A female owner of male dolls unable to connect with female dolls

I like both male and female dolls equally but I tend to buy more female dolls. There isn't a good amount of variety in the male dolls of the 40cm range for me, but I'm not ready to move up to SD sized dolls yet. When I do find a doll I like, I try to keep the ratio 1:1.

Reading through all the responses to this thread, it seems as though the people having problems have extremely narrow views of what a male/female (the opposite of what they own) should be. In the case of owning all male dolls it sounds as though they are saying "Men can be all of this, but only THIS is what a woman can be in my mind." Examine if this is an issue in other areas of your life, then closely examine your own views on gender/sex. Any personality trait or style can exist equally in males, females, or non-binary people. It's only our own views that put them in categories.

You could also be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy for yourself. You believe there aren't any for you, and put them under harsher scrutiny. This proves your point. When you do find a doll you like, you may not put in as much effort with the doll and instead focus on bonding quickly rather than just enjoying your new doll. Unsurprisingly, you don't, and sell them. This starts the cycle over again.

As for the conversation above about toughness, why does "being tough" automatically equate to being larger and muscular, in other words, physical traits? Large and muscular people don't have to have tough personality traits at all and could actually be very cute, dainty, or even weak in some situations. That idea is promoting more stereotypes in an attempt to be less stereotypical. Quietly it is saying that only a outwardly masculine woman is a strong woman. It's saying that feminine only means "dainty", "small", or "soft" and a "real" woman is physically strong and has a colder demeanor (like a man), rather than getting things accomplished in their own special way even if they "can't lift a tea cup".

Not everyone genetically can be tall, or gain muscle the same way as others. A cute and dainty looking doll can easily be an assassin. For example, snipers don't look extremely muscular because their job doesn't require the same skill set as a pro wrestler. An archer isn't going to have an expertly toned body. They're more likely to have a toned dominant arm and legs. A person who gets into street fights probably isn't going to be muscular. It's all about back story and the views you project on the character. A body builder is probably going to be absolutely useless in a war-type situation, so that wouldn't be considered "tough" at all.

 

I wouldn't say I have a problem connecting with female dolls, they simply don't interest me as ones I'd want in my collection. Sure there have been a few I'd have liked to have just for the sheer uniqueness of them (Soom Vesuvia Poison Kiss, SD 4-armed Shiva) but they'd have been shelf-sitters and I'd have done absolutely nothing with them. While I don't regularly play with my boys, their main purpose is to serve as inspiration for the characters they are in the novels I write. I also find the boys more aesthetically pleasing to my eye.

 

If you don't want girl dolls, don't own girl dolls, making excuses about all of them being too cute and pretty and not strong and independent is just silly IMO. I mean, this is a hobby based largely on customization. Customize already.

People jump through pretty amazing hoops to get their boy dolls to look the way they want, then dismiss girls if they aren't perfect out the box. You think girl dolls are too feminine - here's a thought: Use a boy head. What percentage of people in the hobby have no issue at all using a girl head as a boy? I can't even begin to guess there are so many. I know there are a few with boys as girls but it seems like most people aren't even entraining that as an option. Which is funny since a lot of answers are similar to "I'm just not drawn to girl sculpts". Also, don't like big boobs? Sand them down.

Of my two favorite girls one has a flat chest as her body used to belong to a boy (who, incidentally is a girl mold now on another girl body, yet still a boy) and the other is a boy head who used to be a boy and still has "his" faceup, complete with battle scars. I love her. She's on the most feminine body ever, her twin brother is a girl sculpt who is conventionally prettier than she is, and she's awesome.

Again, if you just don't want girls there is nothing remotely wrong with that - I have mostly boys, I can count my girls on one hand (maybe a couple extra fingers XD) and the rest are boys. It took me forever to get a girl I liked enough to keep, and I still tend to let them go faster than the boys.
But many of the comments in this thread make me think there's a double-standard - do whatever you want to your boys; mix, match and mod! But the girl dolls have to be exactly the way they come from the company and that's it, you're just stuck with what you see.....

 

It could be that you just have difficulty seeing through their point of view?

I think it's easier to identify with male characters at first because we're raised on stories seeing things through the eyes of men. This is a man's world, and they usually get the rich, complex stories we can relate to, the stories we crave to see. I know this also influenced my collection, because I identified more with the men in fiction than the women, and I'd create male characters and write for them.

