Tired of spending money on real women, Beijing single men can finally turn to a cost-effective alternative: sex dolls available to rent on a per-use basis.
For 298 yuan ($45), customers can spend a night with sex doll company Touch's "shared girlfriend;" a week will cost 1,298 yuan (almost $200), but only after putting down an 8,000 yuan ($1,220) deposit.
Initially offered only in Beijing, users can search for the girl of their dreams by using the company's app to scroll through a set of customizations including outfits, props, as well as eye and skin color.
Touch offers five distinct international models that include "Greek bikini model," "US Wonder Woman," "Korean housewife," "Russian teenager," and the very specific "Hong Kong car race cheerleader."
Because sharing a girlfriend is a lot more complicated than sharing an openly-ridden bicycle, Touch assures its customers that it adheres to high hygiene standards by changing, for the lack of another word, a replaceable "box."
"The dolls' lower parts are changed for every customer," read the instructions on the company app, the Global Times snappily reported. "Please remove the lower parts before returning. After the lower parts are cleaned, the doll can be used repeatedly."
"Used repeatedly" can also describe the way the dolls were received as they were promoted in Beijing, appearing on the city's subway and in a public square.
As numerous photos show, people couldn't help but keep touching the sex dolls as they sat quietly still, the fingers of their hands unnaturally splayed like a fish appendage.
China's shared economy has become overheated due to massive financial investing, but some recent share ventures have been less concerned with providing a viable service than with shameless self-promotion.
Beijing recently saw the unveiling of a stool-sharing venture that saw many of its offerings stolen on the first day of operations. The capital has also seen the opening of the "world's first staffless coffee shop," a venture that can be accurately described as two vending machines and a table.
While they've already achieved some market penetration, sex dolls may achieve mainstream appeal as a unique problem looming in China's near future.
China's population has a severe gender imbalance, due to which many of the country's boys won't be able to find a woman to find comfort with.
Chinese men will outnumber women by 15 million by 2020, and 30 million by 2050. By 2027, the number of unmarried Chinese men will be twice that of unmarried Chinese women. To solve this problem, some Chinese economists have recommended authorities begin permitting polygamy while others have recommended the country relax its visa requirements in order to allow Chinese men to marry foreign women.
Another growing issue is the increasing cost of marriage in China that Chinese men have agreed to pay — up to a point. A recent study says a man wishing to marry a Beijing bride may be expected to pay an average RMB 200,000 (USD 29,000) cash gift up front, the highest in China.
As strange as it may be now, sex dolls may possibly signal a new trend in Chinese society, one that we'll be seeing more of, if but fleetingly.
Touch, which uses a vaguely-offensive pun for its Chinese name (他取), offers its customers a discrete "door-to-door" service that looks like this for the time being:
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Twitter: @Sinopath
E-mail: charlesliu1@qq.com