this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
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168
Shein accused of selling childlike sex dolls in France (www.bbc.com)
submitted 1 day ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
34 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

France's consumer watchdog has reported the Asian fast fashion giant Shein to authorities for selling "sex dolls with a childlike appearance" on its website.

The Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said the online description and categorisation of the dolls "makes it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content".

Shein later told the BBC: "The products in question were immediately delisted as soon as we became aware of these serious issues."

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[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 33 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I can see how this whole topic can be kind of tricky. Not letting a free citizen have sex with a child like doll is kind of like arresting someone for thinking about committing a crime. I am generally of the belief that people should be free to do as they please as long as what they do doesn't impinge on other people's rights and such. But this is one of those border cases. Making it illegal without proof that it leads to crimes is questionable. But waiting for the proof means some children were abused, which is unacceptable as well.

Also, a guy could just buy one of those things that is lower torso and upper legs only. Nothing on it implies an age. So he can think of it as a child in his head. Yet making those illegal seems a stretch. Maybe it would have to be something like all sex dolls need to include enough parts to clearly distinguish them from children? But even that would be hard to truely define.

[–] rdri@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

I mean does it even look like creators are aiming to produce child like appearance? Full sized products would be more expensive to create and ship, and for customers - to buy and store.

You can easily buy a compact silicone alternative with human body features and... you'd be called a mutilation maniac?

[–] petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

I think there may be some social issues with a for-profit company being financially incentivized to promote and sell pedophilia to people.

How would you rather deal with this? A boycott? Do you have money in child sex doll manufacturing that you can withhold?

So he can think of it as a child in his head.

That's not really what this is about. You're trying to assess this on a personal freedom level when what we're talking about is a guy with a megaphone.

[–] pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

God, giving capitalism a financial incentive to advertise pedophilia is a new nightmare to me now, thanks

[–] petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 hours ago

You're welcome 🫡

[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I really don't understand what you are saying. I was in fact looking to open a discussion on a personal freedom angle. But the specific topic here was just what got me thinking about it. "A guy with a megaphone". I really have no idea what that is referring to.

I did suggest that all sex toy type products could maybe be required to have some dimension that clearly marks the item as representing an adult. That would be my suggestion. But I am still curious where people draw the line on personal freedom vs something that isn't proven to be harmful. Drugs and such are another good example. Should people be allowed to do whatever dtugs they want, as long as they don't drive or something. Alcohol actually follows that example. Guns do to. Lots of ways to frame the debate.

[–] petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 hours ago

The "guy" would be Shein.

Another neat way to frame the debate, to reach for the obvious example, is over swastikas. Of course, having a picture of a swastika tattooed on your arm isn't harming anyone, so why should we as a society have any distaste for it?

To answer "we shouldn't" is to cede ground to nazis. We do not, actually, have to tolerate their symbols.

The 4chan-nazi pipeline—yes, I'm still talking about pedophiles—if you're not aware, is a strategy by which people are drenched in ironic, nazi iconography, which results in them being more permissive of that kind of thing, and thus makes them much, much easier to be groomed by king-master klansman, or whatever they call themselves.

Being too permissive of something is socially harmful.

I agree, pedophiles are often villainized way too much. I would like them not to be so afraid of being found out that they never get therapy. If they're good people, I assume they want to be better as much as I want them to, even if it's difficult. None of this means we need to sell dolls to them.

Think about it this way: I watch pornography all the time. I am not any less likely to fuck a woman. How is the doll supposed to satiate them?

I realize that I sound very condescending right now, but I'm sincerely asking: this idea that a legal outlet is actually more helpful to them, where does this come from? Does it even make sense?

Whether you mean to or not, I think that you are ceding ground to people who want pedophilia to be more popular. They do exist: middle America loves child marriage. This is why I'm not engaging with the personal freedom angle; it's not really relevant.

Also, requiring child dolls to have some dimension by which they are clearly identifiable as adults is an effective ban on child dolls—it's the same thing.

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

The danger is in sexualizing children, it's not a normally occurring part of human sexuality, and if people can sexualize children easily that can lead to sexual abuse of actual children, and that's always harmful, seems like a 2=2 type of thing to say, but it is. Anyway, modern psychology shows that therapy for people who do sexualize children, who haven't actually abused any children in any way, are unlikely to ever abuse children, so the doll or child sex abuse images, or other 'outlets' of sexual behavior aren't shown to reduce the likelihood of sexual abuse, but therapy does. They don't need sex dolls, they need therapy. And then maybe a healthy sex life with an adult.

[–] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 12 points 11 hours ago

This feels a lot like the "violent video games cause violence" argument, but because it's about child abuse, people don't want to defend it.

Are there actually any studies supporting your comment? I briefly looked and couldn't find anything.

