Loose Lips	Loose Lips Archive

Suppose there was a gorgeous man in your closet, and you could have sex with him whenever you wanted. When you got through with him, you'd wash him off and put him back till next time. Would you take advantage of the opportunity?

Miss Poubelle has been thinking about this possibility since a friend tipped her to RealDolls (www.realdolls.com). When we think of sex toys, we probably think of inflatable, cheesy-looking things. But what is available now far surpasses the $34.95-grab-your-bicycle-pump doll of yesterday. RealDolls are made of expensive silicone rubbers, and the texture is said to be extremely lifelike. The photos at the web site make the bodies look quite good. The price? About $6000 for a female, and $7000 for a male.

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Now for that price, what you're getting is essentially a big doll that you can fuck. The RealDolls don't move on their own, and their bodies will be at room temperature. (The web site recommends putting them in a hot bath before sex.)

But it's easy to see that such dolls will only get better with time. A natural next step might be some sort of internal temperature modulator and orifices that can squeeze and suck like real mouths, pussies, and asses.

Realistic sex dolls are in their infancy, but it's already possible to imagine some of the legal controversies that may surround them. They will no doubt be judged indecent and made illegal in Utah. Other questions arise. Will it be legal to buy a sex doll made to look like a 16-year-old boy or girl? That clearly violates no current law. But Miss Poubelle suspects that if such dolls were available, legislatures all over the country would quickly prohibit them.

Arguments about what is a permissible pornographic object were raised by the Supreme Court this year when they struck down portions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act that made virtual or computer-generated child pornography illegal. Opponents of virtual porn argued that it would make its users more likely to harm actual children. Here's a sample of the logic of the argument (from Ernest Allen of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children): "The more frequently a molester views child pornography, the more he, like his child victims, becomes desensitized to the abnormality of his conduct. He can convince himself that his behavior is normal, and eventually he will need more and increasingly explicit child pornography to satisfy his cravings. When mere visual stimulation no longer satisfies him, he will often progress to sexually molesting live children."

Traditionally the argument against sexual images of those under the age of consent is that children are harmed in the process of making the images. But Allen's argument cannily avoids this point and focuses on the possible illegal future actions of the user.

Clearly such an argument could be made against use of a childlike sex doll as well. Opponents would say that use of the doll desensitizes users to the abnormality of their actions and will lead them to eventually molest live children.

But the danger of the desensitization rationale is that it applies with equal force to any publication which argues for reform of the age-of-consent laws. If The Guide argues that someone should not spend ten years in prison for consensual oral sex with a teenager, does that "desensitize" its readers to the "abnormality' of the action and make it more likely that readers will violate the law?

In states in which homosexual activity is still illegal, does the publication of gay rights material desensitize the reader to the abnormality of sodomy?

Fortunately, the First Amendment establishes something like a presumption of innocence for speech. But Miss Poubelle doubts that the sex dolls will be presumed innocent. Will we have to fight for the right to purchase the partner we choose?