A friend gave me a heads-up to watch a documentary on BBC America called “Love Me, Love My Doll.” It focuses on some men who have ‘fallen in love’ with their life-sized dolls. Let me say, this is nothing like “Lars and the Real Girl,” which has been ruined for me now.
After watching the documentary, I googled it. All I could find were other people who had watched it on TV and were somewhere on the spectrum between creeped-out and traumatized.
Watching it in our separate houses, my friend and I texted frantic messages back and forth, like “Oh god!” and “There is no hope.” One of the guys was really scary, because he owned some impressive firearms. If you’re reading this, scary firearms guy, we were only scared because you are so fucking AWESOME!
The men do seem to ‘love’ their dolls, who have names and personalities. The personalities are kind of compliant, if you know what I mean.
The documentary includes a visit to the factory where the dolls are made, and sold for $8,000 to $10,000. You can choose from several styles of pubic hair, and each doll comes with a “douche ball” for easy cleansing.
Had enough? Sorry. If you want to know more, here is an essay about it at Salon.com.
On a lighter note, but also tragic in its own way, in a scene where a guy applies lipstick to his beloved doll before sending her off to be repaired, I actually recognized the lipstick!!!! It was “Tabloid” by Prescriptives, a nice deep blue-red that has been discontinued.
“we were only scared because you are so fucking AWESOME!” — funny!!
That docco ought to be discontinued!
I believe that “douche ball” will now replace “douchebag” as the accepted vernacular.
If you think that was scary, have you seen the one about ‘real babies’ who are activated in a microwave. They too are made to order and are the most terrifying and tragic things I have ever seen. Will send over some links. Bleugh!!!!!!!!
eeouooooooh!
xx
^ yes, queen marie, i saw that. it creeped the heart and soul out of me. especially the woman who flew to the u.s. to collect her new “daughter” and found “her inappropriately flawed”, but struggled to send her back to the maker because she already had her “bonding time” with the doll. totally sick!
Ew. That is all.
Uh-oh, I don’t like the sound of microwave babies.
Oh, yeah. I saw that the last time they aired it. Some real fucked up guys on there and I STILL can’t get some of those images out of my mind. Mostly of the creepy looking dudes.
i guess some men are so socially inhibited, they see no other option but to turn to a plastic doll for company. i’m sort of glad pathetic men have some option. [and turning to a humanoid shaped object is not even as twisted as people who fall in love with objects]. but i guess realistically it has really disturbing implications about women and how they want a woman to behave. I haven’t seen the documentary but i read that some dolls sent for repair are in really bad states from the psychotic abusive stuff the men do – which could be transferred onto real women eventually?
i like how this post comes after the mouth-dropping and very entertaining antinatalist debate – esp. with the emergence of microwave babies.
Yes, it was meant to “lighten the tone” actually.
And Susan, I will NEVER forget any of those guys or their dolls. I may need a lobotomy.
Isnt it sad that these men are able to only relate to a plastic woman?? You have to wonder what trauma caused this to make them this insane.
Chicks are problematic, but this is a case gone too far!!!
Very sad. Tragic. But still icky.
Damn… I loved Lars and the Real Girl…. I don’t think I’d want to watch this….
Yep, both equally bizarre and fascinating. I saw the plastic woman one first and was most impressed by the work gone into creating them. That was until I saw the baby programme and sat in awe (creeped out) by the woman getting a baby doll made to look exactly like her grandson, along with realistic breathing chest! Stella- Mayfair I’m with you on the woman who travelled to the States (along with £2,000 of Kenzo baby clothes purchased in Harrods) to pick up her new arrival. Sick, sick!
I think I’d be too traumatized to watch this.
I still haven’t recovered from a piece i saw about people who like to be hung from their skin by metal hooks…
I watched to real babies doco and thought the world needs more of this tragic suburban campery!
Well, love is love, and when a man loves a doll someone should sing about it.
I once saw a documentary about these japanese love dolls. Over there they’re called “dutch wives” for some reason. Those who can’t afford or don’t want to buy a doll of their own can rent one instead, even for just an hour or two.
I wonder if there is a lot of jealousy and cheating involved in these dutch marriages. Do these men experience their friends flirting and trying to seduce their dolls when they aren’t looking. I’m yet to read about the first jealousy murder caused by a love triangle between two men and a doll, but I know it’s only a matter of time before I will.
Oh, my dear Chuck Palahniuk… He was the first to scar my 15-year-old brain with doll infatuation, and unfortunately it was written with extreme detail and imagery. basically, in one of his stories in Haunted, the dolls used for CPR purposes all had dried-up cum from hundreds of students, and in another story there were anatomy dolls sent home with med students with razor blades hidden in various parts of their anatomy and the next morning all the male students were unable to walk or speak. Needless to say after reading that i have never read another book by him..
I realize this is an old post.. But couldn’t help by adding that their seems to be a lot of threatened women in here.
Sorry ladies but if you think your husband/bf/any many you may be dating wouldn’t bang a realdoll like a screen door in a hurricane if they were given the chance and they didn’t think anyone would find out. Then you are the one who is not living in reality.
Go ahead and ask him… He’ll say no of course, but then he’s never masterbated or looked at porn either, right?
hmm microwaving babies… i dont know how i feel about that..
I didn’t see the article you are discussing, but I have a few comments .
Many men are frustrated with women, dishonesty is a big issue ,and though it seems one sided , the fact remains instability in the female makes it hard to have reliability in a relationship.
Having been burnt a number of times ,men are not anxious to throw them selves into the torture chamber again ,but still mis the affection they longed for in the beginning .
A love doll does not argue just to be compeditive or test the limits of a relatiuonship.
It doesn’t bitch about other people or complain about anything . Of course it has no intellectual input either but given the choices , silence is only a little better .
Personally , I have not tried this but have studdied the issue among other men and challanged my own feelings over it for a number of years.
By the way there are male dolls as well . If there were no market ,they would not exist.
How dare these men have the colossal gall to turn to “plastic women’
when the dating game has been so wondereful to them? Don’t they miss
the judgmental sarcasm and one-sided rules? Wow! You mean that they failed to change themselves into “acceptable guys” who enjoy continuous
rejection? These guys mustreally be insane to miss the complaining and the wonderful “challenging” that comes from being with real women. Get those men checked out right away since they MUST be insane, thinking they are happier this way!
It’s an old thread but I must say- there is a lot of sexist comments from certain individuals. Just because one has had bad luck in the dating game doesn’t mean all women are suddenly “difficult”- it just means the one who’s been burned is looking in the wrong places or doesn’t want to do what it takes to keep a good thing going if it once existed… good relationships are work! know when it’s good and do what it takes to keep both of you happy; when it’s bad – move on!
Instead of giving up, you get back on and ride life- that’s just the way it is.
Unless you are into Agalmatophilia- which in my mind is quite close to Necrophilia…
where you ride a corpse >.>
You know not all relationships are with women, take for instance the automobile lover. These guys even give their automobiles names and spend countless hours pampering them. So I ask, is that any different?. I myself do not own or plan to own a ( sex object) doll, although I do see the need. Wich would you rather see happen, a perv getting his thrills with a plastic doll or your 12 year old daughter?.