Baring it all: Silicone dolls are creepy, disturbing

I grew up in the' 90s without cable. No Double Dare, no Hey Dude. Not only did I grow up deprived, but I apparently grew up to be surprisingly innocent from a lack of pornographic television shows.

The other night I was flipping through channels at my boyfriend's house and came across the series Real Sex on HBO. I was immediately whisked away to a place that I had grown up without: nudity, graphic sex, fetishes and sex toys. This particular episode was about the "Real Doll," a sex doll that costs about $7,000.

I've never seen anything like the Real Doll. Check out the Web site at www.realdoll.com. A long-haired brunette named Angela wears a white baby doll nightie, her hands resting on her naked thighs. An exotic Asian-looking Mai has lips slightly parted and wears elbow length black gloves.

Both dolls have an expression saying, "C'mon. I need you. Fill up my realistic silicone parts with love." There is also a disturbingly childlike looking Asian doll, complete in school-girl attire, by the name of Kaori that apparently caters to pedophiles.

The options for the Real Doll are endless. You can give them A-cup or double-F breasts. Want your babe to have tan lines? Done. Want her to come with an attachable penis? Done.

Would you prefer the pubic hair to be shaved, trimmed or natural? Red, blonde or black? Want them to custom-make a doll for you? Just send them a photo of who you'd like the doll to resemble. Here's a creepy thought: What if a friend harbored a secret obsession for you, and you went to his house only to discover a sex doll that looked just like you?

You can play around on their Web site creating a custom doll, but it unfortunately costs money. I was about to make one to see how close I could get it to look like me, but I wasn't about to whip out a credit card for the experiment.

The HBO show mainly showed a group of five young women experimenting with the fairly new release of the male Real Doll. The women were shocked by how realistically the penis bobbed and were delighted that it stayed erect all night and that you could choose a penis size from 6-9 inches long. There's even an ejaculate feature, but they didn't say what kind of solution they used and I found no information on the site.

I'm not sure what can be pleasurable about performing on something that can't appreciate your sexual prowess, but whatever.

Is this creepy to anybody else? Call me old fashioned, but I thought sex was about a connection with a person. I understand masturbation and I'm all for it, but this is something altogether different and disturbing.

It's all a illusion. It's made to look and feel just like a human, but there are some critical things missing - a pulse, for one.

Shouldn't sex be a bit more reciprocal? Shouldn't there at least be some element of emotion involved? Plus, after a man or woman has had sex with a custom made dream man or woman, how will the next lover compare if he or she has love handles, a 4-inch penis or AA-cup breasts?

The Real Doll online store offers a variety of products from T-shirts to squeezable "boob balls." There is also a porn video starring the Real Dolls and Ron Jeremy. Pretty soon human porn stars won't even be necessary.

I guess the positive side to Real Dolls would be safety from STIs and unwanted pregnancy, provided you don't share your Real Doll with five of your sexually-active friends. All we need are outbreaks of herpes contracted through sharing silicone.

E-mail me at baringitall4uc@hotmail.com. I love hearing from you.