Andrew is the owner of a sex-doll shop and, since it was opened in 2016, he's seen a lot of his clients. He has found that many of them are at ease talking to him about who were and about how they came to where they are today.
"In Japan they call them 'flat chested sex doll', which is a better description. Love Doll companions are helpful to a lot of customers as some may suffer from insomnia or depression. It can elevate negative energy and help people to sleep as it's like a comfortable pillow next to them. For some customers they tell me just having 'her' in the bed next to them has helped them immensely to sleep and has closed the gap on issues in their life or combating loneliness," Andrew shares with Mamamia.
"I can't stress this enough: every customer is different. If it was a Hollywood movie, it would probably have the japanese sex doll owner as some stay-at-home loser kind which is totally inaccurate. A good portion of my customers are just regular guys that we see walking down street, some quite handsome and young and just there to try it out with a sex doll. Others are older and are divorcees and have lost quite a lot in the divorce, financially and emotionally, and feel like they want to take a break from dating so feel this is the right thing to explore. They are all different and all at different crossroads."
A lot of Andrew's clients are men who lost their wives due to cancer. "They always tell me they are scared that their wife is looking down at them from heaven and watching what they are doing. They tell me that their wife wouldn't have minded this when compared to finding a new person. In their minds they never want to replace their wife as they see her as unreplaceable but a doll feels harmless and safe."
In the course of the COVID lockdown during the COVID lockdown, sales of sex dolls in Australia were up by 30-40 percent that is on par with the sales of sex toys overall in the period. Customers of bbw sex doll tends to be males between the 30-65 years old looking to purchase female-oriented dolls. The demand in male dolls are much less. But, Andrew has noted that heterosexual couples are more likely to purchase sex dolls.
Do sex doll owners only lonely men who are looking for friendship and enjoying their interests? According to Caitlin Roper, author of Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating in the magazine Mamamia, "While mini sex doll supporters claim that they have many advantages - for males in particular the majority of them - they do not give much thought given to the harm they can cause women and girls.
"The increasing trade in life-like replica girls and women targeted at men's sexual pleasure on demand has grave, real-world implications for women and girls everywhere.
"From women who have been devastated to learn of sex dolls made in their likeness, women whose husbands chose their sex doll over them, and child sex abuse dolls modelled on little girls, toddlers and infants, we have to ask who benefits from these products?"
Andrew is conscious of negative perceptions among the public of dolls with sex, but believes that it's "unfair and inaccurate".
"I see myself like someone selling art or Lamborghinis. I built my business around beauty and love to promote and celebrate it, be it male or female. I don't sell my dolls in the spirit of trying to replace women or anything like that, not at all. I can't stand some other doll websites that add misogynistic comments on their pages, it's my pet hate. Women are beautiful so I really like to showcase their beauty, and the same for men. As realistic and lifelike as our dolls are, at the same time they are still classified as sex toys. People that buy dolls are really just buying sex toys or pieces of art, so they should be viewed as nothing more than that," he states.