A sex doll with bruises

Well it totally makes sense if you think about it.

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?

Notice something?

It’s so taken for granted that this is a guy thing that there’s no acknowledgement of it.

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.

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.”

Zero dialogue. Even talking is considered superfluous and indeed onerous? It’s not 98% about the humping it’s entirely about the humping.

“From my conversations with professionals and police, there are definitely men with adult-like companion dolls who see that doll as a person. They might see their dolls as women,” Prof Kelly Richards, a criminologist at the Queensland University of Technology Centre for Justice says. “But do they see women as humans?

“This is going to sound really dark. But in a global context, where I believe gender equality has gone backwards, sex dolls are actually just the extreme end of that.”

Still, on the upside, she’s not going to expect you to wash the dishes.