You must have heard of this stor y when you were younger, say, in grade 2 or 3: A lonely woodcutter sculpts a tree in the shape of a girl for he wishes to have a daughter. So, after being done with the car ving, he prays for the figure to come to life, and the next day, his prayers are answered and the two live happily ever after as father and daughter. Pretty innocent, right? Well, not exactly.

The original stor y is of P ygmalion. The details are pretty similar up until the carving part. The fact is that he didn’t intend it to be a little girl, but an adult woman. After crafting his master piece, he fell in love with it and went on to have sex with it. Eventually he prayed that it would come to life and when his wishes were finally granted, the two lived happily ever after as a romantically involved couple. This is perhaps one of the first accounts of a human relationship with inanimate objects. As left-of-centre as it may sound, it is quite real and by now, in the 21st Century, is a subject matter that’s not really a secret anymore.

It would not be wrong to say that humans are sexual animals. Sigmund Freud said that everything we do, from the mundane twirling of hair to climbing the social ladder, is driven by our sexual desires. Looking at his point of view, the ver y existence of sex toys does make sense. See, we have been putting out members inside things that aren’t necessarily human, or living for that mat te r.

There are several ancient accounts, namely Greek, of men who kept statues of Cupids solely for humping, and about people trying to get it on with statues of Venus in the gardens. French sailors would fashion cloth around dolls for fornication and call them dame de voyage. The lonely Spanish and Dutch sailors would do this as well, and the latter would even trade with the Japanese. The Japanese would go on to call these substitutes as Dutch Wives. Various Mughal paintings depict men and women copulating with dolls and mounted dildos.

The first instance of men creating actual sex dolls is from 1916. An Austro-Hungarian artist by the name of Oskar Kokoschka had lost all motives to go through all the wooing just to get into his lover’s undergarments. Since he was a noble man with respect for his woman’s consent, he did the next best thing: made a likeness of her for dir ty business. He hired her dressmaker, gave extensively detailed measurements and instructions, and even materials to be used to resemble her skin. It was more like a stuffed animal rather than a person, but he was happy with it. Then again, he burned it in a par ty. But that’s histor y right there.

Coming to the Second Great War, you must have heard how Hitler was the one who issued blow up dolls to his soldiers so that they would not lie with non-Ar yan women. There are debts about this being true or a mere urban legend, but modern sex dolls do have their roots in Germany. In 1950s, the Bild Lilli Doll was made in the likeness of a comic strip in the tabloid Bild. However, one could not lie with it for it was a mere 11.5 inches, and had no points of penetration. Regarldess, it was a sexual caricature and was marketed towards adult men. Fun fact: it’s the inspiration of Barbie dolls.

A few more years later, once people found that they could legally and commercially mail sexual devices, sex dolls were advertised in magazines from around 1968. Then by the 80’s, most shops stocked them. At the time, most were just blow-ups. These blow-ups had a short term use for the seams could only withstand so many penetrations and so much weight.

Enter the 90’s; the dolls had a major leap. Matt McMullen, an artist was working on a lifelike female mannequin made out of silicon. Once people caught wind of it, he got numerous emails inquiring whether it was anatomically correct down there or not. At that moment, it was not; but as Matt saw that there was a demand for it, he worked to supply it. Now, having established the company RealDoll, he dishes out 200 to 300 high-end, highly articulate sex dolls every year. 10% of these dolls are male.

Coming to the present times, talks have begun about Sex Robots. Samantha is one of these first uber realistic sex dolls. Apar t from being a mere doll with voice controls, she can actually be seduced. She has sensors on her face, hands, feet, breasts and so on. If one were to touch her hands, she’ll respond positively, will say things like “I like this.” If one goes right at the naughty par ts, she’ll refuse the rather forward motion. In addition to this, she has a morality system that will recognize if you’re a nice guy or an f-boy, and has a speech mechanism that will not only tell you a myriad of jokes, but will engage in a conversation about science and philosophy as well; way better than Siri or Cortana!

In February this year, the first ever sex doll brothel opened up in Barcelona, called LumiDolls. For $90, one can get an hour with a hyper-realistic doll. This just goes to show that sex dolls are doing something good. For instance, the demand for these alternatives are mushrooming. If such brothels were to be established to meet these demands, prostitution can be minimized, and hence would the human trafficking too.

Since, STI’s are an omnipresent concern, intercourse with sex dolls would certainly minimize infections, and hopefully eradicate them. Then there’s the issue about those who have the sexual urge, but are socially not forward to go with it. Prolonged repression of sexual urges can lead to psychopathic notions of violence and rape; these dolls can help to avoid such things.

Then again, the question is should we move on with this advancement. Robots have built cars, planes, rockets, and have done so much in the field of medicine and sports. So maybe we thought it’s time to give them genitals? Is it a good idea? We can’t say for what if we fall in love with them. What happens to the human race if ever yone married cyborgs and not each other? To those who are antisocial, won’t this push them further into their cacoon?

Above all, is paying an upward of $4000 worth it? Life-like, yes; but wouldn’t it be economical to take someone out on a nice dinner and treat them right, and eventually jump in bed with her. Robots like Samantha may evolve to be intelligent like people, feel like them; maybe we’ll officially start referring to her as “her” rather than “it”. Then again, she’d still be like a person, not a person.

With that being said and with not judgement attached, regardless of what your take on human inventions is, or what your kink is, if you want to experience a sex doll, Love and Lust Nepal (www.loveandlustnepal. com) has blow-ups for Rs. 13,999, and silicon ones for Rs. 50,000.

Words: Nirveek PPJ Shah