Sex doll market takes off in China following explosive Single’s Day sales
While Black Friday sales in America have fallen 10% compared to last year, the shopping craze in China is on the rise. November 11th was Single’s Day in China, when sellers of hot items like electronics and mobile devices can make a whole month’s worth of sales within a single day. In the past, electronics companies like Xiaomi have marked their market ascension with their sales volume statistics on Single’s Day. However, there was also another rather unexpected item that proved to be in high demand on Single’s Day – sex dolls.
More than silicone: Chinese man’s relationship with a sex doll goes viral
As per its namesake, real sex doll are typically objects used for fulfilling sexual fantasies. However, to a netizen named Song Bo, who went by the alias of “Onodera Karen” on Weibo, this was not the case. The 3D game designer from Tianjin suffered mild depression when he was diagnosed with intracranial arachnoid cysts two years ago, until he bought a 1.45 meter sex doll online for 14 thousand yuan. He named her Xiao Die, literally meaning little butterfly, and treated it as a daughter since.
Song Bo brought “her” out for shopping, meals, movies, karaoke sessions, and even to amusement parks and the countryside, just like a real father would. He also uploaded “everyday life” photos of his real sex doll daughter on Weibo every now and then, wearing different clothes and doing different poses, and the doll gradually gained a following on the said social media platform.
Other than taking her out, buying clothes for her and shooting photos of her, he had even hired a nail artist to do manicure for his daughter. When asked about her “maintenance cost”, he claimed to have never actually calculated, and stated, “I can’t even begin to count the money I’ve spent, but was it worth it? Hard to say, as this male sex dolls gave me a sense of belonging that no money can buy after all.”