[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

See now that brings up a good question. Is there any evidence that shows that child like dolls lead to an increase in abuse of children? If so, then this is a bad example for the personal freedom vs percieved threat question. But I am not sure I have heard of any such evidence. Maybe it's just neutral. That said, whether it be this, or the right to do drugs in your own home, or the right to assisted suicide, or even the right to alcohol. The question I am asking is, where is the line between needing to have evidence versus having percieved evidence?

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

It's a question that will likely never be answered. Is it worse to have a child-like sex doll or a horny pedophile with no legal outlet?

[–] Icytrees@lemmy.today 21 points 1 day ago (3 children)

More information from Australia, if anyone's as morbidly curious as I was. Do not click unless you crave depression.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-26/child-sex-dolls-sold-on-temu-and-shein/105636720?future=true

[–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Very detailed article and covers well how the loopholes are being exploited.

But I can't help but wonder, why are they called child sex abuse dolls? No children are being abused in this case, so wouldn't what other news outlets use (just "child-like sex dolls" be more accurate? Otherwise wouldn't these be equivalent to calling violent video games "murder simulators"? Feels a bit like a slippery slope. Especially since the article ncludes dolls with adult features in the mix too.

[–] Icytrees@lemmy.today 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm talking (mostly) out of my ass here, but it's probably because calling them "child sex dolls" might be seen to normalize the concept of sex with children. Since AI child porn is illegal, makes sense that a child sex doll is, too.

edit: Looks like there's a thing in Australian law where they are legally considered sexual abuse material.

[–] ICCrawler@lemmy.world -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's being over the top in the way it's saying "sexualizing childeren = bad," but at the same time, yes, it is bad. So, eh. It does give the article a sort of strongly PC coded vibe. I'm sure it was written by a leftist the right would call woke. Take what you will from it, despite the language used, the article is still sound.

[–] Gold_E_Lox@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

it is because in australia, materials used for sexual gratification involving minors is called child sex abuse material.

is that woke now? anti pedophilia messaging is woke now?

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago

This is the same country that tried to ban small chested adult women from adult films and were going to have a government "breast inspector".

Billionaires have private sex islands. I can't be arsed to care about the rights of a pile of silicone.

[–] ICCrawler@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Can it, dude, I'm not on that side of the political aisle. I'm not in Australia and the knowledge it had to do with that was not known to me nor posted here at that time. But you bet the right would still call it woke, there's a reason they're hiding the epstein files. This isn't some gotcha, you're just a wanna-be hater.

[–] ICCrawler@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Oh boy, I am already clinically depressed, what's there to lose?! Jokes aside, reading through the article and how these companies get away with selling the product piece meal or relabeling it reminds me of how gas stations used to sell crack pipes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/07/12/a-rose-in-a-glass-by-any-other-name-is-a-crack-pipe/

No matter the era and no matter the addiction, someone is trying to make a legal buck off it if they can.

[–] Icytrees@lemmy.today 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

With manufacturing becoming more decentralized it's only a matter of time before people can print their own.

It'll probably be used as a reason to license and monitor 3D printers.

[–] ICCrawler@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I got where you're going with that, but presently, 3D printers were, to my knowledge, in the business of printing hard objects. So I double checked and looked it up. Turns out silicon printing does exist, but it's currently pretty small-scale stuff. Gaskets and the like. But in the process I bumped into a different idea. 3D print the molds used to shape the silicon, then just fill them.

So yeah, you're probably right.

[–] Icytrees@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago

This is a good point. I used to share a studio with an entrepreneur who 3D scanned people's parts to make home printed molds for custom candles.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Some of these look not unlike anime characters posted in various lemmy subs.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago

people actually look at those posts?

[–] Icytrees@lemmy.today 9 points 1 day ago

Don't get me started on paedo bait anime.

I used to help moderate a porn app, had to leave for my own sanity. Got hard to tell if I was blocking legit perverts or people so isolated and brain rotted they forgot what an adult woman was supposed to look like. Too much darkness either way.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

My first two weeks of lemmy were spent stomping out the little girl anime and furry porn. I would never admit to using this site in IRL. Imagine someone checking it out on my recommendation.

"So, uh, what's your favorite part of lemmy? The little girls kissing or the humanoid wolves with giant dongs?"

[–] tuff_wizard@aussie.zone 2 points 11 hours ago

Yeah if you start them on the right server they would have to go looking for the weird stuff… at that point you just say “wow that never came up for me, it must be the algorithm “

[–] Icytrees@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Where did you find these wolves? So I can avoid them.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Assuming that the instance is still up, probably somewhere in:

https://lemmyverse.net/communities?query=yiff&nsfw=true

[–] Icytrees@lemmy.today 2 points 7 hours ago

Thank you but I regret everything. But thank you.

[–] DarkSideOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 5 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I would investigate the buyers of such product.

[–] rdri@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Is there actual correlation between buyers of such products and real child abusers?

[–] Quexotic 6 points 1 day ago

Ice seen screenshots of what look like real doll children on Amazon. You can be damn sure I won't be searching it up to give you examples.

[–] 6nk06@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago

Don't kink-shame the French politicians who have needs too.