Posters advertising sex doll brothel plastered in downtown Vancouver

Bizarre new brothel coming to Vancouver Lifelike sex dolls at your service: A bizarre new brothel is coming to Vancouver. Here's why it's stirring controversy.

Posters have gone up in downtown Vancouver advertising the city’s “first sex doll brothel.”

The company behind Bella Dolls says its new service that matches real men with six fake silicone women is already popular – despite concerns from critics, and regulators.

“There are tons of interested clients and interested customers,” said Ally Chan, who said she does PR for Bella Dolls. “Our emails are blowing up and our prebookings are almost full.”

On its website, Bella Dolls promises “an experience like no other, where you are in complete control. Forget the restrictions and limitations that comes with a real partner and unleash with Belladolls.”

In Vancouver, Bella Dolls offers a 30 minute session for $90, $120 for an hour, and $240 for two hours with silicone mannequins with names like "Naomi," "Rachel" and "Violet."

Those dolls are grossly disproportionate to the real female body, and the service literally reduces women to objects, said Vancouver Rape Relief’s Maria Paredes.

“At the end of the day, men can look at women as things without feelings that can be used and reused however they please,” Paredes said.

Some of the dolls’ attributes also require some imagination: one doll is described as a “stripper entertainer” – another is described as a “intimate companion available for a dinner escort.”

UBC economist Marina Adshade, who has studied the potential for sex robots to change our society, said technology simply hadn’t advanced that far.

“These are not robots, they’re just really fancy dolls,” she said. “I liked that one of them is free for dinner dates. I’m not sure where you take them.”

What they are doing likely sidesteps the criminal law, she said.

“If you look at our prostitution laws they apply to buying sex from a person. I don’t think the prostitution laws apply here,” Adshade said.

Bella Dolls claims to be the first such service in Western Canada. In Toronto, a controversial similar service called Aura Dolls was scheduled to open this month in North York before officials determined it contravened a bylaw against adult entertainment in the neighbourhood.

And another Toronto-based company, KinkySdollS, that rents dolls in advance of a purchase plans to open a franchise in Houston, Texas. Prices range from $2,500 to over $10,000 for a sex doll with “artificial intelligence.”

That experience in Toronto could be one reason the company doesn’t appear to have engaged with regulations. There was no city business licence when CTV News checked, and there’s no corporation registered either provincially or federally.

Vancouver Coastal Health, which inspects spas, restaurants and other facilities for cleanliness and health violations, has never inspected its facility.

Chan said the company is working that out and the paperwork should be filed by Nov. 1, when it opens.

“Our client’s health, safety and privacy are Bella Dolls’s main priorities,” the site says. “To meet our extremely high standards, every Bella Doll is thoroughly sanitized with industry approved products by highly trained personnel before each use.”

It’s not clear where this service might be located – the site references just the “Bella Dolls mansion.”

The mansion is “not necessarily a real mansion” says Chan. “We call it a mansion to sound more attractive,” she said, saying the location wouldn’t be disclosed.

The service advertises privacy, with different entrances and exits for customers.

Chan said the company doesn’t encourage any violence with the dolls, but lets customers do what they want.

“We’re not supporting it but we’re also not saying that you can’t use this service because you’re aggressive. At the end of the day they are just dolls,” she said.