← Rena Malik, MD Podcast
Rena Malik, MD Podcast
Moment: Are Sex Dolls an Escape… or a Safer Outlet for Dangerous Fantasies?
00:16:30
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- [00:00]
A
As a urologist, I see a lot of patients who struggle with low desire, low sexual desire. So I, I wonder if, like, as people start directing more emotional and sexual energy to AI chatbots or, you know, sex robots in the future, do you think that may shift people's interest in desire or for a human person, right? Like they're like, oh, I get my cup filled with this and now I don't really want it with somebody else.
- [00:29]
B
It's a really interesting question. I will say that from the people that I've talked to that have sex dolls, I would categorize them as high sex drive people overall. And especially I think there's that honeymoon period where they first get the doll and they're kind of infatuated with it and they might have sex with it two or three times in a day for weeks at a time or something. So people tend to be really into it for a while, but then it does slow down. There's a really interesting study that came out of Germany by some colleagues of mine. I wasn't a part of this, but they looked at this question, right, of how much does using a sex doll change other sexual patterns and sexual behaviors. And so they compared it to a lot of things and they found that it does decrease what we might consider compulsive or problematic sexual behaviors, depending on how you think about it. So people that had dolls self reported watching less pornography. They reported fewer kind of intrusive sexual thoughts. Like you're in a meeting and you see your co worker and you start thinking about them sexually and you're like, I shouldn't think about them that way. Those thoughts decrease, go away. But they still wanted to have sex with their partners. They still wanted to have sex with other people. So they didn't report an overall decrease in sex drive per se, just some of those more problematic maybe outlets we might think of it were changing.
- [02:03]
A
Well, it's interesting because I think we see similar things in porn users, like those who use porn in a healthy way, meaning they don't have problems with using it to avoid like daily activities and their partner partners in life. The people who use it in a healthy way for pleasure actually have more desire for their partners, particularly in females. And so I wonder if it would be similar, you know, with a sex doll, because it's sort of just an extension of how you can express sexuality. Right. In a different way.
- [02:34]
B
Yeah. And I think this extension of how you express sexuality is also important to consider for people that aren't straight or maybe even people that are straight. But might have some transgressive desires that they don't feel safe exploring with other people. A sex doll is a good way to try that out. Right. If you maybe are interested in seeing what it would be like to have sex with a different set of genitals, but you don't want to find a person. And so if your doll's able to change those configurations, that creates new opportunities for you. And that's something that I found. A lot of the queer and polyamorous doll owners that I talked to, not that there's a ton of them, but there are some, and this is something that they point to, is that, you know, dolls allow for a wider variety of sexual and gender diversity experiences. If you're willing to do that and, you know, you can cross dress your doll, the doll's not going to say no.
- [03:29]
A
Yeah. And I will say, you know, I spoke to a researcher before and we talked about, like, VR and how it can actually be used to help people who are struggling with sex. So, for example, if you have a partner who has a lot of anxiety around sex or pain with penetra female that you can use, like being in those scenarios virtually and maybe even with a sex doll to sort of like decrease anxiety, you know, be in a safe, controlled environment to practice or to deal with some of the. The challenges that you have with sex. So I do think that maybe, you know, in a. In a clinical way or in a way to decrease sexual dysfunction, it could be helpful.
- [04:09]
B
Yeah, people have talked about those applications. I think there's a lot of interesting opportunities to use sex dolls in those more therapeutic, clinical settings. Another thing that people have brought up as a possibility is using them as a way to decrease prison rape and making them available to prisoners. So, you know, it's not something people want to talk about. And prisoners often, unfortunately, are. Their rights are not considered in polite conversation. But they are an important group of people and they do have rights. And if there's anything that we can do to decrease prison rape, I think it's something that we should seriously consider.
- [04:47]
A
Yeah, that's actually very interesting and probably very beneficial. Yeah, I want to shift gears a little bit. I know that you wrote a chapter on the very first doll brothel, Cy Brothel, which is in Berlin. Tell us a little bit about, like, what, what the experiences for the person who would go to that brothel and like, what's the controversy around that?
- [05:09]
B
Sure. Well, I'll say, I don't know that they're actually the first, but they're probably the first that has been able to establish a successful long term business plan that is not illegal. So we've seen some in Japan, we've seen some in South Korea, we've seen some in Canada. They usually get driven out of town, moral panic surrounds them. But yes. So what's interesting about Cyberthal is they have a very different model than the other sex doll brothels that have come before previous sexile brothels. They have a doll, they've got a room, you pay a fee, you've got the room for a period of time, you use the doll, you give it back to them, they clean it and you, you move on. Cyberthal wanted to enhance the experience a little bit. So they developed a system that they call Analog AI where what happens is they have these dolls, they have Persona that they have developed for them that you can see on their website and it talks about their interests, it talks about, you know, how they're dressed and what they're interested in doing sexually. You book a period of time with the doll, you go to cyber, although they have a flat. What will happen is that while you're in the room, there are microphones and cameras that allow an off site sex worker to watch you and interact with you. But they do it by acting through the doll's perspective. So you hear through the speakers the doll talking to you. You hear them asking you to do things, asking you to undress them, asking you to touch them, moaning, things like that. So it's not really artificially intelligent, right? It's this person in the off site room that's doing it and making it feel like it's real. And this is all happening above ground, right? The people that do this know that's what's happening. And you can actually select not to have the Analog AI experience and just booked the doll. But it's been very successful. They've been around for a couple years now. It's in Berlin, which has a very different sex culture and approach to sex work than most other places. But they get a lot of users who, you know, are interested in kind of the novelty of it. Like, this is weird, this is different, this is interesting. I want to try it out. They've got people who are in couples and they want to have a threesome. And this is even closer to a real threesome than just a sex doll, but still not with another person. And then they also have kind of your more usual clientele, people that are just, I want a sex worker, I want to have a sexual experience, I want to pay for it. And then it's over.