I'm not saying you only collect boy dolls because you've got internalized misogyny or anything! Preferring male dolls over female dolls is not a bad thing at all. What I am saying is, I think our tastes change as we ourselves change. It could be that at this point in your life you identify with and want to explore the point of view of male characters, because that's what's most comfortable to you right now.

When I first started collecting, I only collected boy dolls. Psychologically speaking, if I were to "diagnose" why, I could say that it's because I worked in a male-dominated field at the time. The stories I enjoyed reading had male protagonists. The shows I watched, the stories I RP'd, the stories I wrote -- male protagonists. I think, because I was more interested in these things, it influenced who I was and who I wanted to be. I wanted to be confident, I wanted to be strong, and the fictional characters demonstrating these same wants and achieving these goals tended to be men.

My tastes changed when I started losing interest with the limited perspective of fiction fellas, and wanted to explore the stories of female characters. I was frustrated at first, because there aren't many strong female leads in adventure YA, the genre I most read and the target audience I would like to write for one day. But I started thinking about what I wanted in such a character, and... well, characters were born! Past failed projects of mine were actually revisited, and the male leads replaced with female leads, and brought back from the story graveyard as a result. Now I have more plans for girl dolls than I have time and money, hah.

Of course, I still love my boys! Half my doll collection is still made up of fellas, and I have plans for at least three more. But like I said, we create characters to safely explore different lives and perspectives. (In a sense, it's to explore ourselves, but that's another discussion entirely.) I talked about this in another thread, but I'll touch on it here: my dolls give me the opportunity to see things from a new perspective. They're characters for me, and as I adapt them into my world -- shopping for them, thinking of their personality, how their backstory would influence their present day -- I'm allowed to safely explore different lives and, by extension, bits of who I am as well.

Right now, you feel most comfortable using male characters/dolls as your vehicle on this journey. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

 

I love a lot of these points. Attitudes change, and many use creativity to explore that. When I first started collecting dolls, I didn't really evaluate why I was drawn to male dolls more than female. It was only later that I started seeing the patterns, and started exploring and trying to understand the whys of it.

This has led to an evolution of my collection as well as the storyline that surrounds it. I've grown out of some aspects of it, or don't feel that way any more. Where I had a couple of female characters that were little better than placeholders, I started trying to develop their characters as well beyond just "girlfriend" or "sister." That's the beautiful thing about this hobby; the degree of customization means that you can change directions easily. It's allowed me to see some of the things I still don't understand about myself and where I've changed.

I started to become sensitive to the role of women in fiction and not liking a lot of what I see. This has changed my attitude towards fiction and kindled a desire to see more fictional women I would want to be like. As I've been following this thread, I've started to wonder if I've become too sensitive about it all. There's been some intelligent discussion here that's managed to stay perfectly civil yet thought-provoking and diverse.

 

That's how it was for me! I don't think you can be too sensitive to an issue like this. Sensitivity, in this case, simply equals awareness.

There's nothing wrong with preferring male dolls over female dolls at all! And I didn't force myself to collect girl dolls because I felt it was the right thing to do or anything. Exposure to strong women, both from history and in fiction, naturally led me to see the potential for my own characters and felt a desire to collect more female dolls. My interests shifted, and so did my tastes in BJDs. But I did wonder why my tastes shifted, and I've thought about it off and on the past couple of years. I realized that fiction is the stylization of reality; everything in fiction is a symbol used to tell a story, and these symbols not only influence stories, but media and cultural perception as well. edit/addition: We pick the next doll in our collection that best fits the symbol of the story we want to tell with it. I could talk for ages about this sort of thing, but that's a long, off-topic discussion, lol!

The best way to reinvent something is understand how it works in the first place. Understanding why we choose to consume and create the things we do gives us the power to shape the future of storytelling. That's how we get fabulous lady characters like Leslie Knope (Parks and Rec), and women who are allowed to mess up and come back from it (entire female cast of characters in OitNB), and even amazing side characters like Connie (Steven Universe) and Hermione (Harry Potter). And you get male characters who are allowed to break through cultural expectations, too, like Steven (Steven Universe) and Peeta (Hunger Games). Like the saying goes... knowledge is power!

