Adult themes taboo for tinies?

I haven't responded to this thread despite following it from the OP since I feel like I'm in an odd position, since I stand partly on both sides of the argument.

There isn't anything I can add to the sexualization of child-like images. It's illegal in the US, for one, and I think it's outright wrong morally and mentally, but I don't think it's right to blankly block all adult matter from appearing in stories with child dolls. Not all things happening around children are innocent and rosy, and how many darkly-themed stories are written that have children as characters in it?


In truth, I was definitely one of those people who considered using tinies as the main crew of my story for much the same reason as the OP. Smaller dolls are, for the most part, easier for me to collect. Limited budget and limited space, but I quickly instead chose to represent the characters I wanted to put into doll form as mature MSDs, just because it would be very strange and difficult to convey this particular and serious story with child dolls, even if I did so as a joke and had them "chibi" of sorts representations.

Though, I still wish that we BJD enthusiasts had a decent selection of 1/6 scale mature dolls, but that's another matter entirely.


Despite the issue with that story, I have a separate fairytale that I've written that involves 2 girls I planned on shelling in the form of a Pukifee Icis and Flora, two different tiny doll sculpts that look similar enough to be two expressions on one face. They also happen to be in a scale that's been frequently used to represent toddler-aged children.

Their storyline? They were the result of a girl so lonely and abandoned that she struck a deal with a demon to have a companion with a heart that will always understand her own, so it ripped her body and soul in half. The result is two little girls each with their own mind but one heart and no soul of real value.

It's a dark concept, not child-friendly in any way, but I plan to use tiny dolls to represent them because the dolls match exactly what I need, it's a tiny size I really would adore to own dolls in, and I really love the doll sculpts on their own.

I doubt it's being taken as seriously as the stuff being spoke of in the thread so far, but I have a feeling that this is one of the broader subject matters that the OP was trying to convey as possibly taboo. It's a fairytale style story using children to represent the extremes people take when society looks down upon them, with suicide, and a touch of religion. Very mature subject matter that I would hope and pray a real child wouldn't have to combat, but it has zero sex in it.




So, am I ostracized from DoA, yet?

 

I just want to quickly respond to this:
I read the topic when you first posted it up. Read the pages and didn't see your edit until you had mentioned you made an edit.
I suspect a good deal of people had read the topic the way I did as well. Hence the response to what seemed to have been a more "narrow" topic.

Just want to say a word of caution: If you ended up doing this project in the way you want to explore the issues and resolve feelings through this, and if you ever share it with the general public (internet) you might have to expect many disagreements and maybe angry response even.
Bear in mind that everyone has different experience and hence they may or may not see things the way you do, and hence, may or maybe understand what you're trying to do. If you felt hurt by this then maybe it is not the best of idea to share that but only with people who intimately know you and understand what you're going through.
It sucks that it has to be this way but I don't know if negative comments is going to help with the healing.

 

Look, if you are a competent storyteller and a thoughtful photographer, nobody's going to ostracize you. You don't have to be explicit and scandalous to address complex adult situations and discuss issues.

There is a very talented DoA member I'm a huge fan of - she uses minifees do tell stories of adults, and there is never any doubt her characters are adults, although the dolls are on the younger-looking side. The stories are thoughtful and intelligent, and photography is expressive, and there is never even a hint of vulgarity. So, see, yeah, it can be done!

My point is, you can post for artistic value, or you can post because you want free therapy at the expense of the viewers. I'm all for the first - no matter how provocative. As far as the latter - there are other more appropriate venues.

 

I hesitate to respond to this thread (and I have read every single post and every single page) because I do have very strong opinions on this matter and I worry that I might offend some of the more liberal minded responders here, but I feel that I must agree strongly with armeleia's post on page five. I think that about sums up how I feel on the matter. There are other posts I'd quote, but armeleia's is the best and most in depth articulation of how I feel on the matter.
Especially this part:

To the OP: I don't think anyone here means to hurt you the way you seem to have been hurt. By the time you responded that last time, the debate was more responding to each others' posts than to your original post.

Ellanie, I have to say, this concept sounds deeply intriguing to me. Children do deal with stuff like loneliness (I have, for sure) and I don't think that this particular storyline will illicit negative reactions from most (if not all) people.

