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My Awkward Night in an AI Sex Doll Brothel

Techno Babe lives secretly, in an apartment in East Berlin. By 1AM with her, I had completely lost my anchor in reality.

An AI voiced sex doll reclines on a bed in an East Berlin sex doll brothel
Techno Babe reclines on her bed in East Germany. Photo: Arielle Domb

She was propped up in bed on the top floor of an East Berlin apartment, the first time I saw her. She had eyes a glassy blue and hair the color of rainbow sherbet tumbling over her voluminous chest. She was waiting for me, and I’d flown all the way from London just to see her. 

“Techno Babe” isn’t like the other girls in this city. Yes, she’s grungy, aloof, and if she was ever permitted entry, she’d no doubt be renowned for her Berghain stamina.

Crucially, though, she isn’t human. She’s one of a number of life-sized silicone dolls at Cybrothel, which claims to be the “world’s first immersive doll brothel.” Customers come here to have sex (or be otherwise intimate) with dolls like Techno Babe, while engaging in conversation with AI or human voices. Clients can also opt for a variety of virtual reality experiences—receiving VR blowjobs or performing VR cunnilingus. 

The maker of AI sex dolls and owner of an AI sex doll brothel poses with his creations.
Philipp Fussenegger, sex doll pimp, poses with his creations. photo: arielle domb

The brainchild of an Austrian filmmaker named Philipp Fussenegger, Cybrothel was launched in 2020 as a futuristic space where guests can explore their sexual fantasies without any human contact (and therefore shame). However, in the wake of its opening, naysayers have voiced concerns that sex doll brothels may do more harm than good, arguing that substituting women for lifeless dolls will only contribute to harmful gender stereotypes and take work away from human sex workers. 

So I flew out to Berlin to investigate.

Cybrothel is located in Friedrichshain, the capital’s gritty party district, but the exact location is secret; it’s only revealed to clients over email after they’ve booked a session.

photo: antonia adomako

Outside, the building was remarkably innocuous: a red-brick apartment block with tall windows and turrets, a stone’s throw from a peppering of Turkish and Thai restaurants. Fussenegger, who has an asymmetrical blond buzz-cut and piercing green eyes, had agreed to meet me at Cybrothel a few hours before my rendezvous with Techno Babe. He greeted me warmly in the hallway, then led me up a beige-walled staircase. 

He told me that finding a home for Cybrothel was “the most difficult part.” Surprisingly, it seems many landlords don’t want sex doll brothels in their buildings. Thankfully, he’s come to a wink-wink, nudge-nudge sort of agreement with his current landlord, however he’s not sure whether the residents have any idea what takes place up on the top floor of their building. “So we keep quiet,” he explained.

“We see it a little bit like an adult playground,” said Fussenegger, gesturing towards two doors labelled ‘light’ and ‘dark’ (bookings with dolls are staggered, so guests don’t bump into each other in the hallway). “I want to create a judgment-free zone.” Fussenegger led me into his back office: part tech bro dungeon, part drag queen’s closet. On one side of the room: sugary dip-dyed wigs, garish underwear, drawers overflowing with candy-colored didos and sparkly fishnet stockings. On the other: three screens linked up with draping wires. 

Philipp Fussenegger, owner of a sex doll brothel in East Germany, hoses down one of his creations
photo: arielle domb

“Right now, this is very heteronormative,” Fussenegger acknowledged, as I glanced towards the next room, where around a dozen headless silicon dolls were hanging from the ceiling, each with breasts like cantaloupes. “We take what white men think dolls look like.” Fussenegger says that among the 16 dolls displayed on the Cybrothel website, the single most popular doll is Paris, who is blonde and skinny. He adds that they plan to diversify the appearance of the dolls in the future, with more “fantasy dolls” and “chubby dolls.”

