Legend has it that the world's first sex dolls were created in the 16th century. Documented in Sex Dolls at Sea, author Bo Ruberg explores the origin story of the sex doll, investigating its cultural implications and considering who has been marginalised and privileged in the narrative.
Ruberg examines the generally accepted story that the first sex dolls were dames de voyage, rudimentary figures made of cloth and leather scraps by European sailors on long, lonely ocean voyages in centuries past. In search of supporting evidence for the lonesome sailor sex doll theory, Ruberg uncovers the real history of the sex doll. The earliest commercial sex dolls were not the dames de voyage but the femmes en caoutchouc: “women” made of inflatable vulcanised rubber, beginning in the late 19th century.
Interrogating the sailor sex doll origin story, Ruberg finds beneath the surface a web of issues relating to gender, sexuality, race, and colonialism. What has been lost in the history of the sex doll and other sex tech, Ruberg tells us, are the stories of the sex workers, women, queer people, and people of colour whose lives have been bound up with these technologies.