I myself have a storyline for two dolls I plan to buy (Bory girl twins) that is similarly dark. The twins are seers and have visions of the future, however they weren't supposed to be born as twins, so their visions of the future are split, just as they were split in the womb into identical twins. One twin sees all the good future events, the other sees only the bad ones, and that includes anything bad (i.e.: murder, death, cruelty, and more). She's seen these things from birth (they're 10 or 11, I haven't decided for sure yet) and clings desperately to her happy-natured sister because of it.

This is the kind of "adult" themed story that I (in my opinion, which people are free to disagree with) find interesting and not "disgusting" or reprehensible at all. Some of the best stories have deep and sad pieces. What I do not think is alright, would be a story where children (or even just child-like dolls) are depicted having sex or doing drugs (really, how many little kids actually do these things by choice?). And, while I know that child rape does happen, I don't think that it's something we need to see here on this forum. And anyone depicting this sort of thing needs (again, in my opinion) to perhaps see a therapist to find out where it's coming from. If you're "working through" something that happened to you, a doll forum is not the place to do it.
To quote armeleia again:

I sincerely hope I have not offended anyone here, as that was definitely not my intention...

 

Heh, I just "left" because I've said everything I have to say on the topic, not to avoid being hurt. I could definitely imagine feeling like it's worthwhile to continue adding one's voice to those out there on your side-- especially when it's in the minority, and especially when you want others on your side to feel not-alone in their views.

 

*nods to all* I'm not going to continue posting in this thread, not because I worry about getting hurt, either, but because I felt I was getting distracted by individual people's points into being harsher than I really wanted to be on the subject. I don't feel like I'm really in this thread to debate with or convince individuals, but just to make sure that opinions such as mine were heard in general by anyone who might read this thread; but recent posts have pushed me into feeling like I should confront individuals specifically, and that gets more heated than I'd like it to. So I think I'm bowing out.

And thanks, everyone, for your thoughts.

 

I couldn't agree more with that. It made me a bit ill to look at her. Quite obvioulsy, the proportions of the doll are meant to represent a young child. I think Dollmore Lusion is just basically a blown up tiny. There are childish sculpts for MSDs, SDs, and now 80 cm as well. Are we going to say portraying them in sexual situations is okay, just because the doll is larger? I sure hope not. I would be disgusted to see Lusion in a sexual situation, unless it was carefully thought out and had some artistic aspects, as well as a LABEL detailing what was inside. (As I tried to establish would be a good idea in my controversial doll stories thread). If there were certain abbreviations or labels on stories that contained certain things, it would allow the curious to satisfy their curiosity and the wary to stay away.

I honestly am attracted all things taboo. Perhaps it's because I'm young and therefore ignorant, and exploring the bad things of life seems appealing. I am by no means a massochist, but I love reading about stories of painful experiences. Not because I like the drama-never would I even dream of enjoying something for that reason. I more like to put myself in other people's shoes and try to gain a little bit of understanding about how they would feel about that situation. I don't dream of ever fully understanding someone's pain, because that's not possible.

Empathy is a tricky thing. You could show caring and understanding for a taboo subject towards those that have went through the said experience, or you could come out as insensitive. You really need to do your research (although doing research on a psychological trauma doesn't always come out correct. You may be incorrectly informed and overstep your boundaries).

Exploring such topics can be dangerous, but I think most people can say they'd rather not dip into that water. I know for certain I'm facinated by such topics and I enjoy seeing them carefully and sensitively carried out in a BJD through pictures. I think a label and a disclaimer would be sufficient to warn people who didn't want to see such things; no matter what the circumstances were.

This is the internet and many different people have very different lives and very different views. We all just need to be a bit understanding of each other. However, we all know that someone will always be displeased. It's impossible to satisfy all 10,000 someodd active members at all times.

 

This is most likely my last post, unless someone wants me to explain myself to them more clearly.

