A model appeared on ITV’s This Morning today to express her shock and anger after a company produced a sex doll that looks exactly like her.
Even more than that, she claims that they’ve ‘stolen her identity’ to create the doll.
It’s been made by a Chinese company and bears more than a passing resemblance to 25-year-old Yael Cohen Aris.
She claims that Doll Studio have used her likeness from social media and created a remarkably similar likeness of her, right down to a tiny beauty spot on her face.
The Israeli model says that the doll has also been given her name and the company have used footage from her Instagram account to promote it.
Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield returned to the show today and listened as Cohen explained how a follower tipped her off to the existence of the doll.
Philip said: “Legally we’re supposed to say it's alleged it looks like you, but it’s a bit blatant because they use photos and videos from your Instagram account to sell the thing. It’s even got your name!”
Holly added: “This really does come down to consent. This is your identity that’s being taken away and that’s a sex doll, so how does that feel seeing that?”
Yael went on to tell the hosts that she actually ‘doesn’t have anything against’ the company or the sex doll industry, it’s just that she wasn’t told anything about it.
She hasn’t consented to have her likeness used, and – to be honest – that’s just one of the things that’s weird about it.
She said: “It’s double wrong because it’s connected to my identity. It’s not just a doll that looks like me - they never hid the fact it’s a doll from me.”
Now, she’s taken legal advice and hopes to get the doll removed from sale rather than getting any money.
Yael explained: “It should get off the shelves. Maybe we can talk once that happens.
“I think learning a lesson is the best thing to come out of this story - just to try to bring a real conversation about our privacy if we want to share ourselves online.”
However, there is a ‘positive side’ to this, which is that Yael is at least trying to use the fact that someone wants to mimic her in this way as a compliment.
She said: “In everything that happens, I always try to see the bright side,
“They did it without my consent, they use it for commercial use, it’s a sex doll - all these crazy things - but it does mean people find me attractive, so I guess I chose to see it as flattering.
“Everybody likes to feel attractive. They just took me - a random girl from Israel.”
Topics: Weird, World News, Sex and Relationships
Tom Wood