San Diego-based photographer Robert Benson may have made a career shooting interior design editorials and glossy portraits, but on his off-hours he’s drawn to the weird and off-kilter. Between paying jobs, he has traveled to Texas, Idaho and Oregon to shoot the trophy rooms of hard-core hunters, and in Southern California he documented surreal homes covered with circus tents while they are sprayed for termites.
It’s no surprise, then, that when he discovered that the largest sex doll factory in America was practically in his backyard, he had to go photograph it.
The factory for Abyss Creations, the creators of the high-end, startlingly lifelike RealDolls, is located in a nondescript building in a business district of San Marcos, California. Though the exterior bares no sign, once you’re inside it’s hard to mistake the business for anything else: a showroom featuring the $5,000-and-up customizable sex dolls opens up to a split-level factory where the dolls are made. Last year, Benson spent a day on the factory floor documenting the surreal environment, precise process, and surprising level of craftsmanship that goes into making the “Rolls Royce of sex dolls.”
“Everything was unusual,” says Benson. “There were boxes of eyeballs and different body parts and shelves of penises.” Factory workers create the doll bodies by pouring silicon into one large mold, then assemble the other features–head, breasts, faces–at different workstations. In one of Benson’s photos, doll heads are lined up on the floor drying after their faces had been painted on by the makeup artists on staff. Elsewhere in the factory, a man touches up a headless body hanging from the ceiling by a chain. These scenes are made all the more eerie because of how realistic the dolls look.
“I would get inches away from one of these dolls and they are amazingly lifelike,” says Benson, “If they suddenly sprang to life it wouldn’t be much of a stretch.”
For the seasoned factory workers, of course, the novelty wore off years ago. The place operates just like any other factory or workplace, Benson says, with people going about their jobs and talking about sports and the weather. “To them, their surroundings aren’t weird or unusual,” he says. Case in point: One of Benson’s photos depicts the company’s founder, Matt McMullen, toiling away at his desk, seemingly unfazed by four naked dolls sprawled out on the shelf above him.
All Photos: Robert Benson