In 1980, I had a stash of girlie magazines like high society, penthouse and other adult men’s magazines that I stole off my brother in-law, and When I think back and remember looking at these magazines of carnal lust and debauchery – I realized I was as much fascinated and drawn to the adverts and adult classifieds as much as the yearning look of the nude models. Perhaps the lust of the nude models for my virgin eyes made me impulsive—but the very idea of being able to order and receive my very own realistic inflatable girl and yes I dare say – have sex with a real life-like girl – was extraordinary!!
Yes folks! The ad stipulated ‘Life-like in every detail”, 5’4”, large soft bosoms to “grab and squeeze to your own delight”, and she was “Always ready for action”, cause man oh man - was I ready for action at fourteen years old people! There were so many to choose from; Blondes, brunette’s, all willing to serve you and offer “any” – and I repeat “any” of their three orifices!!! Omg – what does that even mean?????? No worries – no questions asked – this life like Goddess wouldn’t care I was a young inexperienced virgin boy – Right?!!!
For only $7.95 plus shipping from some company in Van Nuys, California, the ad promises I would receive in a discrete plain brown un-marked package that no one would know – not even the postman would know, that a realistic life-like inflatable girl was inside that small brown wrapped box. No one would know --- (horrible thought occurring at this moment) Shit ---- except for my parents!! – Because they are Nazi’s and open all the mail – and why is their youngest son getting a small brown package in the mail? They would surely open the damn package and I would be mortified at their shock and disgust with their overtly horny pubescent son. My heart is broken.
So frustrating -- I thought about this scheme for quite a while and had nervously worked up enough nerve to share my inquisitive lustful quest for the knowledge of sex – and asked my best friend Billy - to help me order this love doll – all the while making my pitch while showing off my impressive dirty magazine collection one day after school – He was too taken aback by amazing nudity and wonton flesh. But of course – should’a known - alas, he too had the same parental issues! I think what bothered me the most was - He wanted to play with the doll first – which I didn’t think was a good idea -- thankfully looking back now, I’m glad I had the intuition of going second -- being a bad idea.
Now for the history part! Research has shown me the fascinating and enormous depth to the history of the sex doll - as far reaching as far back as 8A.D. in Greek mythology.
8 A.D.
Pygmalion obsessed over a woman sculpted from ivory. He obsessed so much that the sight of him having sex with the statue prompted Aphrodite to turn her into a real human. So men humping statues shaped like women.
15TH Century – 18TH Century
What is described as the direct descendant of the modern sex doll in so many online blogs and media circles apparently dates back to the 15th century and forward, when Dutch, French and Spanish sailors made cloth sewn dolls from fabric and old clothes to use as masturbation devices for long journeys. These dolls called seamensbrauts in German, Dames de Voyage in French, and Dama de Viage, in Spanish. At some point - the Dutch sold these cloth dolls to the Japanese during the Rangaku period – Thus the term “Dutch wives” was created and still in use in Japan today - to refer to sex dolls or more often Love dolls. One can only imagine or perhaps not -- the un-sanitary conditions of these archaic sex toys.
An article titled; Dames De Voyage, by writer Amy Wolf in the magazine Avantoure-Anthology of Temptation wrote; “Made of cotton and presumably held together by dried cum, the Dame de Voyage was a hot bed of venereal disease and it’s perhaps fortunate that no specimen, or even images of such exist today”.
1850’s
This brings us precisely to the point of Professor Bo Ruberg in the study of sex doll history in her new book titled; Sex Dolls at Sea. From years of research and by deducting from writings, stories, and lack of physical evidence – she has come to the conclusion the Dames de Voyage is an urban myth, made up folklore or fable. In fact there has been a great deal of misinformation and repeated unsubstantiated journalism with a photograph of a purported evidence of Dames de Voyage dolls
Directly from a German publication published by the Institute of Sex Research in Berlin, 1927, written in German - titled: Supplementary series to Immoral History of Vice. In this booklet with photographic images of vice – is included this platelet/illustration from the archive of ethnographic collections from the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. Mistakenly many journalists missed or misunderstood that in-fact these were sex dolls crafted with beautiful artisanal care in a German prison in the late 1890’s. For a good 15 years now with the help of the internet the existence of the Dames De voyage flourished when really it probably never existed.
The information on this page translates: This doll is a substitute for a real woman- Prison Doll - Made to perform coitus – pygmyionism. At the bottom of the image it translates: Coitus replacement – Dress able, with all female garments – equipped primitive doll in life-size form. The word “pygmyionism”, is a rarely used and old term for being in love or attracted to statues, dolls, mannequins, or objects as a surrogate for a real person. So even in 1850 they had a word for that fetish!
Now here’s the real evidence of sex dolls or at least sex doll body parts!
Through extensive research, A talented and pioneering Professor, Jo Ruberg, offers the Femmes en Cautchouc (Rubber Women, fig.2) as the actual origins of the commercial sex doll. Made of inflatable vulcanized rubber, these rubber women, were one of many sex toys and other sexual devices to enter the rubber boom of the 1850s (fig’s 2-8). First appearing at the Paris World’s Fairs, of 1855, and sold most likely as a set of dismembered parts that could be folded up to fit in a suitcase like box by the 1880s. Assembled together or fittingly used separately, these parts could be filled with air or water to give them a supposedly lifelike feel. More research reveals from advertisements, news reports, and fiction from the period, how the femmes en caouthouc went through its own rise and fall in French popular culture.