Side note/off topic: I think this is why there is more demand for female action figures from today's popular franchises. Now that there are more female characters in the action and adventure genre (characters who have arcs that were previously reserved for male leads) people want toys of these characters, too. I know it has helped to influence my current and future plans for my BJD collection, that's for sure.

 

I actually have the opposite problem. Every once in a while i think it would be nice to own or even like a boy doll but to be honest they are just not appealing to me, at all.. My issue is mainly aesthetics though.. Its hard for me to look at a male doll and find them good looking

 

I often think that female dolls are beautiful but with male dolls I also think about what kind of personality that doll might have. With female dolls it's much more difficult.

I've become aware of my own difficulties with female characters and am desperately trying to find ways to make myself see that female characters can be just as good, complete, and complicated as male characters. I've pretty much always opted for a male character given the opportunity. For some reason I can't seem to make my female characters as deep or diverse as my male characters and I don't know what is holding me back. But I guess the first step to fixing my skewed thinking is recognising my problem..?

I do love my first doll, who is a girl, and I'm finding it actually really satisfying trying to build her character.

 

I think another reason why boys are so popular among us collectors is because we don't get boy dolls growing up, usually! We grow up with barbies and girl baby dolls, and any boy dolls are seen as accessories and don't get the same attention or care from their companies. Those of us who collected dolls as children may have already run through a bunch of scenarios and stories with our lady dolls, and now it's time to explore storytelling opportunities with our resin gentlemen. :O I figure this might have also contributed to my earlier collection being mostly fellows -- I had LOTS of barbies growing up, but no Ken. :P
I remember back to one Christmas in my childhood, I received a quintuplets set of dolls, and two of them were boys. Those boys were my favorite out of all my dolls just because they were so different than what I had played with before.

 

I kind of have this problem with female characters/merch/etc in general. Although I'm female I have a easier time relating to male characters or just enjoying them in general. I have about 2 figures (anime kind, like nendoroid, etc) that are female, any other is male. This also goes for my original characters, I have one female character at the moment and even now I have a hard time drawing her.
My first bjd was a boy, and the next two I'm planning out are boys too. I would like to get a girl one at some point, but I usually gravitate to boys.

Maybe it just has something to do with our personalities and likes/dislikes? I know that although I think frilly and sweet girl things are cute and pretty to look at I do not see myself wearing them. I am more relaxed fit, jeans, tshirts, etc. It's a interesting idea to think about, why some females just prefer males instead of female characters/dolls/etc, and vice versa

 

I'm not interested in cute dolls--male or female, I don't know, that just throws me off. Something about those huge eyes and puffy cheeks just doesn't interest me. I have one male doll on order, and one female on order, and one gorgeous mini-gem girl at home. I wasn't raised to be particularly girly, in fact, my mom encouraged a love of dinosaurs, and I always used to like to catch frogs. I have an overwhelming tendency to have significantly more female characters in stories I write. If I were to auto-diagnose, I'd just say I relate better to people of my gender, despite that I'm fairly outside the stereotype for it. I have plans for two boys (plus Jack) and potentially four girls, plus the two I already have. Something about them is easier for me to write, that said, I still have one story with a male protagonist (who Miiiight get shelled as a doll?)

I'm really working on my ability to write male characters, and who knows how that's going to reflect in my doll collection?

 

Very interesting, I'm a bit surprised that this is such a common thing. I find myself on the opposite spectrum: I'm a female owner who can't find a single male doll that interests her! When I first learned about BJDs in high school, it was from a male friend who had a Luts girl. I decided I would try to find a boy doll, and I really did try my best, but nothing stuck at all o_o while I found myself loving tons of female sculpts!

I'm reading through different explanations of why female owners think they prefer males, and I guess I don't relate to them totally. I also grew up as a gamer, but usually as a child I always tried to pick the girl character xD. Growing up, I would sometimes make male characters for MMOs, but that was mostly to avoid harassment back in the day. Even now, I suppose I prefer the company of women; I see other people noting them as less straightforward, but I've found men to less able to express their feelings and therefore, less straightforward x'D. We all notice different details of a big picture, I suppose!

