Can’t get enough: Europe’s first sex-doll brothel set to open third venue
What was once considered a taboo fetish reserved for illicit websites seems to have become a booming industry, as a sex-doll brothel is expanding in Europe, citing high demand for warm-skin beauties with artificial intelligence.
Less than 18 months after Europe’s first sex-robot brothel opened in Barcelona, and two months after the franchise expanded to Moscow, Lumidolls is set to launch its third venue in an undisclosed European city in just a few weeks.
Clients can make ‘appointments’ with their various life-size sex dolls for €80 an hour. Each doll costs about €5,000 to produce and has its own “personality and attributes.”
The sex-robot business is a relatively new, but rapidly expanding industry. Lumidolls claim to have an edge over the handful of other sex-doll brothels in England, Germany, Holland, Austria and France, by offering sexbots with “warm” skin, “mechanical movements,” and an “artificial brain.”
Business is booming at the Moscow location, thanks to the flock of World Cup fans that have descended on the city, according to Lumidolls co-founder and owner Sergi Prieto.
“We have a very big location in Moscow, it’s almost double what we have in Barcelona. Open 24-hours-a-day,” he said.
Priteo also claims the company is far from reaching its full potential, with plans to expand “all around the world” already underway. “Our dream would be all the major cities in the world,” he said.
As with any seedy sex industry, the clientele can have controversial requests. Prieto said he has been forced to turn away some customers who wished to act out rape fantasies. Lumidolls have also faced harsh criticism from their biggest competitors – prostitutes.
Following the inaugural opening, professional sex workers in Barcelona released a statement objecting to the brothel and pointed out that dolls cannot “listen to you or caress you, they do not comfort you or look at you. They do not give you their opinion or drink a glass of champagne with you.”
