JAPAN: For men who cannot find love with real women, Japan's "love dolls" provide alternative love - and sex

Record ID: 465135

  • Title: JAPAN: For men who cannot find love with real women, Japan's "love dolls" provide alternative love - and sex
  • Date: 13th July 2007
  • Summary: WIDE OF LOVE DOLL FACTORY RUN BY ORIENT INDUSTRY CO. VARIOUS OF WORKER PAINTING DOLL'S EYEBROW LOVE DOLLS BEING MANUFACTURED AND PLACED ON TABLES PLASTER CAST OF LOVE DOLL HEAD PAN OF ORIENTAL INDUSTRY'S LOVE DOLL SHOWROOM PAN UP OF LOVE DOLL CLAD IN JAPANESE KIMONO SIDE VIEW OF LOVE DOLLS IN LINGERIE CLOSE-UP OF DOLL'S FACE ORIENT INDUSTRY PRESIDENT HIDEO TSUCHIYA MOVING DOLL'S LEGS
  • Embargoed: 28th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA80NEAZSSMR9TH06TCPMZ59W9H
  • Story Text: When 45-year-old engineer Ta-Bo (pronounced TAH-boe) arrives home, it's not his wife or girlfriend who await him.
    As he turns on the lights in his living room, those who are neatly and quietly sitting on the sofa and waiting for his arrival are dozens of "love dolls." Ta-Bo contentedly looks around, and says to them, "Hi, I'm home."
    Each of the dolls has a name.
    Sometimes he watches television with Emi (pronounced EEH-mee), who has a smily face and wears red pyjamas, as she places her right hand on his lap. Later, he takes her pyjamas off and puts black lingerie on her.
    Some may think he is a pervert, but Ta-Bo says he just cannot love real women.
    "A human girl can cheat on you or betray you sometimes, but these dolls never do those thing. They belong to me 100 percent," says Tabo, who has spent more than 170,000 U.S. dollars (or 2 million yen) over the past decade to buy nearly a hundred of these dolls.
    Ta-Bo is one of the gradually increasing number of Japanese men who have given up on dating or marrying women in the real world and turned to these dolls for love, affection and so much more.
    Love dolls are life-sized figurines shaped accurately according to the human body.
    At the factory of Orient Industry Co. in eastern Tokyo, about 80 Love Dolls are churned out every month. They come in nine different types that range in price from 850 to 5,500 U.S. dollars (or 100,000 to 660,000 yen). The high-end models are made of silicon and have 35 movable joints.
    The company started making these dolls 30 years ago originally for handicapped men. Now these dolls have become available for anybody looking for a companion.
    Nearly all of the people who buy these dolls are single men and about 60 percent of them are over the age of 40, the company said.
    "Nowadays, women are sometimes more dominant than men in the real world, and they don't always pay attention to men. More and more men are finding themselves miserable so we're making these dolls partly in support of men," said Hideo Tsuchiya, president of Orient Industry Co. based in Tokyo.
    The market for these high-end dolls emerged in the United States in the mid-1990s and then branched off to Japan, industry sources say. The market has grown in the past decade partly due to the convenience brought by the Internet - customers can now purchase them with a single click of a mouse and have them shipped to their homes without having to go to sex toy shops.
    With extra fees, users can also customize their dolls to their personal tastes by upgrading body parts.
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