I have a question, using American law as the standard, as a lot seem to be doing here: If using tinies/msds to represent fictional children/teens or fantasy characers of various age to depict adult situations makes you a paedophile (or morally deficient if we're not talking only about sex) despite any explanations you have, then does that make artists in every field a paedophile/deviant if they utilise the same themes, and in some cases use real life minors? Everyone from Dante to Raphael to Shakespeare to the Bolshoi Ballet to Walt Disney Studios to Vladmimir Nabokov to Tolkien to Clint Eastwood to Brad Pitt to many manga artists and so on; and if that is the case, does it mean anyone who supports any of these artists by loving/buying their work is promoting paedophilia? What's the difference between a hobbit, "They would be mere children to your eyes", who is seen drinking beer in a pub or marrying and having children and a tiny/msd used as a fictional character doing the same? It seems ridiculous put like that doesn't it?

By the way I totally agree that clear labels would help certain people avoid certain scenarios.

 

This too, I neglected to mention it in my earlier post about legality. A couple of times I've opened an unlabeled thread on DoA to find a mini or tiny in a state of partial undress mugging for the camera like a Playboy centerfold. I often don't report the thread simply because that would require me to remain in it for longer than 5 seconds and someone might see it over my shoulder. I can't only hit the back button either, now I've got to clean my cache and restart my browser before anyone walks by. Its like thanks, not only did I not want to see that today, I was probably doing something important in another tab that restarting interrupted.

I don't care how you rationalize it to yourself, but leave me out of it. Not only is this content personally objectionable to me, posting it here is rude and inconsiderate to everyone because now we have to take steps to make sure we don't get in trouble, whether that's with a coworker or the legal system. And that's something that shouldn't be a concern on a PG13 rated forum.

 

One of the issues I find interesting about this thread is the focus on size. As collectors, we have the shorthand of size in place of age -- and that is being focused on, save for a few mentions of mature sculpts that are just made in a smaller size.

What I find interesting is that a number of the elements of anime style, which is prevalent as a style for dolls regardless of their size, overlap strongly with what are classified as 'youthful' features. Wide eyes, smooth features, little noses, small mouths -- all common to anime-style sculpts in all size categories, also all markers of youth used to determine the representative "age" of things that can't be given a legal age. (Dolls, sculptures, painted figures, even 3D models.)

Even without the size differences involved, it is entirely possible that the same troubles being discussed over having a tinies thread showing adult images could occur with an SD, or MSD, which are "old" by their sculpt height -- a distinction really only internal to the community. (Definitely another reason I am a little relieved I like mature, realistic sculpts, even if I don't photograph them.)

 

SkadiGoddess: our law is not saying that doing that sort of thing makes you a pedophile...not in the slightest...but I think it's an attempt at limiting how "normalized" child sexual abuse and other sexual situations become. I can see where it can be used to convict someone of outright pedophilia but that's not its intent.

surreality: some people have touched on MSDs and SDs as having immature bodies...but MOST tinies are immature so I think that's why there's that focus.

 

Reine, I was highlighting American law purely because others seem to be using it as a standard to judge people with even though we're not all subject to American law. A person in the UK can have sex at age 16 and drink alcohol at 18, unnacceptable in the eyes of American law but that doesn't make us weird or in the wrong. I know laws like this may be there initially to catch paedophiles but they are then distorted and used to attack any type of art that could be interpreted that way; and because the authorities doing the interpreting tend to be ultra conservative old farts who see things only in black and white and are prone to knee jerk reactions, they're not exactly using logic and intelligence and so we have people arrested for owning comic books about aliens and parents unable to take photos of their kids dressed as angels in the school nativity.

 

It isn't the bodies as much as the faces in some cases. People have spoken about modding a tiny to have adult breasts, for instance, as being horrifying or risky to view if someone else sees it. To the eye outside the hobby, the mature body of the average anime-style SD sculpt can very easily be viewed in the same manner: it's going to look like a child head on an adult body, the size being irrelevant. And in some photos, it's not easy to tell what is a big doll and what is a small one anyway, especially to someone outside the hobby -- like the aforementioned typical boss, coworker, or law enforcement agent.

The point is, the issues that are being raised aren't small ones -- not when it comes to the law. But under that collection of issues, it isn't just tiny dolls, or dolls of any specific height, that are going to be an issue.

