Sex Dolls Completely Cured My ED. Now, I Review Them Online to Help Other Guys.

Sex dolls aren’t just for single guys. For this installment of the Secret Lives of Men, we spoke to Steven, a 41-year-old whose wife encouraged him to purchase sex dolls to overcome his erectile dysfunction. The sex doll therapy worked, and now he’s helping other men select high-quality dolls to cure their own ailments.

I own three sex dolls. And unlike the stereotype, I’m not a creepy single guy. I’ve spent virtually my entire adult life in some form of relationship, so I have had a great deal of sex, but not a lot of partners.

When I first got married, I was very young, only 18 years old. We stayed together until I was 29. We had a very physical relationship, but I went through a lot during the marriage and came out with sexual baggage. Immediately after our separation, I began to experience erectile dysfunction symptoms. I took testosterone replacement therapy, but it didn't solve the problem. The real problem was that I had a bad relationship with sex. I used sexual activity for self-soothing and emotional regulation. I started going to a therapist for some of the issues that came out of that marriage, but my ED persisted.

I didn’t know how to resolve it. My current wife told me the problem could be that I’m stuck in my head during sex, and I have extremely low bodily awareness. She said she had seen sex dolls on TikTok and suggested that a doll could help me. She thought that if I were able to have sexual encounters that feel real with an object incapable of judgment or pleasure, it would force me to really focus on myself and what feels good.

I was very excited about the idea. I had eyeballed sex dolls from when I first heard about them in the early 2000s. After much research, I bought a “female torso” that weighed 85 pounds and cost hundreds of dollars. I chose a female torso—a doll without a head, arms or legs— because it provides the stimulation I need but is much easier to store and clean than a full-size doll.

When I used the doll, I was able to understand how many of the sexual experiences I was having were actually taking place within my head and how fixated I was on my partner’s experience. Sex with dolls allowed me to become aware of my own sensations and pursue those that felt particularly good without being distracted by thoughts of what my partner was feeling. It put me back in touch with my own sexual pleasure.

So, I bought more dolls. Some full-sized, mostly torsos. For me, it’s an efficiency thing: A torso is lighter and easier to carry, and I don’t have to clean fingers and toes. But I do like the torsos to have some weight, so that sex with them feels more like a real-life sexual experience and less like masturbation. I also want to trick my senses, so I choose dolls with realistic skin texture, freckles, veins, aerolas and labias. I have had as many as seven torso dolls in the house. I’ve tried different body types, from voluptuous MILF to athletic.

I prefer dolls made of silicone because they are the most lifelike. But they’re expensive. Most silicone torsos cost $750 to $1,500. A full-size silicone doll is $2,500 to $5,000.

Thanks to the sex dolls, my ED has become almost entirely a thing of the past. They are a safe, non-threatening way to experience some of the sexual variety that I missed because I was in committed relationships. Although some people form close emotional connections with their dolls, my relationship with them is almost purely sexual.

My wife has been happy about our renewed sex life too. But when my youngest child moved out of the house last year, it took me a while to adjust to an empty nest. My wife noticed the lethargy I was experiencing. She knew how much interest I had in the dolls and recommended that I do something with it. So I started a sex doll review account on Reddit.

Men like to do extensive research before buying dolls, but it’s extremely difficult to find reviews, especially unbiased ones. Some companies have very little information on their websites and unrealistic AI images of the dolls. There’s a large information gap that I’m able to fill by providing genuine photos and reviews. Now, companies send me sex dolls to review.

My friends are not aware of my hobby. We don't really talk about sex. I don’t know if my friends would be critical of me. A lot of people judge men who own sex dolls. I think people are imagining the extreme examples they see on TV, where somebody begins to treat dolls as though they were human, introducing them to family or taking them out to restaurants. These people are either mentally unwell or involving other people in their kinks without consent, and that’s the real problem, not the doll itself. The doll is a simple sex toy.

We have destigmatized dildos and vibrators; sex dolls should be next. They give people an opportunity to learn about their sexual needs, preferences, and fantasies in an environment free of shame. How is that a bad thing?