sex-doll-market-booming-ai-vaginas-customisable-personalities-fake-bruises
