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Using increasingly life-like materials for skin, adult-looking female sex dolls are trending.

Critics charge that dolls users objectify women and are prone to violence against them.

New research shows that sex dolls reduce users' sexual compulsivity and violent tendencies.

As adult-looking sex dolls and robots become more popular, more lifelike, and—thanks to artificial intelligence—more animated, a chorus of critics warns of horrible consequences:

Increased sexual violence against women

Objectification of women as passive playthings

Encouragement of sex crimes, especially against children

Destruction of real human relationships

Triggering or aggravating mental health problems in users

In a previous post, I discussed a study by English researchers who found that sex doll critics are mistaken on all counts. Their findings showed no significant mental health differences between sex doll owners and non-owners, and no evidence that, compared with non-owners, doll owners pose any greater sexual threat to women, children, themselves, or society.

Now, another report by German researchers has corroborated and extended those findings. The latest study shows that, far from posing dangers to women, children, themselves, or society, sex dolls can serve as safe, benign sexual substitutes for men who might otherwise commit sex crimes.

The researchers from the German Institute for Forensic Psychiatry recruited study participants from websites devoted to sex dolls. Who were they?

The vast majority identified as........

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