I don't think it's as simple as saying IF YER A STRAIGHT FEMALE U WANT BOY DOLZ 'cause obviously that's not always the case. But it definitely must be a combination of preference in friends and romance, because people here ARE linking a dislike for male vs. female friends with their preference in dolls.

I do agree with someone saying that it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy... not just at the dislike of a single gender of doll, but of a single gender of friend-type and so forth. It comes from assumptions about males or females that we may find are often true in our individual memory of situations, but don't hold true in the grand scheme of things. I'm still open to the possibility of having more male friends (I DO already have some x'D) and having a male doll, because the divide between genders ain't enough to lock me out! I guess I just have to find the right aesthetic in terms of dolls

 

I have both male and female dolls, but I have a special love for my male dolls that I can't really explain.
What I've tried to do is have an equal number of male and female dolls, but I keep being drawn to males. They just seem more interesting.
I'm not into frilly or ruffly dresses. My girls dress in jeans and t-shirts and sneakers just like my boys do. It's how I dress in real life.
I used to collect Barbies, and I made clothes for them. I made fancy dresses and historical costumes, and I'm kind of over that. LOL My bjd dolls are just normal street kids.

 

one easy test would be get the male sculpt head you love and place on a female body, would you still love it or getting a female body make it loses it appeal?

For me there a lot of things involved: I find males aesthetic pleasing, I like males alternative clothes, is easier to make a gender neutral and androgynous doll with a male body than a female (I thought about sanding the breasts but I don't really want the work). Saying this I'm non-binary and I do try to create stories I want to see and in a way that makes me comfortable.

I do have one female doll, she will be the only one, and like few female heads sculpts but I plan to pass them to male bodies. I do like dresses as well but having a female doll allows me to use them and another character also wear dresses.

On a general note, a lot of people grew up with girls dolls with few male dolls. So this can also be a reactions from before where now there many male dolls to choose.

 

I have no problems w/any age or sex. I write stories - I have characters to shell - the dolls shell the characters & to me BECOME them, so it's like having a little town.

The funny thing about me - I can't seem to bond w/pure FANTASY dolls - I can deal w/them if I think of them as one of my characters doing cosplay, but not as a full-time fantasy. AND I LOVE vampires, etc. You would THINK that I'd love a vampire doll - but no. Not one that's really supposed to BE a vampire. Or werewolf. Or mermaid. Or FAE of all things - I don't want an ELF!!! Tolkien freak me!!!! A COSPLAY Legolas, well sure, but he's got to have an everyday, human character....

So we all have our little quirks LOL

 

[MENTION=57200]Teleri[/MENTION] Tbh I used to have the same but in reverse.. . Apart from the bjds, I had no interests whatoever in the fantasy characters. but the dolls? Omg, elves, fauns.... i used to love them to death

I used to be all-male-bjd owner I mean, I was into those rock bands and I wanted to have a dolly band of my own, so I needed at least 4 male bjds, right?

but, as the time passed, I got more womanly myself and I wanted a girl doll. I started with a small one, childlike tbh. I didn't know if i'd be able to bond with her. And I did. I realised how much I loved her when I sold her. i reshelled her soon though She'll always have a special place in my heart. She's one of those... turning-point bjds. Since then I abandoned the idea of re-creating a bjd rock band. I became more into frills, lace, and all things cute and womanly. My own wardrobe changed drastically (I nowadays wear only dresses (have tons of them and have one pair of trousers which I wear only when I have to Same happened with my dolls. I only kept one boy (the effeminate cutie and he's surrounded by three gorgeous females One yosd, one msd, one big-big sd (like, really big)

And each of these lovely little women has such charmful looks and personality (each of them is different that I'm super-happy I got into girls. I mean, I used to be afraid that female characters are too boring unless they're somewhat masculinised?) but i's totally nto true Sure, I love manly bjds, but... I have no need to own one. A doll is (to be) a doll for me - gentle, cuddly and delicate Be it aboy or a girl Sure, they may have strong personalities, but I like them looking like angels )

 

This is a really interesting discussion! I can think of a dozen e-famous male bjd CHARACTERS (as in, I know a little about their backstory/style/etc) that make the rounds on Tumblr and Flickr and the like, and of course tons of boyfriend couple pictures -- but most of the e-famous female dolls I can think of seem to be primarily clotheshorses, with backstory pretty much irrelevant.

