Men Who Love Dolls
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.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
“we were only scared because you are so fucking AWESOME!” — funny!!
July 25th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
That docco ought to be discontinued!
I believe that “douche ball” will now replace “douchebag” as the accepted vernacular.
July 26th, 2008 at 2:55 am
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!!!!!!!!
July 26th, 2008 at 3:53 am
eeouooooooh!
xx
July 26th, 2008 at 6:38 am
^ 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!
July 26th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Ew. That is all.
July 26th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Uh-oh, I don’t like the sound of microwave babies.
July 26th, 2008 at 10:50 am
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.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:21 am
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?
July 27th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
i like how this post comes after the mouth-dropping and very entertaining antinatalist debate - esp. with the emergence of microwave babies.
July 27th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
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.
July 27th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
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!!!
July 27th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Very sad. Tragic. But still icky.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:42 am
Damn… I loved Lars and the Real Girl…. I don’t think I’d want to watch this….
July 28th, 2008 at 2:01 am
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!
July 28th, 2008 at 5:50 am
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…
July 28th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
I watched to real babies doco and thought the world needs more of this tragic suburban campery!
July 29th, 2008 at 12:43 am
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.
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:59 pm
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..