Vern Buchanan files bill that would ban child sex dolls

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Rep. Vern Buchanan filed legislation in Congress to ban child sex dolls nationwide.

The Sarasota Republican said he will reintroduce the Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots Act (CREEPER Act). The bill will be the same as legislation (HR 4655) passed by the House in 2018 but which died in the Senate. The bill passed on a voice vote with Buchanan’s support at the time (though he was not among the co-sponsors).

Buchanan said he felt the need to reintroduce the legislation after a report that a child sex doll was being sold on the Internet that was modeled off of a girl in Miami. The child’s mother spoke to a Miami NBC affiliate last week about the need to ban dolls in the U.S.

“This is sickening and cannot be allowed to continue,” said Buchanan, who co-chairs Florida’s Legislative Delegation. “We need to enact a national ban on these obscene products that are known to encourage pedophilia and the exploitation of children.”

That’s likely not the only reason for Buchanan’s interest in the legislation.

Florida passed a similar child sex doll ban in 2019, but one lawmaker ended up on record in opposition, state Rep. Margaret Good. The Sarasota Democrat, who is challenging Buchanan for his seat in Congress, said through a campaign statement that she changed her vote on the bill to a no erroneously. She initially supported the bill, but said she changed her vote on it when she was trying change a vote on a similarly numbered higher education bill.

“The vote change was made in error,” said Good campaign manager Alex Koren.

Nevertheless, the revelation a year later that she cast the only vote in Florida against banning child sex dolls drew sharp criticism from political opponents.

Florida is one of only three states, along with Kentucky and Tennessee that has specifically banned child-like sex dolls.  The Florida statute was spearheaded by Sen. Lauren Book, a Plantation Democrat.

Now Buchanan said he plans to champion the legislation at the federal level.

If he can’t pass it in the remaining weeks of this year, he will reintroduce it again in the 2021 Session of Congress. That presumes he beats Good in November.

Notably, there was opposition to the legislation as it made its way through the Florida Legislature. The Prostasia Foundation, a child sexual abuse prevention group, argued the use of such prosthetic sex dolls by pedophiles was far preferable to the actual rape and molestation of children.

But supporters argue feeding the banal appetites of pedophiles escalates their sexual interest in children.

“Just as viewing child pornography lowers the inhibitions of child predators, so do these child-like sex dolls that have no place in the state of Florida,” Book argued in the Senate.

Buchanan said the effort to stop the sale of the dolls goes hand-in-hand with work he has done to combat human sex trafficking. He has crafted legislation with Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Boca Raton Democrat, to fight the practice, while working closely with advocates at Sarasota-based Selah Freedom on the issue.