There is very little information to be found about early sex dolls made out of rubber.
However, one of the earliest recorded appearances of manufactured sex dolls dates to 1908, in Iwan Bloch's book; The Sexual Life of Our Time. Bloch wrote:
In this connection we may refer to fornicatory acts effected with artificial imitations of the human body, or of individual parts of that body. There exist true Vaucansons in this province of pornographic technology, clever mechanics who, from rubber and other plastic materials, prepare entire male or female bodies, which, as hommes or dames de voyage, subserve fornicatory purposes. More especially are the genital organs represented in a manner true to nature. Even the secretion of Bartholin's glans is imitated, by means of a "pneumatic tube" filled with oil. Similarly, by means of fluid and suitable apparatus, the ejaculation of the semen is imitated. Such artificial human beings are actually offered for sale in the catalogue of certain manufacturers of "Parisian rubber articles." Would be interesting today to see what a 1900’s inflatable rubber doll looked like indeed!
1941 – Hitler & Borghild project
The Borghild Project was (supposedly) a super-secret attempt to stop the spread of venereal disease by providing the Nazi soldiers with inflatable sex dolls. That’s right: Hitler invented the blow-up doll that we know today! Unfortunately, the evidence to support this having actually happened is weak and unreliable, so it probably is not a true historical event. What is true is - that during the Nazi occupation of France in 1940- A lot of fraternizing between German soldiers and Parisian prostitutes went on and the resulting outbreak of syphilis led to a lot of German soldiers not showing up to fight and conquer. Alas Hitler and Himmler had to do something about this problem.
A document was uncovered by a so-called journalist Norbert Lenz (who has not published anything other than this story about Hitler), SS chief Heinrich Himmler wrote: “The greatest danger in Paris is the widespread and uncontrolled presence of whores, picking up men in bars, dance halls and in the streets. It is our national duty to prevent our soldiers from risking their health for the sake of a quick romp.”
Himmler’s solution wasn’t “Stop fornicating with French whores.” As Norbert’s document reads - Himmler said, “Let’s make plastic female dolls, and no more diseases!” Alas –So this is how the top-secret Borghild Project was created.
The presentation of the “Borghild sex dolls” according to the reporting of journalist Lenz- was a great success. Again Lenz wrote that Himmler was there, and Dr. Chargeheimer who helped design and build prototypes. The document describes the many nervous technicians and officers involved examining the artificial orifices, to everyone’s surprise - Himmler was so enthusiastic- he ordered 50 Borghilds on the spot. This photo is floating around the internet and is suppose to be the only photos left from the secret project
Now did these 50 dolls actually get produced is questionable. Legend says the dolls were tested in the field, but soldiers refused to carry them for the fear of embarrassment if they were captured. Another legend is that Himmler cut the funding before the dolls were finished, because the war was not going very well for the Germans by 1942… and truth be told - it’s quite silly if you really think of it. Most historians and reputable institutions report this never happened at all and is an urban myth. The facts are; The Hygiene Museum where the dolls were supposedly built -- was heavily damaged by Allied shells during the bombing of Dresden, which conveniently destroyed evidence of the project (if any existed). All that survived were the photos attached, that were supposedly rescued from the garbage by a sculptor, and given to — you guessed it — Norbert Lenz. With no example of a “Borghild doll” known to have survived the war from the Nazi’s – We are going to assume this is indeed an urban myth – However the sex doll continued its journey into becoming a real product somewhere in time after the war.
1950’s; Onward
The infamous inflatable sex doll that is recognized and familiar today has no known actual invention date. The inflatable sex doll seems to have appeared in the American market around the same time as children’s inflatable toys and mannequins for medical use that were being made in the mid 1960’s. By 1968, sex doll advertisements began to appear in the back of men’s adult magazines though mail order. Very quickly the demand for inexpensive plastic and welded vinyl sex dolls grew with the freedoms of the sexual revolution that was taking place, along with other sex toys and other erotic materials sold in adult bookstores and sex shops. One can agree looking at the scattered history of the sex doll to the enormous technological leap in the twentieth century with producing the inflatable sex doll as - both the archetype and the stereotype. We can add the invention of Latex sex dolls as well – probably entering the scene in the late 60’s or 70’s -and finding one those, even though the manufacturing of these stopped by 2010 is extremely difficult. Seems the collectors of these latex dolls are hanging on to them well into the 2020’s. And finally, without going into any depth but we are on the cusp of cutting edge technologically advanced AI sex dolls that move and suck and talk! That my friends - is another subject all together. Crazy journey for the sex doll indeed.
But one final back track to 1980 and those love doll ads – For a fourteen-year-old boy wondering what sex was going to be like – Those ads were like a mesmerizing window into a world so alluring and titillating. Funny thing is looking back now at myself – had I been able to make my mail order dream come true -- I can only imagine the shock and confusion I would have felt holding the crude and rudimentary welded vinyl product in my overly hormonal pubescent boy hands.
What I find interesting today is the realization that the millions upon millions of sex dolls that have been produced, in the 1800’s or today, whether a $6,000-dollar Real doll or a $20-dollar cheap vinyl blow up doll is acquired –
it comes in some kind of box.
For a price – that you choose – you too can find,
Love in a box.