I've run across this issue in dealing with creating character morphs and skins for 3D models. None of them look like infants, but because of the legalities being discussed, I (and others in the same trade) have had to take extra care in the presentation of images of characters that -could- appear younger than 18. The vast majority of the ones called out as a potential issue? The anime style ones, by an enormous margin.

 

Kiyakotari- I agree- childish dolls should not be mixed with adult dolls in "adult situations"- full stop- now I must allow for exceptions in Public Service Announcement/be safe/*anti*child porn type stuff- which shouldn't go beyond the point of innuendo any how imho.
Hooooooooooowever....if you are using tinies for "adult" things- a lot can be done with scale and proportion of props and sets that will make it obvious to your viewer that these are symbols of adult characters and that "no children nor animal bjds were harmed in any way during the creation of this work". Using more adult proportioned dolls will also help.

 

I think this is a really interesting point. An SD13, for example, is not designed to look like an adult - it's designed to look like a 13-year-old. My Kid Delfs are, according to the 'manual' that came with them, meant to be 6. If we're going by size and looks as an indication of age, then a lot of photostories on this site are taboo. My default when looking at gallery images and photostories, unless it's specified, is that the owner probably intended their MSD to be teenage and their SD to be adult - but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of the dolls don't really look as old as they're intended to be by their owners.

My view on the main topic is that it's perfectly OK to concoct a storyline with your tinies that includes violence and adult themes - but it's not, on the whole, OK to post it as a photostory on DOA. If it looks like a child in sexy lingerie, saying that it's meant to be a 300-year-old incubus, or whatever, isn't going to cut it with my boss if I stumble on the post during my lunchhour DOA browsing.

 

This is so true and it sucks. I really like the aesthetic of a really tall guy with a really short girl. I also like the idea of really lanky old shoujo style bodies. (Think Sailor Moon) The perfect match for this would be a 60 guy with something like the Rosette Dolls. I'm frankly afraid to do it because many of the Rosette girls look very young and with the added height difference I wouldn't want the image to be misconstrued. >_> Even if I were to get the Lady body I can't see that it would go over well... I understand the reasoning and everything, but it still sucks.

 

I'm afraid I must agree that anything sexual involving a tiny would be mondo creepy. I suppose it would especially depend on how far you're willing to go? Like if there would be actual sex involved then yeah, that would be pretty taboo, especially if the doll sculpts were Pukis or Latis. If you're just talking about characters in their teens/twenties growing up and having a light 'puppy love' romance then it might be okay, but I'd avoid anything going beyond that as it would start to cross into the border of pedophilia, whether or not it was your intention. Other people who see the pictures without knowing exactly what you were trying to do would think that as well. (I'm not accusing you of being a pedo btw, I'm just using what most others' reactions would be as an example)

I've got tiny dolls that represent college-age characters, but they never cross over into sexual territory ever. Again, while it may be a story that you're trying to tell, most people wont take anything of it seriously as soon as they see childlike characters in a sexual manner.

 

I'm incredibly hesitant to reply to this, but truthfully, I don't find anything wrong with any sized doll being in a close relationship with a differently sized doll. Telling somebody that they can't love someone else because of the age differencce is like telling two men or two women they cant be together because of their gender. Mind you, that's as long as its tasteful and doesnt even come close to being able to be described as abuse(in any form). If you're going to do photostories of it, post them in a place like deviantart where you can block younger viewers from seeing it and clearly labeling the content in the title of the piece.
And while I do believe that age shouldn't be a factor in romance, I do believe that certain cultural, social, and legal aspects should be taken into consideration when posting this kind of work. Say, a YoSD representing a 5 year old is paired with an SD representing an 18 year old character is considered child pornography and is illegal in most countries. If you really must post things including younger characters romantically or sexually involved, label it, set up blocks on it, and be prepared to take any heat from the law.

 

I absolutely agree armeleia!
I'm only small but if I want an adult couple I will get a EID or an SID. Tinie's are meant to be kids that's why they look that way and so for me that is how they will behave.
My mother had a horrible childhood and I'm well aware of all the horrific upbringings people have had.
A photostory where someone is being abused or abusing them self etc using any size of doll is something I don't think this hobby needs and I don't find it artistic but of course that is my opinion and people are free to do as they wish.