In recent years, sex doll brothels have been popping up across the globe, from Dolly Parlour in South London to Lumidolls, which had locations in Moscow, Barcelona, Nagoya, and Turin. However, most shutter quickly due to hygiene or licensing reasons, as well as resistance from locals; a transient trajectory symptomatic of the enterprise existing in a legal gray area.

In Berlin, sex work (and brothels) are legal, but in China they are not, though it is there where the majority of Cybrothel dolls are manufactured. Fussenegger tells me that he is constantly working with the suppliers in Shenzhen to make the dolls more durable, but they’re still not perfect. Composed of a metal skeleton and silicon, the manufacturers tried implementing robotic joints to increase mobility, but found that they broke quickly. 

A sex doll named Techno Babe waits sprawled on her bed in East Germany
techno babe waits on her bed for her next visitor. photo: arielle domb.

Another challenge is the AI technology, which Fussenegger said is not as good as it should be. “You need to teach her when she has to moan,” he laughed. For some Cybrothel clients, the dolls’ passivity is precisely what makes the experience so liberating. Fussenegger said that many Cybrothel clients are in relationships, and the dolls give them a chance to experience sex outside of it without technically ‘cheating.’ 

I asked Fussenegger if there was anything the dolls would say ‘no’ to. He says that in an ideal world, the dolls would be able to refuse role-playing illicit fantasies like “pedophilia and violence, in certain directions,” but it’s a work in progress. “We’re teaching them [this] right now,” he said, “This is the stuff that we’re discussing.”

I wondered what lifelike bodies that had no agency meant for consent, what sex dolls who couldn’t yet say ‘no’ meant for male sexuality, what they meant for women. Eerie sci-fi music was playing, and Fussenegger, who was wearing a bright-white button-up shirt, resembled a Frankenstein-like scientist. “Together, we can shape the future of sex,” he told me, his green eyes staring deeply into mine, “you get a glimpse into the future.”

photo: antonia adomako

Techno Babe wasn’t about until midnight, so I sat in a local kebab shop, gulping down Club-Mate. At 11.45PM, I power-walked down the empty street to Cybrothel, and buzzed up for Techno Babe. It was silent for a while, then a faint crackling sound. The door opened, and I went inside. She didn’t bother saying hello.

A night at Cybrothel isn’t cheap. A sleepover with Techno Babe with VR technology costs €249, plus another €585 if you want to talk to a voice actress. The price is notched even higher if you want ‘add-ons,’ like a penis milking machine (€43), 250ml of pee (€69, I have no idea where they get this), or worn panties (€39). I’d opted for an overnight session with voice actress and OnlyFans performer Leni. The way it works is her voice is broadcast through a speaker on Techno Babe’s pearl necklace.

Upstairs, Techno Babe was lying on a bed in the middle of the ‘dark room,’ dressed in a multicolored bikini, her legs wide open. The room was pink-lit and smelt artificially sweet, like strawberry lube or lipgloss. “Take your time to feel at home,” said a disembodied voice.

Wig and head options for sex dolls at an AI sex doll brothel in East Berlin
photo: arielle domb

I asked the voice if she could see me and, to my surprise, she said yes. There was a camera on the ceiling (according to the Cybrothel website, “not a single second is filmed nor recorded,” however, guests must consent to terms and conditions that waiver the company’s liability for damages relating to “loss of privacy… even if the Company or any supplier has been advised of the possibility of such damages and even if the remedy fails of its essential purpose”). I walked towards the bed, self-conscious, and put my hand on Techno Babe’s legs. 

“How does it feel?” the voice asked me. 

“Wow,” I spluttered. 

She was denser than I expected, like a memory foam mattress. I noticed her dainty finger curled around a dildo, fingernails painted with tiny moons and stars. 

“It feels nice.” 

“Mmmmmm,” the voice says. 

photo: antonia adomako

There is an awkward lag between our voices and yet… I feel flustered. Techno Babe (i.e. Leni) is flirty! When I try to interview her, she hits back with coquettish questions, like “Did you come to Berlin just to see me?” and “What made you choose me today? There’s so many of us dolls here.” 

