Photo: Canoe
Paris councilors were considering calls to close France’s first sex doll brothel Tuesday, following objections from feminist and left-wing groups.
Situated in an apartment in the French capital’s 14th arrondissement, Xdolls opened last month, offering clients a choice of four different Chinese-made silicon inflatable sex toys.
The business is legally registered as a games center, but critics object to it on the grounds that it is essentially a brothel, a business that’s illegal under French law. “It’s as if you go there to play pinball or table football,” Nicolas Bonnet Oulaldj, the Communist leader on the Paris council told Le Parisien.
Customers are charged €89 (£78) for an hour with one of three silicone sex dolls – Kim, Lily and Sophia, all made in China and worth several thousand euros – in one of the three available rooms.
They are only told the exact address after booking a session and paying for it online.
Owner Joachim Lousquy told the newspaper that Xdolls attracts mostly men, although some couples do visit.
Mr. Lousquay, who claims his neighbors aren’t aware of the nature of the business, insists the dolls are sex toys and not degrading to women.
But Nicolas Bonnet Oulaldj, a communist councilor, disagrees. He and others called for the ban on Xdolls because it is run like a brothel and over concerns that abusive and degrading experiences with the dolls may lead to such encounters with real women.
TV Presenter Gwen van Poorten said a sex doll brothel could also help to combat crime. She said: “Think about illegal prostitution, or human trafficking. “I wouldn’t say this would be a solution for it, but in the future, if we can have sex with dolls, alongside prostitutes, it gives an option extra which I think is awesome.”
Lorraine Questiaux, a spokesperson for a Paris feminist association called Mouvement du Nid (Nest Movement), also wants Xdolls to be closed. ‘Xdolls is not a sex shop. It’s a place that generates money and where you rape a woman,’ she told Le Parisien.
She added it was important to shut it down, noting that ‘86,000 women are raped in France every year’. Pierre Laurent, the national secretary of the Communist Party, told VSD that some of the sex dolls can lead to thoughts of sex with children because of their small size.
But the socialist deputy mayor of the city dismissed the complaints as a waste of council time, paving the way for XDolls to open for business.
Similar businesses have popped up in other European cities in recent years across Spain, Germany, England, the Netherlands, and Austria. Xdolls’ owner, Joaquin Lousquy, has told French media that despite the opposition in Paris, he hopes to open similar businesses elsewhere.
