Caitlin Roper presents Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating at FiLiA
Caitlin Roper, author of Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating: The Case for Resistance
Real Men and Unreal Women: Sex Dolls and AI as Tools to Sexually Exploit Women and Girls
Radical Feminist Voices: Spinifex Panel 2, FiLiA, Brighton, UK, 12 October 2025
https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781925950601
Years ago, I came across a news article on Facebook claiming that sex robots made in the likeness of women could be programmed with a rape setting.
I remember reading the comments section and being struck by the responses of so many commenters, who all took a similar view – essentially, “This is horrific, but…better a robot than a real woman.”
A female-bodied sex doll or robot, it seemed, would be tolerated as a necessary evil, a preferable alternative to a man raping and abusing women and children – even a ‘victimless’ crime.
This didn’t sound right to me. It didn’t make sense that a global trade premised on the objectification of women, accommodating men’s sexual desires without limits, and the practice of rape and abuse on replica women could ever be in the interests of women.
This is where it all began – the work that became my book, Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating: The Case for Resistance. https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781925950601
Sex dolls and objectification
In the book, I argue that female-bodied sex dolls and robots represent the literal objectification of women. They are objects to be used in place of women, embodied representations of women designed purely for men’s sexual gratification, manufactured for the express purpose of being sexually used.
Through many months of lurking on online forums for men who owned sex dolls, I learned that these men believed their dolls – objects they owned – functioned as stand-ins for women. They claimed to be in “relationships” with their dolls, and even that dolls were preferable to women as they had no needs, no autonomy and never said “no”.
Herein lies the inherent misogyny of the trade in female-bodied sex dolls for men’s on-demand sexual use. These men believe the role of woman can be filled by a literal object – one that exists to be sexually penetrated. Essentially, they believe that women and objects are interchangeable, and women can only be interchangeable with objects if women are regarded as objects.
Sex dolls and violence
Some doll owners admitted their desire to practice violence was their primary motivation for buying a doll. They wanted a lifelike, female-bodied doll on which they could perform acts of sexualised violence. These men shared detailed scenarios of rape, predation, sexual slavery and torture on their dolls, often documented with pornographic photos. Some lamented they could not leave bruises on their dolls and improvised with make-up to create the effect. Others were so rough they broke their dolls.
There are a growing number of news reports of abandoned sex dolls initially mistaken for dead women and girls. Some have been found decapitated, mutilated, and ripped apart.
Men’s use of female-bodied sex dolls and robots – including their acts of violence, torture and abuse – is not merely fantasy, it is practice.
And I cannot accept the claim that men’s practice of violence and abuse enacted on replica women is somehow separate and distinct from men’s violence and abuse of women in the world.
Dolls made in likeness of women and girls
Sex dolls are also being made in the likeness of specific women, without their knowledge or consent. One woman learned of the sex doll made in her likeness and given her name after the manufacturer posted a link to her Instagram account identifying her. Another learned about a sex doll made to look like her after the man who created it sent her a message on Instagram, along with photos, describing just how much he enjoyed using it. She became physically ill.
Doll manufacturers report regularly receiving requests from male customers for dolls made in the likeness of women known to them – their mate’s girlfriend, their next-door neighbour, or a woman they have romantic feelings for.
I have found sex dolls advertised online clearly made in the likeness of a number of female celebrities, actors and musicians. In some cases, they are marketed by name.
The fact that these women have never consented to their likeness being used and turned into a sex doll appears to be of little consequence to manufacturers. One doll seller website complains about the unwillingness of these women to agree to have their image used in this way, but reassures prospective buyers they offer dolls that bear an “unintentional likeness” to the women in question:
“Sadly, if you are looking to buy a [celebrity name] sex doll you are out of luck. Well, you are out of luck in the official sense. [T]here is pretty much no chance the singer would ever authorize her likeness to be used for such a product.
“With that said it is worth noting that there are sex dolls for sale that have an unintentional likeness to her. These dolls with an unintentional likeness are pretty much as close as we will ever come to being able to buy a real [celebrity name] sex doll.”
The dolls are modelled on the singer, but product descriptions emphasise they come with larger breasts than the actual woman. Not only can doll buyers enact their fantasy experience of sexually using her without her consent, they can do so with an ‘improved’, pornified version.
One doll seller has a listing for a doll modelled on a famous actress. The product description includes her bio, including her work as an activist for gender equality, followed by the depth of vaginal, oral and anal orifices in centimetres and inches.
It concludes, “If you’re one of those people who wish to be her partner, you know how to get her.”
Essentially, sex dolls render women’s consent irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if a woman says no – a sex doll can be made in her likeness without her consent, and there’s nothing she can do about it.
Child sex abuse dolls
Men’s sex doll use is not limited to dolls modelled on adult women. There is a thriving trade in child sex abuse dolls – replica little girls, toddlers and infants complete with penetrable orifices designed for men’s practice of sexual abuse.
These dolls, too, are defended as possibly preventing men’s sexual abuse of children, by providing paedo-criminal men with a sexual outlet to enact their fantasies of raping a child. Some advocates and academics argue men’s access to replica children to practice sexual abuse could serve a protective or therapeutic function, and that they should be permitted on this basis.
