Sex used to seem like a taboo subject, and anything that had to do with sex was always liable to be looked at in a different way.

The truth is, whether you are single or in a relationship, sex is essential. With the gradual opening of society to the idea of sex, the market for sex toys is also growing at a rapid pace.

According to the Aimedia data centre, from 44.05 billion yuan in 2016 to 118.87 billion yuan in 2019, the size of China's erotic products market has more than doubled. More and more people are also getting into the industry, with SkyEye data showing that a total of 45,000 new erotic goods-related enterprises were added in China in 2020, with a growth rate of 48.5%.

The street adult shop Wild Horse Finance photo

In addition, adult products have gradually expanded from the original birth control-based products to all kinds of erotic products. For example, silicone dolls, vibrators, erotic lingerie, etc.

Sex dolls - "the love that can't walk out of the room"

Not long ago, a #silicone doll mistaken for a hidden corpse landlord alarm # of the topic caused discussion, the incident began because the alarm Mr. Zhao said he happened to find a tenant's room hidden a "female corpse", need the police to the scene as soon as possible to dispose of.

It was confirmed that the "female corpse" Mr. Zhao saw under the bed was actually just a one-to-one replica of a silicone doll. The netizens commented, "simply large social death scene".

Behind the misconception is a little-known group and a huge market. According to statistics, the global market for physical sex dolls, from annual sales of less than 100,000 in 2015, is rapidly growing to 2 million by 2020.

Sex dolls are mainly divided into inflatable dolls and physical dolls, and physical dolls are divided into TPE dolls and silicone dolls according to different materials. The "baby millet" Chun Shui Tang is one of the domestic entity silicone doll brands, which started the research and development of silicone doll manufacturing process in May 2017, and after many trials until October 2020, the product was officially listed, after listing also received a lot of praise from users. They have many types we can choose the doll we want according to the type we like, they can be big breast sex dolls, anime sex dolls, torso sex dolls and so on

Who is buying? According to the user profile of Chun Shui Tang's silicone dolls, its consumers are mainly single men between the ages of 25 and 40, with some married men as well. Spring Water founder Lin Degang told us for married male users, "There are also wives who buy for their husbands, why? According to her this thing can be called relief off the pressure of the wife herself doing her duty, give you a doll, don't bother me, because sexual pressure is still a pretty big pressure, use this thing for your husband and it subsides."

For what purpose? According to analysis by Springwater users, there are three broad areas: sexual tools, lovers and hand-me-downs.

Sexual tools are a basic need, accounting for 40 per cent. "I think that whether from a moral or legal point of view, a doll is better than going outside by myself to I think it's better to go out there and get into some mess."

Burning has not been in the 'doll scene' for long, about three months now. But they have already spent a lot of money on them, with Burning having bought eight dolls before and after, costing around 25,000 yuan, with an average price of around 3,000 yuan, not including the price of buying clothes and other peripherals for the dolls.

In addition to meeting basic physiological needs, burning there is a further layer of consideration, "I'm not afraid to say you laugh, there are some and the wife is not good to do, or that she is not too willing to do things, the doll is also an option."

What's amazing about Burning is that after a period of use, apart from the physical needs, there is also an emotional bond with the dolls, "I did buy them out of physical needs at first, but slowly I realised that apart from that I wanted someone to keep me company, they are quiet, not noisy and don't make a lot of noise. It doesn't feel empty anymore."

"Even if it's a love that can't walk out of the room, I feel content with that." Burning says.

The second use of sex dolls is for "lovers", which also accounts for 40% of the population.

"About 40% of men would consider her as their girlfriend, what exactly do they do? According to many male users, when they were in love, they rarely bought clothes for their girlfriends, or even never bought them, and never put makeup on them, but after they bought the doll, they would often go online to find all kinds of beautiful clothes, as well as learn how to do hair, how to dress up, how to comb their hair. We call it spirit and flesh, which is emotion plus desire, and this is the second category that accounts for 40% of people as girlfriends." Lin Degang said.

Another "waifu", Cool (a pseudonym), born in 1994, buys more out of a need for companionship. "It's lonely. I usually eat, watch movies and play games alone, so when I bought Aoki (the name of the doll), I felt it would be better to have someone to keep me company, and I've only used it once since I bought it.

Out of love, Cool also makes various dress-ups for the dolls and also makes up plot-oriented stories with Aoki as the main character, which are shared on the Waifu platform and have received many compliments from users.