Oh, wacky Japan!

This does not surprise me coming from the country that sells used female panties in vending machines.

depends on what "services" are included. . .

Look up Japanese Host or Hostess Clubs. Similar deal.

It's exactly what escort services are supposed to be (when they are not covers for prostitution). People rent an escort because they are embarrased not to have a date, Nothing very new.

I'd hire a doll, if I had the money. Hell, so-called real relationships are that anyway; most are based upon money, having nothing to do with real emotion or true love--at least, that is what I have experienced from women, all they want you for is money, and position, and if you don't have it, or run out of it, they, meaning women, will run out...on you. Sadly, renting a doll seems less costly to one's soul, emotions, mental stability, and bank account.

Sounds like Uber Critic has some bad taste in women... I get what he's saying, but damn, to lump an entire gender into one uncaring, shallow, and greedy category like that is pretty immature or he's just had one hell of a bad string of luck.

And I think it's pretty neat to offer services like this to people who need them (certainly better than the host/hostess clubs SadFan mentioned). I'm just wondering where this kind of deception would get shady with the law.

This is not so new. I learned about it in school a few years ago, where they gave us some articles to read.

This is spooky, none the less.

Jarvi: To be honest, I think most people are sociopaths, and thus...narcissists. I have no interest in men, so I don't have that emotional experience of male deception entering a relationship, but I know males who are equally as uncaring toward women as women seem to be toward men ...but the shock for me, is the fact that I always thought women were different than that...at least majority? I am a different kind of a male--too sensitve, naive, and trusting for my own good...but I always thought that this truth would be something appreciated by women, as a good quality to find in a man--yet, it is all about money for most. If they have a pick between Tony Soprano, and some nice average guy somewhere, struggling to make it--they will pick Tony Soprano everytime. I have personally had it with all that--even my brother's wife just dumped him after they had financial problems, well, she stayed long enough so he could pay for her masters degree. This from a person who had nothing when they met...and a baby from another man. She had been abandoned by her own family,. The last girl who pulled this on me really crushed me. She said she was interested in marrying me, and having my kids. We were both having financial problems...and she moved to live with her family for a few months. See told me that she just needed some time to be alone...and confer with God, but she said that I was the only one for her, and if not me--there would be no one else. She said that I taught her how to love...and to want marriage and babies...all things she was not interested in before meeting me. I was very good to her, very kind, and fair. I had to find-out by reading her web page that she married someone else, who I didn't even know existed? She married him approximately, within a matter of days...either before, during, or after, she told me I was the only one for her, via mail and email. Her change of heart all seemed to be based upon money, nothing else...damn my loyalty, my kindness, and my attempts to help her, and to be her hero and rescue her, countless times. She just threw me under the bus, and moved on...with the first guy to come along with more money than me? Better to rent a Doll, and save your emotional sanity!!!

Amending a newspaper story about what is essentially an "escort" service and trying to link it into an existing sci-fi series when it is in fact NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH SCI-FI is an incredibly lame way for Sci-Fi Wire to add content to their news page, don't you think? At least the loony story about the Jedi in the UK's Tesco supermarket last week was amusing and slightly relevant to sci-fi, even though it was nothing more than fluff. Come on guys, you can do better than this.

Quatro has the right of it. This has nothing to do with Dolls! There is no mind alteration going on, thank heavens, the agency isn't secret, and the employees are just that -- employees, not slaves or indentured servants, who are free to leave if they so wish.

By calling them Dolls, you are both diluting the premise of the show and insulting these people's profession.

Perhaps somebody should tell Sci-Fi Wire that Jacqueline Susann's "Valley Of The Dolls" is nothing to do with sci-fi, memory implants, or technology either....just incase they were planning to hang some lame story on that too.

I admit that it would have been nice, on an occasion or two...mostly involving friend's weddings, to have a rent-a-date, but the reality of it is a bit too odd to make me actually pick up the phone and get a friend for hire. However, it did sort of tug on my heartstrings how the divorcee got a guy to pretend to be the kids uncle after they were being bullied and made fun of. Reminded me of that Gerard Butler film, Frankie.