Why Did Sex Dolls Become Very Realistic Very Quickly?

The evolution of the sex doll is often quite difficult to piece together as it took until the internet age before a lot of owners and manufacturers started to share their stories more widely and find out that there are a lot of like-minded people who enjoy dolls for a variety of reasons.

However, up until around 1996, the most common representation of love dolls looked far more like the blow-up dolls as depicted in shows such as Only Fools and Horses than the more realistic-looking and feeling models that are more widely available today.

These dolls, as well as the similarly successful dakimakura body pillows popular in Japan, are comforting but often unrealistic, and it appeared as if love dolls took a giant leap from somewhat unrealistic gifts to what we know today.

There may be a clue as to the reason for this found in the world of robotics and the work of Professor Masahiro Mori.

In 1970, he published a book entitled The Uncanny Valley Phenomenon (Bukimi No Tani Genshō in Japanese).

The concept of the Uncanny Valley is that people love objects that are increasingly human up until a certain point.

When an object, moving or otherwise, becomes too human to be abstract but not human enough to be truly seen as authentic, it creates a palpably negative reaction.

This is why robots that look like humans seem more strange and unpleasant than more abstract ones, at least until the robot is realistic enough to replicate the smaller details.

With a love doll that an owner projects a lot of their feelings and emotions into, it is an even more important detail, which is why many manufacturers waited until the technology and design skills had improved to the point that a love doll would transcend that valley.

Once that was reached by the RealDoll and then by many other manufacturers and creators, it created a golden age for dolls and a much greater acceptance of the roles they play in many people’s lives.