Blow-Up Dolls Are Keeping This TV Show's Sex Scenes as Titillating as Ever

The global COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on everyone. People have been forced to work and think outside of the box when it comes to what happens on set. When you have an airborne illness that's highly contagious it can make life pretty hard. 

But what if your life involves love triangles, backstabbing, and lots of getting...intimate. 

You're either Charlie Sheen or you're living inside of a Soap Opera. 

All Soaps had to shut down production due to the coronavirus, but one Soap is coming back next week. And what's its strategy for filming those all-important...lovemaking scenes? 

They're going to use sex dolls. 

Blow-Up Dolls Are Keeping This TV Show's Sex Scenes as Titillating as Ever

The Bold and The Beautiful returns to production this week in Los Angeles and they were very worried about how to move forward. “We were cutting all of the kisses, and the shows weren’t the same,” says Bradley Bell, executive producer and head writer of the Emmy Award-winning CBS show.

They spoke with Forbes, detailing how they planned to keep the show sexy while maintaining social distance. 

There will still be kissing, but a forced perspective camera trick will make the actors look much closer than they really are, sort of like the ones used in the Lord of the Rings films. 

That, coupled with creative editing, will keep the germs at bay. 

“They'll look like they’re nose to nose, in the throes of passion,” Bell says. “But they'll be shooting scenes all by themselves.”

When it comes to boning down, the humans go out the windows and the sex dolls get unwrapped from their boxes. 

“We have some life-like blow-up dolls that have been sitting around here for the past 15 years, that we’ve used for various other stories — (like) when people were presumed dead,” says Bell. “We’re dusting off the dolls and putting new wigs and make-up on them and they'll be featured in love scenes." 

These solutions, along with mask-wearing, testing, isolation, and even actors' spouses working as stand-ins, all have enabled the show to come back from their hiatus, which began March 13th. 

“I’m in the parking lot now, reviewing protocols,” said Bell from the network’s Television City production facility in Los Angeles. “We plan to get our first shots tomorrow, and Thursday and Friday we’ll roll into full production. Of course, if there are any red flags or concerns, we’ll stop. Because safety is first.”

Safety is going to be the most important thing moving forward. 

While there were a ton of funny bits in here, and some rubber bits, I like the idea of producers putting their cast and crew first to make sure everyone can continue working. I hope more of Hollywood takes this under advisement and comes out ready and with a plan on the other side. 

And I just might tune in to see if I can spot these sex dolls. 

I mean, there's nothing else on TV!