What Drives Sex Toy Popularity? A Morphological Examination of Vaginally-Insertable Products Sold by the World’s Largest Sexual Wellness Company

Johns, Sarah E.; Bushnell, Nerys

doi:10.1080/00224499.2023.2175193

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…It is therefore likely that realism is only desired by a subset of sex doll users and that users have a more complicated relationship and interpretation of their sex doll use than previous research has suggested. Perhaps rather than thinking about sex dolls as exaggerating human features in ways that facilitate objectification, it is worth considering how they expand sexual capacities much in the same way that vibrators improve upon the capacity of vaginally inserted sex toys (Johns & Bushnell, 2024 ). For example, the flexibility of insert models may allow sex doll users to experience multiple genital configurations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most sex toy consumers prefer smaller, genitalia only sex toys, such as dildos, masturbation sleeves, and anal plugs (Döring et al, 2022 ; Rosenberger et al, 2012 ). Realistic-looking genitalia sex toys generally receive positive product reviews online, but many of the most popular models are abstract in both form and shape (e.g., pink or purple cylinders rather than flesh-toned replicas) (Johns & Bushnell, 2024 ). Without sales data, we cannot know whether realistic or exaggerated sex dolls are more popular among consumers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sex Doll Specifications versus Human Body Characteristics

Hanson,

Döring,

Walter

2024

Arch Sex Behav

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Sex dolls have been criticized for reproducing unrealistic expectations about human bodies. Yet precise sex doll measurements are lacking in the literature nor has there been any systematic attempt to determine the extent to which sex dolls exaggerate human characteristics. To address this gap, we compared the specifications of sex dolls marketed in the USA with the characteristics of women and men living in the USA. Specifically, we tested if and to what degree female dolls were slimmer (H1) and male dolls more muscular (H2) than female and male humans, respectively. Furthermore, we tested if and to what degree female dolls’ breasts (H3) and male dolls’ penises (H4) were larger than those of women and men. We also tested if sex dolls’ observed race/ethnicity was more often White than that of the US population (H5). In 2023, we collected the measures of all 757 full-body sex dolls marketed by the US retailer SexyRealSexDolls.com. Body measures from the US population were extracted from scientific literature. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were performed using R. All hypotheses were fully or partially confirmed, which indicated that sex dolls marketed in the USA are not realistic depictions of the US population but hypergendered (H1, H2), hypersexualized (H3, H4), and racially fetishized (H5). Implications of the lack of realism are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%