For a growing cohort of Japanese men, women just aren't worth the effort. Instead, these guys have decided to entrust their affections to the increasingly realistic sex dolls manufactured by Orient Industry of Tokyo.

Orient Industry Co. now makes 80 dolls a month in an eastern Tokyo factory to nine designs that sell for between $850 and $5,500 each. The more expensive models are made of silicon and have 35 movable joints. While initially marketed to handicapped or deformed men, they are finding an audience among the merely awkward or socially introverted.

Orient Industry President Hideo Tsuchiya suggests that his product's success is due to the fact that "nowadays, women are sometimes more dominant than men in the real world, and they don't always pay attention to men."

Nearly all of the people who buy these dolls are single men and about 60 percent of them are over the age of 40, a company official said.

In a similar vein, pseudonymous 40-something doll owner "Ta Bo" points out that while "a human girl can cheat on you or betray you," the dolls will never do such a thing (due to being inanimate objects).

It's not a wife or girlfriend who await Ta-bo when he gets home to his apartment, but a row of dolls lined up neatly on his sofa.

Each has a name. Ta-Bo often watches television with his toys before bathing them, powdering them so that their skin feels more human, dressing them in lingerie and then taking them to bed.

Read the full story on Reuters.
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