A child sex doll ordered by a Chiltern man was not meant for sexual gratification, but as a way for him to express his gender dysmorphia, a court has heard.
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The 53-year-old man paid $US400 online for the silicon doll, which he believed had the appearance of a 15 or 16-year-old girl and featured sexual organs, battery-powered sexual noises and a penetrable heat device.
The defence barrister told Wodonga County Court her client found the suggestion of using the doll for sexual purposes disgusting, but did plead guilty to importing child pornography.
“All of his life he has felt he was a female and has had to play the role of a male,” she said.
“It’s a way of acting out a childhood he never got to experience … He thought it would be like getting a larger version of a doll you could get in the shops.”
She said the man had suffered social anxiety in keeping his secret all his life until it was “shoehorned out” by police questioning.
Officers found no evidence of other child pornography offences when they searched his computer and phone.
Crown prosecutor Isaac Buckley said purchasing the sex doll was not a victimless crime.
“The court should not approach sentencing in the comfort that it was ordered by someone who did not intend for it to be used for that purpose,” he said.
“At the time it was ordered, it was done in the knowledge it had sexual organs.”
Judge Marilyn Harbison said the case was “one of the most extraordinary set of circumstances I’ve come across”.
She placed him on a recognisance release order to be of good behaviour for three years, saying she accepted he had always identified as female and was unlikely to reoffend.
“Child pornography is a dreadful thing, anything that encourages people to get involved with child pronography is also a dreadful thing … Such an item can normalise sexual behaviour with a child,” Judge Harbison said.
“It’s still a very seriously dangerous item for our community.”