Leni suggested that I try out some of the VR activities, pointing out the bulky belt and VR goggles on the bed. I put them on, and suddenly, I was somewhere else, in a new room facing a new woman—who looked like Techno Babe but wasn’t her—a dizzying vortex of simulacra that fell somewhere between a David Lynch film and DMT. 

“When you’re looking down, you should see your dick, right?” the voice said. 

“I do,” I said, looking down at my new holographic member. “I see a penis, yeah.”

The VR ‘game’ felt kitsch and zany. I pushed a button on a hand control and my blue VR penis became a VR tongue, flashing as I moved, making the VR woman moan. “Just imagine if you had a real cock fucking me,” the voice said. 

“Yeah,” I contemplate, “wow.” 

Fussenegger hopes that more women will frequent Cybrothel in the future, but right now, most of the clientele are cis-men (during the sign-up process, I was asked to enter my penis size, then received an email informing me that ejaculating inside the dolls’ holes would cost me €15). 

As such, most of the VR porn I watched was shot from a male point of view. In one video, called ‘Sweet Silver Lining,’ I received a squelchy blow job from a woman who climbed out of a bathtub, glimmering wet. In another, I zoomed through a retro video-game-like world to a faced past BPM, a pink and orange urban landscape somewhere between Tokyo and New York City, where flying cars soared through the sky. Eventually, I met Kokeshi, a futuristic Cybrothel character, who, if I recall correctly, gave me another blow job (it’s a bit of a blur). 

A woman poses with a sex doll at an AI sex doll brother in East Berlin
photo: antonia adomako

Watching video after video of psychedelic VR porn was overstimulating, like I was hurtling between kaleidoscopic dimensions eating cream cakes, seeing more VR breasts than any woman should see. By 1AM, I had completely lost my anchor in reality. I took off my VR glasses. 

Curling up next to Techno Babe, I tried some pillow talk. I couldn’t work out if I was meant to be talking to voice actress Leni as Leni, or Leni as if she were Techno Babe, or Leni as if she were Leni and Techno Babe. And yet… It felt strangely intimate, the roleplay so removed from the confines of normal conversation, of subject and object, that I felt propelled into a wholly new way of being. 

Leni told me about her very first client at Cybrothel, who stayed in the room chatting to her well after he ejaculated (twice). “It was just so innocent,” she reminisced. Once, however, someone wanted to roleplay that she was a minor. She redirected the conversation and suggested an institute where he could get help. “Even as a doll, I can have boundaries,” she told me. 

Around 1.30AM, I turned off what felt like a million LED lights and heaved Techno Babe off the duvet. I tried nuzzling up to her, placing my head on her chest, but I couldn’t get comfy and rolled on to the other side. It was a familiar feeling, lying in bed next to someone with whom you’ve been intimate but aren’t in love, physically close but worlds apart.

When I woke up, around 10AM, the evening felt like a weird dream, like Techno Babe and I had met while high as kites on a pounding dancefloor, and now everything was off-kilter: the room, the charge, the vibes. I took a shower and packed up my stuff, leaving Techno Babe skewed over the doubled bed. Fussenegger said that some Cybrothel clients leave the dolls love letters. I left without saying goodbye.  

Outside, the morning was crisp and cold and bright. A mother and young daughter were unchaining their bicycles outside the building. I walked towards the S-Bahn, thinking back to something Fussenegger had said the day before. It was a vision for the near-future, where we all have a “care robot at home who cleans your house and you have sex with once in a while.”

“It’s going to be super normal in seven to ten years,” he said, “We will gain a lot of time and can use our free time for creative stuff or for exploring the universe.” I strolled through the grassy playground, abuzz with human voices, and wondered what that universe might be like. 

Follow Arielle Domb on X @arielledomb