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Do you have a right to feel offended?

Nov 15, 2008

    1. I think perhaps it's more like they have a right to feel offended (simply because we're human and we get feel whatever we want to feel) but I don't think they have a right to complain to the offending person about it either. It's ultimately their own fault dressing the doll that way in the first place.
       
    2. I'm going to have to agree with your sister.

      If I take my androgynous-faced doll in a long wig and put him in a frilly pink dress, I really can't expect you to identify him as anything but a girl. (Especially considering that one of my two boys is sold as a girl.) If I correct you and you keep calling him a girl, it might annoy me, but I'd probably explain it or deal with it.

      If I take my androgynous-faced doll in a long wig and put him in jeans and a tshirt, however, while I can understand if you call him a girl at first, I do hope after being corrected you'll switch to the correct gender. And I've found that, of the people in F2BM (where I most often encounter non-doll people) who talk to me about my dolls, they always take the correction on the boys.

      Usually, though, they either just comment on how "pretty" my dolls are, or in the case of a few of the kids (because kids lack the adult censor), how "freaky" they are. :D
       
    3. I guess you have the right to feel offended but not to necessarily have a tantrum over it. Seriously, if you dress something in a dress or skirt and it has a pretty faceup that's androgynous or even feminine, people who aren't involved in the hobby are going to quite understandably assume that it is a female. And so you should expect people who aren't in the hobby to have the immediate impression that it's female. Hell, even people in the hobby should be forgiven for thinking that it's a female doll - heaps of people interchange sex with head sculpts (male Soom Dia, female MD Ryu, etc) and so if it is dressed as a female and they have enough forsight to ask the gender first if it's not easily defined, you can't get pissed off with them for asking.
      It's like a mother dressing a male toddler in a pink ballet tutu, getting pissed off at people telling her she has a lovely daughter. She brought it on herself, and I believe that if you crossdress your doll, you bring the same onto yourself and while you might feel annoyed, you really don't have grounds to have a tantrum over it.
       
    4. I agree that it's not very reasonable if they complain, especially complaining person who mistakens the doll for the first time.
      But I don't agree its their "fault" to cross-dress the doll.
      I think you might mean they should take full responsibility of how they have customized the dolls,which I do agree.
       
    5. Personally, I'd say she's half right. When you dress a doll in female clothing, people will assume it's a girl, and you should expect that. However, if you have corrected them, possibly even SHOWN them that the doll is, indeed, a boy, and made it clear you want him referred to as a boy, and they INSIST that it's a girl, you DO have the right to be offended by their behavior. To continue when it's been made clear that the doll is male, and should be referred to as male is rude.
       
    6. Yeah, that's what I meant. Even if it wasn't worded properly that's what I meant. *shrugs* I guess I see it as more of a cause/effect situation.
       
    7. Well, it could be due to the fact that there are so few boys in our doll world in general. There is Ken, Tommy, Bratz boys, and on the higher end, Matt O'Niel by Tonner. Everything else is pretty much girl based. Barbies, Bratz, Ginny doll, Madame Alexander, Effanbee dolls, Betsy McCall, Ann Estelle, Strawberry Shortcake, the list goes on. So maybe people just assume dolls=girls, despite how they are dressed.

      Disclaimer: I am talking from what I've noticed, and only in the US. I don't know about the rest of the world.
       
    8. Everyone's entitled to feel, it's what they say or act upon their emotions that doesn't seem quite right sometimes.

      Personally, I would have to agree with the sister on this one.

      What I found offensive was my co-worker telling me ALL dollfies looked like girls -and this is from looking at pics on the manufacturer's website and me having told her first that they were boys.

      But I digress.

      If someone's dressing their boys up in skirts, I think it's perfectly natural that someone's going to assume they're female.

      I had a character who was a cross dresser and the whole point he did cross dress is because he wanted to be viewed as a female. If someone said "she" was hot, I'd roll around laughing and say, "Yeah, isn't HE?" Then they'd look at me and I'd be like, "lift his skirt -you'll see (XP)," but I'm never offended that someone thought he was a girl.
       
    9. Oh wow I never knew this xD
      I guess this would kind of show the difference between the mind set of real crossdresser and ones who does it for the scene?
       
    10. There's a difference between feeling offended and whether offense was meant. You have a right to feel how you feel... that doesn't necessarily mean the other person is trying to be offensive. I always feel you should cut other people some slack.
       
    11. Just basically kicking around what everyone else has said, I don't think you have the right to be offended, unless someone just keeps on pressing the issue. You put your boy in a dress, you should EXPECT for it to be called a girl. But if you tell them "Oh, he's a boy, he's just a crossdresser" and they keep pressing the issue? Then just lift his skirt XD

      I have a friend who has a boy that she crossdresses, and everytime he gets called a she, my friend acts OFFENDED "He's a BOY" which I think is downright silly. I, on the other hand, have a doll who is a hermaphrodite. Character-wise, he refers to himself as male, has a male body, but has extra girl parts down there, and wears makeup. He always dresses masculine, but if I take him out and people call him a girl, I shrug it off, considering they're half-right anyway. he can be wearing pants and be bare-chested, but just because he's wearing lipstick, "Oh, she's so pretty!" You just have to expect it, if you crossdress your guy you KNOW what you're getting into, there is absolutely no reason to get offended.
       