Several years ago, at Collective Shout, we posed as prospective buyers and engaged with child sex abuse doll sellers. They told us they could customise dolls in the likeness of a specific child based on a photo. A number of child sex abuse doll sellers advertise this same service.
Consider the implications of this.
Artificial Intelligence
In the three years that have passed since the publication of my book, a then emerging threat to women has exploded – Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Like sex dolls, AI allows men to create and customise their own ‘ideal’ woman, a virtual girlfriend avatar for sex chats. A growing number of apps and websites allow men and boys to select the age, ethnicity, body type, hair colour, breast size, and ‘relationship’ e.g. girlfriend, stepsister, teacher, or enter instructions to build their own ‘virtual girlfriend’ or produce their own pornography. For free, and within seconds, men and boys can generate hyper-realistic pornographic images of women with no limits – women in any pose, and in any sexual scenario, all for their own sexual entertainment.
Like sex dolls, some dismiss objections to AI-generated pornography on the basis the women and girls are not real and therefore cannot be victimised. But the objectification and dehumanisation of women and girls as objects existing for male sexual use, and the normalisation of our degradation and abuse does considerable harm to women. And the harms don’t end there.
Deepfake, nudifying and undressing apps
The reality is, men are already using AI as a tool to sexually exploit women and children.
AI can be used to turn women and girls – actual, existing women and girls in the world – into pornography.
So-called ‘deepfake’ technology allows users to seamlessly superimpose a person’s face onto another person’s body, producing an image that looks real. It is believed that about 98% of deepfake videos online are pornography, with 99% of those targeted being women. This technology can create pornographic images and videos depicting women performing sex acts that never happened.
Nudifying or undressing apps and websites allow users to virtually undress a woman or girl. Many apps only work on female bodies. The user uploads a regular photo of a clothed woman, and this is digitally manipulated to produce a nude photo of her.
Using a photo captured from social media, or even a school yearbook, men and boys can virtually undress any woman or girl.
These technologies are exploding in popularity. Research by Graphika in 2023 found that in a single month, undressing websites attracted 24 million unique visitors. That was two years ago.
Users can create highly realistic content to the point where it is indistinguishable from authentic images. These images can be created quickly and easily, within minutes, and even for free.
Users can turn regular images of women and girls into extreme and degrading porn scenarios. They can transform women into schoolgirls or sexy teachers, depict them as pregnant, as Disney Princesses, dress them in hijabs, BDSM gear, in a range of sexualised positions, settings and porn scenes – alone or with other people. These include being penetrated with dildos, covered in semen, performing oral sex, group sex and being sexually tortured and used by men.
Men’s violent and degrading abuse fantasies for women and girls are revealed in public galleries hosting their pornographic AI creations.
In creating pornified AI images of women, they do not have to consider women’s physical bodily limitations or their willingness to comply – they are limited only by their porn-inspired imaginations.
These galleries are filled with images of women – many who appear to be girls, children – being sexually tortured by men: bound, blindfolded, strangled, tied up with ropes, in stocks, handcuffed, subjected to multiple penetrations, bestiality, covered in semen and being used by multiple men.
Images are tagged with terms referencing damage to women’s genitals as a result of body-punishing and violent acts.
Some websites encourage users to sell the pornographic images they create, if desired.
AI CSAM
AI is also being used to create virtual child sexual abuse material/CSAM. AI can be trained on existing CSAM – images and video depicting the rape and sexual abuse of actual children – and create new ‘fictional’ abuse material using their likeness.
Perpetrators can morph regular images into CSAM, or modify a person’s image to transform them into a child, or digitally alter a non-sexual image into an image of a child being sexually abused.
Risk to all women and girls
Any woman or girl can be targeted. Even Taylor Swift, arguably one of the most powerful women in the world, could not prevent this sexualised abuse when pornographic images using her face were created and disseminated online last year. What hope do the rest of us have?
If women can be targeted and threatened without even having taken or shared an intimate photo, the possibilities for men's tech-facilitated abuse of us grow exponentially.
Collective Shout campaigns
At Collective Shout, we have been campaigning against nudifying and undressing apps and websites since 2019. We’ve documented these apps being used by teen boys, described by my colleague and fellow Spinifex author Melinda Tankard Reist as “digital weapons of abuse” against their female classmates and teachers – even selling porn made from girls’ stolen school photos.
Following our lobbying efforts in Australia, we were pleased to report that the New South Wales government agreed to criminalise creation as well as dissemination of sexually explicit ‘deepfakes’. And just last month, our Federal government also announced plans to outlaw nudifying apps.
We are calling for these websites and apps to be banned globally, as they are a violation of women’s human rights.
Conclusion
In my book, I included a profound observation by Sheila Jeffreys from her autobiography Trigger Warning: My Lesbian Feminist Life. She wrote, “Men will make use of whatever technology is available to engage in forms of terrorism against women.” How right she was.
Some claim that both sex dolls and AI are victimless crimes, and that they are a preferable alternative to men’s abuse and exploitation of women and children, on the basis that all of men’s sexual desires should be accommodated. But, as I hope I have conveyed, these technologies do not protect women and girls from men’s violence and abuse – they facilitate new means of exploiting, abusing and terrorising us.
We must stand united against them, and defend the human rights of women and girls.
