Last week in South Korea a petition earned a near quarter-million signatures. The South Koreans who lent their John Hancrock to the call for action are hoping to ban the importing of sex dolls into the country.

Currently, sex dolls are not illegal in South Korea. But government customs have blocked them coming into the country under a law restricting materials entering South Korea that could “corrupt public morals.” But a Seoul High Court ruled at the beginning of the year that sex dolls are for ‘personal use’ and therefore need to be treated differently than pornography; as you may have heard or can surmise, pornography is heavily restricted under South Korean law. This pro-sex doll ruling inflamed many who did indeed like the import restriction and led to that petition circulating, the author of the petition arguing that an influx of imported dolls could lead to an increase in sex crimes. A connection I fail to make, but I am neither a criminal nor a user of sex dolls. What do I know? And I don’t live in South Korea.

The author of the sex-doll petition also claims that because of sex dolls’ often customizable features (one can order a doll with a specific eye or hair color, body shape, and even body-heating mechanisms) some dolls could be used to create copies of real people.

So?

As you might be aware, and as I have written about in this column, there are actual sex doll brothels popping up around the world. Whether the good old U.S. of A. will ever see one (God knows there are plenty of folks living in our borders who have ordered and currently ‘enjoy’ a sex doll), who knows? But the idea of a person rubbing up against, into or across an inanimate object (something so many of us get up to on a Saturday night) seems to certainly be the sex doll owner engaging the doll for ‘personal use.’ And if I might be allowed further extrapolation; if one takes one’s self to a sex doll brothel and pays for the ‘personal use’ of one of these dolls, which are objects, not real ladies (no matter how badly one imagines them to be) then this is not, technically, the crime of prostitution…as one of the parties here is not a person.

Right?

As Webster defines prostitution, it is the “Act or practice of engaging in promiscuous sexual relations, especially for money.” When I explored Webster further for their definition of “sexual relations,” I found: “Heterosexual intercourse involving penetration of the vagina by the penis” and “intercourse (such as anal or oral intercourse) that does not involve penetration of the vagina by the penis.”

If you can amp down your modern-day righteous indignation over the heterosexual tag, might we assume, as I am, that Webster is speaking about thrusting a human penis into a human vagina, mouth or anus? If one though thrusts their human penis (or any other part) into a non-human, a ‘thing,’ more or less, be that human of any gender (yes, sex dolls are and can be built for the multitude of genders represented by humans presently) then I’d venture a guess that intercourse, according to Webster, or the definition used for it when the prostitution was first deemed illegal, is NOT occurring. Therefore, when one enters a sex doll brothel and hands over their money for a romp, tug and rub with a doll (which isn’t human, regardless of how much one might fantasize it being) then the act one enjoys with said doll is not, technically, against the law because only one human is involved.

When aliens land and we get into interspecies prostitution, all bets are off.

So, what’s to become of sex dolls in South Korea? Will we see more of them enjoyed beyond that country as well, as we march ever forward enjoying intimacies that we need another person less and less for, or if ever at all? The answers, my friends, I guess, are coming. So, stay tuned and have at yourself with whatever’s available I’d say. But if it be human, please ask first, ok?