Model Claims She Was Turned Into a Sex Doll Without Her Permission

Israeli model Yael Cohen Aris claims that a sex doll company based in China created a doll in her likeness, using her features, name, and images from her social media accounts to market the life-size toy. 

The doll has the same dark hair, glasses, lip freckle, and name as her. The company, called Irontech, claims that this was all a coincidence. 

In a recent interview with UK’s ITV television network, Cohen Aris said that while she has no issues with the sex doll industry itself, discovering a doll that looked uncannily like her was jarring. 

“It’s not just about a beauty mark and my name, because sex dolls are still just dolls and there is a limit to how much they can look like a human being,” Cohen Aris told ITV’s This Morning show. “But once it was connected to my identity and image and videos, social media, there is no mistake here.”

She first posted publicly about the doll in July 2019, on Instagram. “I found out that a big company made a SEX DOLL about me WITHOUT my permission or me knowing. No it's not a joke, It's real,” she wrote in a photo caption of a post featuring images of the doll. “They even named the doll ‘Yael.’ I am still shocked. don't really know what to do... You probably saw on my stories that it came out on TV shows in my country, And It's time to share it with you guys too.” 

On Wednesday, she made another Instagram post: “Any of you might have heard about that already through the news, but I thought I should dedicate a post to those of you who didn’t know,” she wrote. “And I do that because I’m very helpless and I’d love your help. I want to bring this bizarre story to an end and solve this as soon as possible. Please, If you know anything or anyone who could maybe help me, let me know🙏🏽” 

Irontech did not immediately responded to requests for comment. 

Sex dolls made in the image of porn performers are their own market—lifelike, realistic dolls can be made of anyone. But in those cases, the performers give their consent, and the dolls become a marketing opportunity for them.

Irontech told the Daily Mail UK that its doll designs are unique and any similarities with real people are coincidental, but that it would rename the doll. Some links on the Irontech site still contain the name “Yael” in the URLs, but the dolls are called Ashley on the website.

“In order to avoid misunderstanding, we wont call this doll Yael anymore and ask all of our parters to stop using the name Yael,” a spokesperson for Irontech said. “We will inform all the partners to stop using this name and also using any photos relating to her.”