Many people in this thread have expressed that they themselves personally see male dolls as characters as well and females more as "cute" or "pretty", but not characters. The sheer multitude of femme/frilly/pastel male dolls in the hobby also strikes me as similarly compartmentalizing femininity as a performative state-- often a femme boy's personality is basically "he is pretty and likes cute things", much as clotheshorse female dolls. (Though femme boys usually have diehard followings....)

This phenomenon is so widespread in the hobby that I can't imagine that it doesn't come from a basis of internalized misogyny and years of cultural reinforcement telling us that (female) dolls are for dressing up, and male figures are heroes.

Personally, I only own female and non-binary dolls because I feel like I have enough stories about dudes in my life, and I want to explore ladies' and ???'s experiences more. Solidarity, if you will. I will admire cool and interesting male dolls, but they just aren't for me.

 

Hrm, I only have one male doll, dollshe David kuncci (Alexander). I saw his sculpt and being an artist, absolutely loved the sculpt. He's perfect. Dollshe really created an intensely detailed beautiful piece of art when they made him. I initially thought, due to his smoldering hotness, that he'd be a charming manly man womanizer. But as it turns out he is actually gay and loves to gossip with the girls. He's RuPaul drag race fantastically saucyily snide sarcastic. I'm not sure why or how that happened, but it's just who he is and it happened all on its own. It's funny too that his personality is the most defined. Him and his partner in crime Mathilde (DC Christina). I think it's because they know they're gorgeous.

 

@koukles Oh, yes, that's what I was referring to I've hearl a lot of people say that bjd/doll/figurine collectors are focused mostly on the aesthetics when it comes to female dolls, but they always shell the brave, interesting, intruiging, and so on characters into male dolls. And if they want to combine it - they already, as if, *have* to masculinize the doll.

I can't deny, one of the reasons why I became so into female bjds was... frills&glam. I mean, I love it But, besides, I think it's fairly easy to mkae them more than, what you call, clotheshorses (everyday I learn a new word,t hank you :3) A lot of people (imo) wrongly assume that "non-passive, brave, intruiging, with a strong personality"="male". There are females like it irl too

As regards the girly boys... oh... I've been wondering for ages now why do people (women mostly like them. I mean... I understand the fans of some not-too-straight manganime stories. Self-explicable. But the rest? I'm not into manganime at all (ok, I liked the 'newer' Moomins film a lot :3), but I have one boy like that. And no, responses such as "Omg, why won't you just get yoruself a girl doll if you constantly make him wear heels, blonde wigs and eyelashes longer than the cows have" don't work on me I want him to remail a boy. Why? Simply because the French Louises mixed with 80s American glam/sleaze. That's been always my major inspiration. For me boys should be pretty, cute and all made-up (within reason) too. And since irl it hardly ever happens, i have dolls :3

And talking of the female solidarity you just mentioned... uhm... does making them wearing twin skirts/dresses match? Nah, but seriously, I think that the female characters can be well exhibited when e.g. shown through their relationships among each other (through photos/photostories etc

 

I have some female dolls, but most of mine are males. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Reasons for this preference can differ with the individual, I'm sure!

For me:

1. I grew up seeing mostly female dolls, so those were always around. I liked the few boy dolls--like the large-sized GI Joes who were articulated (as opposed to Barbie-types that couldn't bend knees or elbows). But it was frustrating having just the one sculpt (same with Barbies when I was younger, too!). So with bjds, the whole idea that you could get so many boy dolls and styles for boys--It was just wonderful!!!

2. I happen to like the male form and dressing them in interesting fashions. (The female form is great, too, but again, I just see it way too often and have myself to dress all my life, so having all these male bjds is just a lot of fun!)

I think that's about it. Maybe lot of little other things, but those are the major things.

---

I can relate to the female dolls, I just relate to the males a LOT more and enjoy it a lot more. I think not being able to relate to one sex or the other is just having preferences that are a little farther along the spectrum. But it's all very understandable and not anything good or bad or strange.

Personally, I'm not very femme, although I'm not anti-femme and dress femme enough. I can be tom-boy-ish, but I'm not very much so. I am interested in males and like having male main characters in books I read, although I won't dislike a book with a female main character. I like yaoi a bit and m/m romances since 2 guys is better than one to my mind.