    12. I tend to hide Uriel from some family members for this very reason.
      My boyfriend's dad got all in my Hid's face and kept calling him names.
      It made me upset because I didn't want him getting his spit on his faceup or even knocking him over.
      His mother however I am pretty open with, and I even showed her my Shiwoo's new pink stockings and went on about how cute they look on his thighs! XD

      If I was out somewhere and someone comment on "What a beautiful girl I have" I would simply say thankyou and be glad that someone thought so highly of him.

      I just don't like poeple getting in my doll's face or grabbing him.
      He's too preciouse and expensive to be around that!

      I do however find it strange when people comment on his glossed lips.
      They just don't understand why he's wearing 'Makeup'.
      But it isn't reeeally makeup,right? *_*
       
    13. Why should anyone feel offended when you dress up your boy as a girl and someone calls him a pretty or beautiful girl? When you make such a choice, it is obvious that that will happen. Moreover, it seems to me that when you deliberately put your boy in girl's clothes you must have the intention to give him a feminine look or appearance or style. So, when someone calls him a girl, you could also see it as a kind of compliment because you succeeded in your aim to give the boy that quality. So why feel offended and get angry at it?

      But when you explain to the person that it is boy dressed as a girl and they still insist that your doll is a girl and refuse to call him a he, I can understand that you feel offended because the other person doesn’t respect your choices with regard to your doll. Especially when they start making fun of him (or you). In that case I think you have every right to feel offended.
       
    14. That would certainly not offend me. Coming from the genderqueer perspective, you develop a certain sense of humour about the whole issue, when it comes to humans. That cant help but rub off on my doll hobby. Now, said sense of humour wouldn't stop me from politely insinuating otherwise, but I usually preface that with "Yeah, I keep telling him he'd make a hot girl if he'd just grow some boobs..." or somesuch. :)

      Now, when my hermaphroditic, everything-dressing Mana-sama Minimee is all done, THEN I'll really be exercising this girl/guy confusion thing. *L*
       
    15. This might sound a bit harsh, but what do you want from people? They can only assume that the doll in the pink frilly dress and long curly wig is a girl. Dolly people understand better, non-doll people will get mistaken. You can get mad if you want, but expecting them to read your mind and know the gender of your doll is a bit too much... if they're doing it to tick you off it's a different matter ~
       
    16. I am constantly amused by the fact that just about everyone (including other doll owners) thinks Wren is male when they see her for the first time. I think this is actually largely due to how many feminine male dolls there are. Next to them, Wren looks rather butch! I always gently correct them (just as I do when someone - rarely - thinks one of my male dolls is in fact female). I don't find it offensive. After all, the dolls don't actually have any gender or sex. They have a sculpt that resembles a human form, and their sex is implied with that, but the actual concept of sex is something that we impose on them.

      I also call all children under the age of five or so "it," unless I'm explicitly told otherwise, so perhaps my views differ from the norm.
       
    17. that's why i think cross dressing dolls and girly dolls in general are disgusting. I still have to find a male doll who's not gay, attracted by men in any way, hates to dress like a girl, does not wear girly panties and is not owned by a sick rabid yaoi fangirl.
       
    18. Huh??? It's disgusting because people get confused...? I don't think I'm following whatever point you're trying to make.

      I hope you aren't suggesting that all people who own cross dressing dolls are all obnoxious 'sick' (!?) fangirls, because that would be offensive.
       
    19. That's a funny subject to me actually, because I have a theory on that. I think the longer your into BJD the easier it is to tell boy from girl, even when the dolls look like girls.

      For example, I had been fantasizing about these dolls a long while before I got Daniel, and one day I was looking at some pictures of hiritai's Hayden and my older (25 year old) sister came over and commented that 'she' was pretty. I laughed and told her it was a he, but really, looking at Hayden. I had no clue anyone could think he was a girl... xD

      And now, I've got Daniel and the first thing people say when they see him is either that he looks like a girl or imply that he actually is a girl. My sister seeing him for the first few times thought he was a girl and almost everyone else did too. But from the minute I opened the box and began snapping photos of him, there were no thoughts of him looking like a girl. He was a sweet innocent 10 year old boy and I thought he looked it. Maybe it was because I knew that he was a boy and had his character planned or something, but even today I don't think he looks like a girl one little bit. My friends that have been around and have played with him (He's very spoiled in my group of friends xP) for awhile now, don't think he looks like a girl either, and have even looked into getting there own dolls because of him.

      Maybe it's just the fact that I've surrounded myself by these dolls so much that I can tell easily or maybe its some weird voodoo thing that us awesome doll people have, but people who are on the outside of this hobby don't have quite the same instincts as us. XD

      Although, In your case, with the feminine clothes. I'd say that's a common thing that you shouldn't be mad about. Like it's been said above, It's common human sense that girls wear dresses and guys dont. But I dont think it's right to continually comment that the doll looks like girl when you've been told that it's a boy. I've seriously had conversations with my class mates that go like this: (X is my classmate)

      Me: See this is my BJD. Daniel.
      X: She's creepy.
      Me: It's a boy.
      X: Ew. It looks like a girl.
      Me: Yeah, Sure. But It's a boy.
      X: But it looks like a girl.
      Me: >.<
       
    20. This comment sounds entirely disgusting, and I don't even own a crossdressing doll.

      If you haven't seen before a male doll that dresses like a guy or isn't gay on this entire forum, then I think it's safe to say that you don't really know your way around the forum or you assume every single male doll you come upon is gay.