Physical and mental pleasure

In the United States, sex dolls were first advertised in porn magazines around 1968, when it became legal to sell sexual devices through the mail. 


By the 1980s, they could be found in most sex shops—though they were the inflatable kind, more suited to be gag gifts at a frat party than to actually withstand sex with a person.


 “Most of the attention and craftsmanship was focused on the penetration areas, the mouth, vagina and the anus,”

 Ferguson writes, but “the inflatable can only support a certain amount of weight or repeat usage before the seams in the material deteriorate.”

 Most of McMullen’s dolls are female; he makes a small number of male ones, but there are fewer options for customizing them, and they account for just 10 percent of his sales. 

“As an artist, I was always drawn to the female form, so that’s what my subject matter was,” McMullen says. “The female form was my muse.”

 He insists that actual women have nothing to fear from his dolls. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Do I think the dolls will replace women or threaten to replace women? Absolutely not.”