Review & FAQ: Tantaly Cecilia sex doll torso

Imagine a sitcom-like laugh track in the back­ground as my boyfriend and I unboxed Tantaly's Cecilia sex doll.

Rather, I lift­ed the box flaps, peeked inside, and imme­di­ate­ly closed it, look­ing away.

"Is that the…?"

Review & FAQ: Tantaly Cecilia sex doll torso 1

"Yeah."

"Okay, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool," he repeat­ed through pursed lips, nodding.

We sat in silence for a sol­id minute or two.

"Good talk."

We're not exact­ly prudes, but our ini­tial con­cerns about using a tor­so sex doll included:

  • Is the dis­em­bod­i­ment of a half sex doll going to feel weird?
  • How does one clean a sex doll dis­creet­ly, con­sid­er­ing nei­ther of us live alone?
  • Where are we going to store it?

I'll answer all of that and more in this sex doll review.

Overall, though, my boyfriend was shocked by how real­is­tic it felt to pen­e­trate the Tantaly Cecila sex doll. It was a major upgrade from a stro­ker to have a soft booty press­ing up against his hips.



How do the textures inside look and feel?

Even more sur­pris­ing: the doll's vagi­na was full of spher­oid tex­tures — or, as the Tantaly web­site called it, "elas­tic bead extru­sion mas­sage." Despite their uncan­ny appear­ance, the beads added asym­me­try for a more real­is­tic sen­sa­tion, like rip­pling vagi­nal rugae.

My boyfriend didn't know that they were spher­i­cal until we looked inside. The beads are quite squishy, seem­ing to blend in with the rest of the walls when touched.

The doll's less-textured back hole quite under­whelmed him. Granted, he doesn't like giv­ing anal sex IRL, either. "It goes to show how real­is­tic it is," he bantered.

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Tantaly Cecilia sex doll tunnel measurements

"How deep do the holes go?"

"Deep enough."

His penis is girthy but about aver­age length, fit­ting quite snug­ly in the doll. Its vagi­na mea­sures 6" (15.2 cm) by 0.4" (1.06 cm) wide, while the oth­er hole mea­sures 5" (12.7 cm).

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As an aside, I'm miffed about how Tantaly's Cecilia sex doll prod­uct page has mis­la­beled the cervix. I've said it before: THE CERVIX IS NOT MERELY THE END OF THE VAGINA. IT'S A STRUCTURE WITH A DISTINCT SHAPE AND EROGENOUS INNERVATION, AND IT DESERVES RESPECT.

And the outside of the sex doll?

Soft TPE com­pris­es the doll's entire body. It's super jig­gly and fun to spank, and the skin­like fin­ish is just right for grip­ping the hips while fuck­ing. Goosebumps and pores and labia folds are cap­tured in stun­ning detail, plus a pink gra­di­ent flush­es over the vulva.

Tantaly Cecilia size and weight

Overall, this sex doll mea­sures 12" by 12" (30 cm) on the hor­i­zon­tal plane and 33.8" (86 cm) cir­cum­fer­ence around the hips. Though it's not exact­ly com­pact, we could eas­i­ly stash it in a box near the back of a closet.

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Just be aware that the flesh­like con­sis­ten­cy also means it's not easy to car­ry. 19 pounds (9 kg) of TPE doesn't sound like a lot, but the weight can flop and shift.

While in use and rest­ing on a sur­face, though, it's quite sta­ble. Use it for mis­sion­ary and doggy-style.

Did the fact that it was a sex doll torso feel weird?

It wasn't as weird as my boyfriend thought it might be. He got over the Cecilia sex doll's lack of legs and upper body pret­ty quickly.

Since one's field of vision is less defined at the periph­er­als, it was easy to keep his focus cen­tered and look away from the edges of the thighs and waist. Even if that wasn't the case, it's quite easy to cov­er them up with, say, blan­kets and pillows.

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He did also note that there was an ini­tial pla­s­ticky smell from the fin­ish­ing pow­der. The more olfactory-oriented might find it off­putting, but it wasn't prob­lem­at­ic for us.

What else can you do with a realistic sex doll?

You're not lim­it­ed to fuck­ing a sex doll. Use it to prac­tice rope or impact play (again, I love to watch the "flesh" jiggle!).

Simulate a 3‑way with a sex doll and a part­ner — with­out the poten­tial hurt feel­ings of unicorn-hunting. A sex doll isn't a replace­ment for a part­ner or escort, but it can be a fun mid­dle ground for explor­ing group sex. Ménage à trois or ménage à moi — it's up to you.

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How to clean a sex doll properly

If I was celi­bate for the rest of my life, it's not kiss­ing or oral sex that I'd miss the most. More press­ing is a sex doll's inabil­i­ty to wash itself.

Proper mate­r­i­al care is a must with TPE. EDIT: the mate­r­i­al does leave an oily residue on sur­faces, which is a sign that it's more like­ly Cyberskin or a vari­a­tion of jel­ly. It's more porous than sil­i­cone, mean­ing that microbes can grow and fes­ter inside. So clean your sex doll thor­ough­ly and check for changes in mate­r­i­al smell or col­or before using it. And dis­con­tin­ue use if irri­ta­tion occurs.

