Police mistake sex doll for corpse in South Korea park

Police investigating a potential murder scene in a temple garden in South Korea got a shock when they discovered the "dead body" was actually an inflatable doll, it's reported.

Following a tip-off from a witness picnicking nearby with his family, some 50 officers arrived at the scene in Gyeonggi Province, near the capital Seoul, Tong-a Ilbo newspaper says. There appeared to be a dead female body near a waterway, wearing stockings and tied up with denim fabric and blue tape. But trepidation turned to relief when they examined the "corpse" and realised it was an inflatable sex doll - albeit a very realistic one. "The skin texture [was so] similar to that of an actual person that when the policeman touched it he mistook it for a human body," a police source says.

Officials say the doll in question is imported from Japan and sells in adult stores - but seems to be popping up in brothels as well. The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reports on the ambiguities surrounding "doll experience" rooms for rent, saying it isn't clear if they violate South Korea's anti-prostitution laws. Since then, the issue has become even murkier, as sex robots have appeared on the market. The Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative says animatronic rent-a-doll "escort" services are especially popular in Japan and South Korea.

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