NEWSWEEK – A Democratic state senator from Kentucky has suggested providing “child sex dolls” to pedophiles in a bid to reduce the chance of them abusing children.
Speaking at the Kentucky General Assembly on Thursday, Senator Karen Berg said there was research suggesting the dolls “actually decrease their proclivity to go out and attack children.”
The remarks sparked an angry backlash on social media with one prominent commentator accusing Berg of “sexualizing kids and defending pedophiles.”
There is an ongoing debate involving academics and politicians over whether child sex dolls could help prevent assaults on children or whether they act as a gateway for potential abusers.
Republican Representative Dan Donovan has twice introduced legislation in the House that would make the “importation or transportation of child sex dolls” illegal, while others have called for an outright ban.
During her address in the Kentucky General Assembly, Berg said: “I was completely unfamiliar with child sex dolls, so I had of course to Google it last night…
“But there are what they call ‘MAPS,’ Minor Attracted Persons and the limited amount of research that’s done on these dolls suggests that they actually, for people who are attracted to minors, that these dolls actually decrease their proclivity to go out and attack children.
“That it actually gives them a release that makes them less likely to go outside of their home and what was interesting is the research did not support the same conclusions for people who were adult attracted using dolls.”
Footage of Berg’s remarks was shared on X, formerly Twitter, by Robby Starbuck, a conservative-leaning activist who produced the Elon Musk-endorsed documentary The War on Children …