Knowing ahead of time to use a bulb-style douche in the sex doll would have been help­ful. Without one, it's not exact­ly easy to sneak across the hall­way, bal­ance the sex doll under a tap, and get ade­quate pres­sure to clean inside. A douche is spe­cial­ized for shoot­ing water into the nooks and cran­nies. Rinse and repeat until the water runs clear. Then, squeeze and shake the water out.

Tantaly also sent us a moisture-absorbing stick for dry­ing the ori­fices' grooves — essen­tial for reduc­ing micro­bial growth. Stick it in, swiv­el it around, and take it out. Pat the out­side dry with a towel.


Tantaly's marketing leaves something to be desired

Their odd lin­guis­tic choic­es include the following:

  • "move faster and faster until you burst into a thou­sand pieces."
  • "re-engraving girl-like com­pact suction"
Content note: body image, fetishization

How they section off skin tones

…oh, and label­ing their two col­or swatch­es "fair" and "wheat."

"Maybe it's for the bet­ter that they didn't have more skin tones," said my boyfriend. "Could you imag­ine what they'd name the dark­er ones?"

Consider how objec­ti­fy­ing their mar­ket­ing is toward big bod­ies and the "wheat" skin tone — "BBW sex dolls" and "black sex dolls" are in whole sep­a­rate cat­e­gories. At best, it doesn't bode well for rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Black skin tones, and at worst, it's quite Othering.

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SEX TOYS AREN'T REPLACEMENTS FOR PEOPLE

The fol­low­ing "gem" also left a bad taste in my mouth.

However, you won’t get such sexy and fluffy ass­es like porn stars in your part­ner. So, you might have to set­tle for a below-par ass to enjoy for the rest of your life.

I mean… how would they know whether I have a shape­ly booty or not? And even though I'm the oppo­site of THICC, sexy porn stars still come in a vari­ety of shapes and sizes, con­trary to Tantaly's mar­ket­ing claim that "big­ger is always better."

Fuck off. We don't tol­er­ate body sham­ing in this house.

The irony isn't lost on me that plen­ty of the mod­els shown on their web­site are quite flat. They're beau­ti­ful women with beau­ti­ful breasts and bums, whom many would con­sid­er attrac­tive because there's beau­ty in many body types. Nevertheless, they're counter to Tantaly's mar­ket­ing copy. On the flip side, none of their so-called "big booty" dolls are tru­ly plus-sized.

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And sure, I'm self-proclaimed size roy­al­ty, but I've enjoyed dil­dos of a vari­ety of sizes — gar­gan­tu­an, big, aver­ageand dain­ty. People are just as enti­tled to their pref­er­ences as I am, and at the same time, I'm not a dick about dick size. I don't pro­claim my body type pref­er­ences to be the One True Way. Nor do I per­son­i­fy my toys nor pit part­ners up against inan­i­mate objects (unless they want me to).

It be like that sometimes.

Don't get me wrong — I under­stand why mar­ket­ing is like that under cap­i­tal­ism. But, unfor­tu­nate­ly, objec­ti­fy­ing lan­guage is one way for these heav­i­ly SEO'd web­sites to bring in cus­tomers. And misog­y­ny and fetishiza­tion are quite com­mon­place in the sex toy industry.

https://www.tumblr.com/heyepiphora/7537286645/on-pipedreams-response-to-a-question-about-their

I'm also not say­ing that dil­do mar­ket­ing copy tar­get­ed towards women is nev­er gross; the prob­lem­at­ic anthro­po­mor­phiza­tion of sex toys still happens.

However, you cer­tain­ly see a lot less of it in my favorite sex shops. They are my favorites for many good rea­sons, includ­ing atten­tion to inclu­sion and feel­ing good in the body you have — what­ev­er it may look like.

My verdict on the Tantaly Cecilia sex doll

TL;DR I'm feel­ing some kind of way. My boyfriend and I both like the Tantaly Cecilia sex doll a lot. It's super real­is­tic inside and out, it bounces like real flesh, and it's an easy way for sin­gles, cou­ples, and poly­cules alike to spice up sexy times.

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But this review is not a whole­heart­ed endorse­ment. I'm not Tantaly's tar­get audi­ence. I get that. At the same time, there's plen­ty of room for sex shops to bet­ter wel­come women, queer folks, and peo­ple of col­or. It's all about who holds pow­er and plea­sure. Contrary to the cis het­ero­nor­ma­tive nar­ra­tive, women can enjoy sex dolls, too. So let's not alien­ate them.

Take 10% off realistic sex dolls with my discount code

Use code “Smash10” when check­ing out at Tantaly.

Yes, Tantaly spon­sored this post. No, I won't down­play how I actu­al­ly feel.

4 Responses

  1. D. Dyer says:

    As I have become more curi­ous about sex dolls I have read quite a few reviews of them from the per­spec­tive of women and peo­ple with vagi­nas but yours is the first to address some of the real­ly prob­lem­at­ic mar­ket­ing and as a fat woman of col­or I very much appre­ci­ate it.

  2. Keisha says:

    Omg the shoe­horned in per­for­ma­tive out­rage is beyond cringe. Please spare us. Won’t be click­ing on your reviews again.

  1. June 16, 2021

    […] review of this sex doll is one of my favorite reviews. She gets the awk­ward ten­sion around the unobx­ing into words so […]

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