- [07:52]
A
Cheaper, I imagine than a sex worker can be cheaper.
- [07:56]
B
You know, they have different rates. Like you can book an overnight with it, which is pretty expensive. But I think overall it's probably cheaper.
- [08:03]
A
I think as a sort of looking at a big picture, what's like some misconceptions about this whole space that you wish that people would sort of. That you could clear up or that frustrate you?
- [08:13]
B
It's a really good question. I think one of the misconceptions that I always try to address is going back to what I said earlier, that the vast majority of at least doll users have been in successful relationships and so pushing back against the stereotype of people as socially inept, socially awkward, angry, misogynistic incels. There are some of those, but it's not the majority of users. They are coming to doll ownership from a very different place based on their life experience and what has or hasn't happened for them in some cases. I think another thing that I like to stress is, you know, when people first become interested in this topic, they want to jump straight to the sex robots. And that is just not the majority of the user base. And so if we want to think about this empirically and what's really happening, we need to pay more attention to the doll users and the AI companion users, because that's the majority of people that are out there. Sex robots are just so expensive and rare and few and far between that. We're just not there yet. Technologically we might be there. I understand why people might want to think about it. It is interesting, but that's still a little ways away.
- [09:34]
A
How long do you think it'll be until we have these sort of in mainstream, like meaning like everyone knows about them, just like you know about a sex toy, that sort of thing.
- [09:45]
B
I think they're already mainstream and that everybody knows about them. Sex robots have been a part of the cultural zeitgeist for almost 100 years. You can go back to Metropolis, which is a film from like Weimar Republic days, like 1937 or something like that. Maybe 1927, I can't remember the year. But at any rate, people have known about the idea of sex robots for a long time. And people send me memes all the time about sex robots and stuff. So they're mainstream in that sense. As far as maybe mainstream with acceptance or people being open to using them, or people actually knowing somebody that has one or has used one that is further away. I don't know if it's going to be the cost that changes it, or if it's going to be cultural attitudes, but I would say at least two or three decades, probably.
- [10:38]
A
Interesting. So if you had to give advice to our audience about people navigating sort of these technologies, what would it be?
- [10:49]
B
I think the first is if you want to get the best product for you, you need to understand what it is you actually want. And if it's just a masturbation device, there's a lot of products out there that are cheaper, that are easier to use and easier to conceal. And so I might recommend maybe using like a torso or something like that for first, and then working your way up to a doll, because a doll is a really big commitment. Like I said, dressing it, cleaning it, moving it around, everything like that. So do your research, maybe try out some other products first. I also recommend talking to other users because, you know, there are people out there that have been doing this for decades. There are people out there that have tried all kinds of different dolls and different configurations, and they can give you really good advice. These communities are not hard to find, and they're very active. I mean, that's one of the things that I've really come to appreciate is they talk to each other, they're friends with each other, they're very supportive. It's a great community. And so enmesh yourself in those communities. Talk to people, find out what's good and what's not good. And the same goes for chatbots, now that there's more options out there. Look at what they offer, look at the pricing, look at. Look at who they cater to. Some of them are better for people of, you know, different sexual orientations. So do that research first, and it's going to get you what you actually want.
- [12:19]
A
Okay. Is there something that you're working on now that you'd want to share, something you're excited about?
- [12:24]
B
I am currently working on my first book, so be on the lookout for that. It's probably a couple years down the line, but I've got some other projects in the short term that should be coming out, more research on users. And kind of one of the next studies I'm going to be looking at is pornography that includes sex dolls in it and looking at how that is maybe different from pornography that doesn't include sex dolls. And getting to this question that we brought up earlier of, you know, are people using sex dolls to act out violent sexual fantasies or problematic or illegal sexual fantasies, and is that making its way into pornography?
- [13:05]
A
People respond to your sort of area of research in sociology Like I, I feel like obviously I live in a different world because I'm a urologist, but I think are most people pretty accepting?
- [13:16]
B
You know, I've given presentations at a number of sociology conferences at this point and, you know, talked with students about it and grad students and things like that. I find that people are very interested in the topic, but they don't necessarily see it as important or the. It's not like real sociology in some ways, I think is how people would think about it. Like the important work that people are doing on education and socialization and political polarization, that's the real sociology work. And this stuff is just the, the nuts, the sluts and the perverts, as we say in sociology. So there's a fascination with it, but a reluctance to include it in kind of the mainstream stuff. But people are always asking questions. I always have fun giving talks at conferences. And I think overall it's been accepted pretty well. I think the European psychologists are the most open to it. They seem more open to questions about sexuality and technology.
- [14:27]
A
I would argue it's just as important, if not more. Right. Because I think sex is such a pervasive part of our lives. And I think that saying it's just for the small subset of people who are interested in that is like there's real future implications, as I've talked about a lot. So thank you for your work. I really appreciate it.
- [14:44]
B
No, thank you. And I agree. And I think there is a growing acknowledgment of the importance of sexuality and sociology more generally. It's just I'm on the fringe of the fringe. Right. I'm pretty far out there.
- [14:56]
A
If you like that clip from the episode with Dr. Ken Hansen, make sure to check out the full video right here.
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