With few formal options, most sex-doll owners are falling back on their communities to help them plan for after their death. A New Jersey-based iDollator, who goes by the sobriquet TJ Foxx, has had to confront death more than he’d like. His (human) wife, who has battled various health conditions throughout their marriage, has been dealing with complications from past cancer treatments and is often in and out of the hospital. To cope, both emotionally and sexually, Foxx purchased his first doll, a fiery brunette with piercing green eyes and bold eyebrows called Tasha, whom he refers to as his “silicone soulmate.”

“This isn’t really a toy, a sex toy,” he says. “This is something a lot more than that… She’s crazy about me, and I’m crazy about her.”

Like Davecat, Foxx has given Tasha and his three other dolls thought-out personalities. Tasha, for example, is a self-proclaimed “fashionista” who blogs about clothes and occasionally models. “I’d say she’s all the best qualities of me, my wife, and maybe some girlfriends I had,” he says. “And just over the years, people I’ve known that are close to me, the things that make me happy about them, they’re all in there.”

She embodies the good Foxx searches for during his darkest times and, though she could never truly replace his wife, he said he’d depend on Tasha if his wife died. “Right now, Tasha is kind of a security blanket,” he says. “She’s there to keep me company. All I have to do is have her there sitting next to me.”

His wife supports his interest, only asking that he doesn’t disclose the dolls’ existence to their two grown children—an easy trade-off for all the benefits Foxx receives, he says. But hiding his dolls from his kids wouldn’t be possible if he and his wife didn’t have a concrete plan in case one, or both, of them die. “We’ve had enough close calls where my wife is very practical,” he says.

He’s listed the dolls in his estate, along with the phone numbers of some of his closest friends, who are also iDollators he met in online doll forums and at doll conventions. In case of death, those confidants will come to the house, clear everything out before the kids might stumble across them, and “make sure the girls are well-cared for.”

Foxx, as well as many others in the doll community, are often willing to open their homes and serve as the designated caregivers for their friends’ dolls. But taking in a doll isn’t a responsibility they take lightly.

“Dying, in so many ways, is about losing control.”

In Arizona, a woman who goes by the moniker Hollywu lives with her “placebo partner,” Rari, a bubbly doll whose Twitter feed is filled with empowering messages. Hollywu first got Rari in 2016 after seeing Marwencol, a documentary about a man named Mark Hogancamp who coped with the aftermath of a traumatic physical assault by creating his own 1:6-scale world using dolls. As someone with bipolar disorder, decades of suicidal ideation, and social anxiety, Hollywu says she was inspired to follow Hogancamp’s lead and create a synthetic reality of her own, a decision she feels improved her happiness and health.

“[Rari] just added a totally different dimension to my life… She’s really helped me in a lot of ways,” Hollywu says. “To be able to wake up next to her, come home to her, it’s been great… There’s an old saying, ‘Be with somebody who makes you a better person.’ I think that can apply to synthetic or organic.”

Now, she and Rari have synthetic children that they “raise” alongside their two doll roommates, Akiko and Sadako, who also have synthetic kids of their own. In total, Hollywu estimates she has 15 babies and four or five toddlers living under her roof.

Hollywu says she’d never leave Rari behind without a strategic plan in place. Though they haven’t met in person, she says Foxx, whom she first interacted with through the doll forum, is “like family” and is the one person she trusts whole-heartedly with caring for Rari. “He would take good care of her,” she says.

Still, Hollywu acknowledges that collecting upward of 20 dolls from someone can be a daunting commitment, especially for Foxx, who currently keeps his stored in the basement. “I don’t want somebody to have to feel like, ‘You’re dead, and now I have to hold onto all your stuff.’ That’s not cool,” she says, adding that she’d trust Foxx to find good homes for the babies and, if necessary, Akiko and Sadako.

Inevitably, the designated caregivers will die too. When that day comes, the iDollators I spoke with hope their dolls will be passed on to people with similar outlooks. That is to say, people who view dolls as more than just sex toys.