What happens when you introduce a sex doll into your relationship?

What happens when you introduce a sex doll into your relationship?

Standing at 135cm tall, with a functioning vagina, anus, mouth, and soft-to-the-touch silicone skin, Meghan has been in Scott’s life for five years.

That’s longer than he’s known Marie, 29, his fiancée.

Marie is 29, a nurse, a mother, and engaged to Scott. Scott, 39, runs a successful business, is a father, and owns Meghan, a realistic life-sized sex doll.

Meghan had been in Scott’s life for two years before he met Marie, when she interviewed for a job at his company. At a time when he was totally immersed in his work and frustrated with the dating scene, a sex doll made perfect sense.




Once an underground taboo, sex dolls are growing in popularity at an astonishing rate. A doll like Meghan could set you back anywhere from £1,300 to in excess of £2,000, and in the UK, the sex doll market is booming, with Silicone Sex World, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of high-end sex dolls, estimating a 200% increase in sales from this time last year.

While Marie admits that sex dolls never appealed to her personally, when her relationship with Scott became sexual, he soon told her about Meghan, showed some pictures of him with the doll, and went over the reasons why he owned her.

Scott is able to change Meghan’s look with wigs and different outfits. (Picture: Metro.co.uk)

‘The doll itself was in plain sight, so if I were to go over to Scott’s, I would’ve stumbled upon it pretty quickly,’ Marie tells Metro.co.uk.

Armed with a ‘don’t knock it ‘till you try it’ attitude, she remained open and curious.

‘Though of course, when you first tell someone about an unusual fetish there’s still space for discomfort,’ she says.

Thankfully for Marie and Scott, the first conversation about Meghan was free from awkwardness.

‘We’re both very open about our sexuality,’ says Scott. ‘And Marie actually thought it sounded pretty cool.’

‘At first, I was curious but also a little apprehensive,’ Marie told us. ‘My personal feelings are this: If the doll gets more attention than I do, that’s where I would draw the line.

Meghan often shares a bed with the couple. (Picture: Metro.co.uk)

‘But this is where communication is key. Scott and I have many types of sexual preferences. No one is a mind-reader, so every step of the way is important to talk about.’

‘There has never been a time I wanted the doll more than my own woman,’ explains Scott. ‘So it was never a problem.’

Since getting Meghan, Scott has been keeping a blog to document their ventures.

‘I originally wanted to share my new experiences of doll ownership, to lift some stigmas about it, and help other people explore their curiosities,’ Scott says.

But even within the doll fetish community, followers of Scott’s blog displayed surprise that he could be in a relationship at the same time as owning a doll, with the assumption that sex dolls are owned by those who cannot maintain a relationship. The disbelief that Marie existed resulted in Scott uploading side-by-side photos of Marie and Meghan to hit back at the critics.



But despite the fact that, on occasion, the three of them appear on the blog together, often engaged in explicit sexual acts, Marie asserts that Meghan, and the doll fetish, belong to Scott.

‘Honestly, dolls never did appeal to me,’ says Marie. ‘I mostly use Meghan as a way to “play” with my partner. Just like I have certain things that he does for me that I like.’

She spends a lot of time in bikinis and lingerie. (Picture: Metro.co.uk)

‘I’ve read other couples will use this to simulate introducing another partner, without having the trouble a real person may bring,’ explains Scott. ‘It’s not something we do on a regular basis. It’s more of a special thing.’

But what are the long term implications of bringing sex dolls into relationships?

Head of service quality and clinical practice at Relate, a charity offering relationship counselling across the UK, and trained relationship counsellor and sex therapist, Ammanda Major notes that sex dolls could begin to feature more commonly in our relationship complaints.

‘What we see at Relate reflects societal trends,’ says Ammanda. ‘With sex dolls becoming increasingly common we’re likely to start seeing this come up as an issue in the counselling room.

‘Sex dolls are often designed to look highly sexual and larger than life. This could leave a partner feeling objectified and unable to compete.’

While Scott and Marie deny that jealousy has any part to play in their relationship, Scott has had trouble with it in the past.

‘One of my previous exes was furiously jealous of the doll,’ he recalls, though he’s quick to identify that this was reflective of underlying issues. ‘She turned out to be jealous in all aspects of our relationship so that was the problem.’


For Marie and Scott, Meghan is simply a sexual tool, and a way to fulfil Scott’s fantasies.

‘You won’t catch us having afternoon tea with her at the table,’ says Marie. ‘Just like any toy, it comes out when the time is right.’

The assumption that a realistic sex doll must have a greater role to play in their relationship, Marie believes, is part of a larger misconception about kinks and fetishes generally.

‘People are often mistaken about this. Just because you have something you like to play with, doesn’t mean it’s a part of the everyday.’

Scott notes that there is a distinction between a realistic sex doll and other toys. Meghan has several wigs, each capturing a different personality, and a collection of outfits, from modest sundresses to lace lingerie.

‘She’s a beautiful work of art and I treat her as such,’ he says. ‘She provided me a form of companionship where I may have normally felt alone.’

The sense of companionship is something that Andy Phelps, Product Specialist at Silicone Sex World, sees a lot of in his talks with customers.

One of the dolls on offer from Silicone Sex World. (Picture: Silicone Sex World)

Andy tells us: ‘Many do view the dolls as simply being sex dolls, but from my experience with dealing with customers day in day out, I know that there is a much bigger picture and many reasons as to why someone may decide to purchase.

‘We sold four to a company in Switzerland who simply wanted to use them as display mannequins. I speak to many customers who are lonely, or have social anxiety issues, in which case the dolls can be perfect to help with that.”


A sticking point in much of the conversation around sex dolls is the issue of consent.

With every feature, from the skin, facial expressions, real-hair wigs, names, and the sensation of the vagina, anus, and mouth, designed to be as realistic as possible, the most notable difference between the dolls and real women is that they come voiceless and without autonomy.

For Ammanda, this is a point of concern as ‘it may become challenging to switch back into a relationship with a real life partner if you’re used to a doll whose needs don’t need to be considered.’

When put to Marie and Scott, they both reverently deny that sex dolls could blur the lines of consent.

‘This is an object made out of silicone, with a metal frame,’ says Marie. ‘If you cannot differentiate between real life and fantasy, then I think that’s where the problem is.’

Scott adds: ‘If someone blurs the lines of consent, they’re a rapist. The doll has nothing to do with that.’

While Scott and Marie maintain a healthy relationship with each other, and with Meghan, Ammanda believes that it’s too early to tell for sure whether sex dolls and sex robots may have long term effects on our relationships.

‘There is very little research on the effect of sex dolls on relationships so while it’s important to consider the possible implications it’s too early to tell for sure,’ Ammanda says. ‘We’ve seen how technology and porn use can have both positive and negative effects on relationships and whilst we don’t know for certain as its such early days, it’s likely that the same may be true for sex dolls.”

With sex dolls and sex robots on the rise, with their features becoming increasingly realistic, and with the advances in AI becoming more commonplace, the future of these dolls and their effect on our relationships and general health is a cloudy one.

For now, we sit at the start of what’s sure to be a challenging, yet intriguing journey into a new wave of sexual expression. And as we take the next step into the unknown corners of human sexuality, it’s only right that we ask questions about consent and autonomy.

But for the critics, Marie has just one simple message: ‘Take the politics out of f***ing… unless you’re into that.’

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