AI vaginas, customisable personalities and fake bruises: the sex doll market is booming. Does it matter how the dolls are treated?

Article here. Mannequins shaped like men are used for target practice all the time, yet no one seems to care about how that may affect someone's attitude toward men. Excerpt:

'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?

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.'