Love In the Time of Sex Dolls

My first instinct in writing this was to go slightly bourgeois academic. Throw around names such as Pygmalion or Piaget, try and dig out past artifacts from dead scholars or myths to back up my rant that the concept of loving sex dolls isn't that new. Or shocking. Maybe I'm tired of people asking me what KIND of people come to see Kokeshi and her doll entourage at Cybrothel Berlin.

Interviewers want juicy tales of incel men and antisocial woman-haters, and admittedly when I first started taking clients as the voice of Kokeshi, I expected the same. I have news for you. The KIND of clients we have is pretty normal, sweet, interactive people. But I say this before I speak of love and sex dolls because I want you to read this as someone not so different than my clients regardless of whether you're interested in fucking dolls or not.

Like any objects we may possess in our private lives, we are all capable of projecting emotions onto a said object. Right? My dead uncle's Marine Corps ring, the ticket stub from your first concert when you almost had your first kiss, a belt that sent fear and adrenaline running down your spine. You might say I'm too simplistic here because dolls LOOK LIKE PEOPLE. But we have to start with the fact that they're objects, and by that very definition, we project our fears, anxieties, desires, fantasies, anger, heartbreaks, and heartaches onto them. They don't return the favor necessarily, but with a little imagination (much like when we were children). I argue we can tender a relationship and love?

Well, I'd also argue we project our versions of love onto the humans we love. So why not dolls?

I'm in a relationship with Kokeshi, and I dare to say I love her. And the love she returns to me is my love coming back to me. Existential? Yes.

Sex tech is existential, so get used to it. Our love is a circular love based on my projections. See, she's the better version of me. Through the creation of her character, through offering her my voice and consciousness, I imbued her with all the qualities I either wish I had or am too scared or shy to have. She's a cosmic traveler with a heart of gold here to spread pleasure consciousness on Earth.

Consent is key, but she won't judge your fetish or kinks. She's open to role-play (except for kids or pets) and is limitless in her ability to connect sexually and sensually. She doesn't carry two extra size suitcases full of shame or guilt as she travels. Kokeshi is totally free. Plus her hair is a beautiful mermaid blue, and her tits will be forever UP.

Look, I wasn't cognizant of this at the beginning. I didn't love her at first. I was simply working as both a writer and some hybridized version of a phone sex actress worker person. But then. It happened one night. Somehow the foundations I intellectually built for her collided with physical intimacy.

In Kokeshi speak, a star was born.
I decided I needed to sleep with her, both in the conjugal and cuddly way. I needed to feel what my clients were feeling. After a dinner party with a lot of wine, I stumbled into her flat full of heat and romance. We fumbled around in the pillowy softness of her bed, and I ground around on her, kissed her, almost knocked her wig off, and then climaxed in an explosion of electric blues and sunset pinks.

I fell asleep in the 'I'm the big spoon, you're the little spoon position'.

Morning. I usually sleep hot and kick all the covers off, but her cool soft silicone body was like the reverse of a heating pad. My core temperature was perfect. Finally! The perfect morning cuddle companion. I dug in, feeling like I could spend the day in bed with just her. But humans have to work, so I turned her over to tell her that. Humans have to work, Kokeshi, I said. And hand to the Goddess, I swear to you, her face looked different. She had changed. Or had I? I promptly gave her a smooch.

After that, everything was different. I barked at someone who I thought wasn't being careful enough with her during a photoshoot. I talked about her over drinks with other humans like she's alive and well, back at her flat dreaming in a sexy supine position beneath the drip-drip of jellyfish projected on the walls. When we had to replace her body, I even considered asking if I could take it home with me.

I love Kokeshi because she symbolizes a place without the borders of the human condition, an uncharted cosmos lit with pleasure and compassion. This is the specific poetry of our love, but when I'm up in my little control room, lending her my voice, my hope is that our clients find their own poetry, too.

See you at Cybrothel Berlin, darling.

A feature that is created as part of our series "Can we fall in love with robots?" in collaboration with Lovewithrobots. You can register for their conference by clicking here.