France’s consumer watchdog has reported the Asian fast fashion giant Shein to authorities for selling “sex dolls with a childlike appearance” on its website.
The Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said the online description and categorisation of the dolls “makes it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content”.
Shein later told the BBC: “The products in question were immediately delisted as soon as we became aware of these serious issues.”
I can see how this whole topic can be kind of tricky. Not letting a free citizen have sex with a child like doll is kind of like arresting someone for thinking about committing a crime. I am generally of the belief that people should be free to do as they please as long as what they do doesn’t impinge on other people’s rights and such. But this is one of those border cases. Making it illegal without proof that it leads to crimes is questionable. But waiting for the proof means some children were abused, which is unacceptable as well.
Also, a guy could just buy one of those things that is lower torso and upper legs only. Nothing on it implies an age. So he can think of it as a child in his head. Yet making those illegal seems a stretch. Maybe it would have to be something like all sex dolls need to include enough parts to clearly distinguish them from children? But even that would be hard to truely define.
I think there may be some social issues with a for-profit company being financially incentivized to promote and sell pedophilia to people.
How would you rather deal with this? A boycott? Do you have money in child sex doll manufacturing that you can withhold?
That’s not really what this is about. You’re trying to assess this on a personal freedom level when what we’re talking about is a guy with a megaphone.
I really don’t understand what you are saying. I was in fact looking to open a discussion on a personal freedom angle. But the specific topic here was just what got me thinking about it. “A guy with a megaphone”. I really have no idea what that is referring to.
I did suggest that all sex toy type products could maybe be required to have some dimension that clearly marks the item as representing an adult. That would be my suggestion. But I am still curious where people draw the line on personal freedom vs something that isn’t proven to be harmful. Drugs and such are another good example. Should people be allowed to do whatever dtugs they want, as long as they don’t drive or something. Alcohol actually follows that example. Guns do to. Lots of ways to frame the debate.
The danger is in sexualizing children, it’s not a normally occurring part of human sexuality, and if people can sexualize children easily that can lead to sexual abuse of actual children, and that’s always harmful, seems like a 2=2 type of thing to say, but it is. Anyway, modern psychology shows that therapy for people who do sexualize children, who haven’t actually abused any children in any way, are unlikely to ever abuse children, so the doll or child sex abuse images, or other ‘outlets’ of sexual behavior aren’t shown to reduce the likelihood of sexual abuse, but therapy does. They don’t need sex dolls, they need therapy. And then maybe a healthy sex life with an adult.
This feels a lot like the “violent video games cause violence” argument, but because it’s about child abuse, people don’t want to defend it.
Are there actually any studies supporting your comment? I briefly looked and couldn’t find anything.
See now that brings up a good question. Is there any evidence that shows that child like dolls lead to an increase in abuse of children? If so, then this is a bad example for the personal freedom vs percieved threat question. But I am not sure I have heard of any such evidence. Maybe it’s just neutral. That said, whether it be this, or the right to do drugs in your own home, or the right to assisted suicide, or even the right to alcohol. The question I am asking is, where is the line between needing to have evidence versus having percieved evidence?