Dolly androgyny -why do we like it?

I don't know, I think I prefer the more androgynous dolls because it's the same thing I (without really meaning to) have in friends. I am definitely not androgynous... since I have my family's trait of curvy-ness and big boobs (boyish clothes will never cover those). But I find myself surrounded by people who, on most days, look relatively ambiguous. I've never understood the obsession with fitting into a gender stereotype. Gender is biological, but it is more defined by society than anything else.

The point is: I'm just more comfortable around people who aren't shoved into little 'masculine' / 'feminine' categories, and that crosses over into my taste in dolls. I never pick out my clothes thinking about whether they are for 'boys' or 'girls', I like what I like (which ranges from suits to lolita dresses x____x). And the same applies to dolls. I know for a fact I just would not be able to bond with a big hulking beefy beefcake of a boy doll. And I doubt I would be able to bond with a super cutesy femmy girl doll either (but there is a better chance here than with the other). I'll stick to my boyish girls and pretty boys. ;D

 

I think it boils down to preference. I, personally, love the idea of androgyny because I like it when things are ambiguous. I hate it when something is decidedly "masculine" because it's rough and tumble, or "feminine" when it's soft and fluffy. I've never understood why people feel the need to but things into such limiting categorizes, and if you step outside of that, you're something else. I also don't think that androgyny should apply only to physical attributes.

That being said, for my first doll, I want her to be decidedly female. She will look like a female because the character is biologically female. However, she is decidedly "masculine" because of many of the character traits she exhibits. To me, this is also a form of androgyny.

 

See, i actually own the senior delf abadon. He's not soft or girly in the least. Even with a long wig on, my Abadon has never been mistaken as a girl. In fact, i did see someone here on DOA who turned their Abadon into a girl, but he didn't look like a girl at all. Even with the girl make-up. He looked like a guy, wearing make-up, and in Drag. And also, a doll being 'pretty boy" doesn't make them adrogynous. A doll looking like it is a female head, on a boy body to me, does. Comparing faces, to show you an example of a doll that is femmy, compared to a doll that is not (again, my Opinion) Look at Bliss, in his photos, and then scroll down and look at his hands and body. Is anyone going to try to tell me that this head MATCHES this body? I mean it's not a good or bad thing...it's just something that to me, jumped out when i first saw the Senior Delf Dolls. Abadon's chin is VERY pronounced. His nose is wider. His brow is very masculine. And his jawline is definately more square than the other SDFs. When i see that head on that body with those hands, he looks masculine. Wether in a long wig or short. When i first opened the pictures of Bliss, I initially thought, "Oh, Pretty, they made a girl!" and then i saw his body and hands. Even my friend who was with me at the time and saw the pics was like "That just looks odd to me...it looks like a girl doll head on a boy body.". Again, this is not to say that it is a correct or incorrect opinion, it's just an opinion. You don't have to agree, just as i do not have to agree with your sentiments.

i didn't say that Long flowing hair made someone femmy. I just meant that to me, it IS a feminine characteristic, and in fact, i did mention that they all were realitively masculine, other than their hair. It is my personal opinion, that long hair, makes men look more feminine. It is a trait that i do not care for, becuase to me, it feminizes masculine features, and detracts from them. It's an opinion. And no, not all romance novels that show a long-haired man are historically centered. I've seen plenty of newer set stories, where the cover displays a long haired man. Next time you are in the bookstore, take a stroll down the romance area. Notice how many of the men on the covers are long-haired, and how many are not.

And Poison was not in the LEAST masculine. In fact, Jeezus, they all looked like Barbie dolls. (no pun intended with the name for those who remember the bandmembers names'.)

 

Well yessss, of course it's an opinion. A good debate will present counter-claims when an opinion is presented. Just like the way that lots of people think that long hair brings out the strength of a man's features, and emphasizes them more cleanly, rather than detracting or softening them.

Just like it's opinion-based that we think SD16 Yukinojo is as butch-looking as all hell-- you can break down every one of those features & classify them as masculine, too-- and yet casual observers still say "Oh, she's so pretty". The lovely Abadon can go either way too, depending on how you paint him. Sigourney Weaver's got a butchier jawline than he does. XD For Bliss, you're preaching to the choir (my first thought was "whoa, really tall harem girl with abs!").

And of course not ALL of romance-novels are historically-based; I was merely pointing out that many of the longhaired models traditionally/commonly appear on stories where there's pirate-blouses, Versailles ruffles, frontierwear, etc. To the lay observer, these idioms automatically make it "OK" for a male hero to have long hair, because they get the visual cue of "Oh, historical" or "Oh, pirate" or so on. But there's plenty of fantasy/modern genre romances that do feature longhaired men too, of course. And it amuses me greatly that you assume a siteful of women doesn't know anything about the romance-novel aisle of the bookstore.

Poison looked like painted Barbie dolls, but they acted like macho men. (As though they had a right to! ) Their shtick was a pallid echo of the New York Dolls' in that respect, but they just didn't manage to make it work as well. Attempts at androgyny don't usually work for folks who can't get over their own testosterone. Poison needed a bigger dose of not-taking-oneself-so-bloody-seriously. Still, I can't wait for glam to come properly back into Western rock: guys these days scribble on a smidgen of eyeliner & think they're all so daring. *snort*

 

I don't go specifically looking for androgynous dolls in the sense of one that could go either way. It is really quite subjective. One person might see a doll as dripping with masculinity and another see the same doll as too pretty.
Maybe androgynous meant more a few years ago when you had definite ideas or clues of what was feminine and what was masculine? At least in American culture. I don't think of beautiful as a feminine trait. In my mind a beautiful man will not necessarily look girlish.
I googled Yukinojo-looks like a man to me. Looked at senior delf Abadon and I can definitely see that head as a interesting female. Just all opinion. In my little world a pretty head on a ripped body is not so much androgynous as just a beautiful guy.
I have a Soom Olivine-many seemed to think, when the first pictures showed up on Soom's site, the Olivine was handsome or too mannish. In real life I cannot see it at all. I shudder to imagine that head on a male body.
I think I could make room for a male doll or a female who would have tor prove what they were by dropping their pants or panties However this is androgyny in the sense of being sexless and immature, right? Or at least sexless.
But currently my dolls are unmistakably girls in my opinion.
I always had a soft spot for Edward of Cowboy Bebop, a.k.a. Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, a.k.a. Francoise Appledelhi.
If you want to know too much about androgyny and bore your friends senseless:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgyny
Random:
Girls who are attractive yet are tomboys-Yes (Alyssa Milano in Double Dragon, Cec Verrell in Hell Comes To Frogtown)
Bois who look like my generic overweight male co-workers but without the stubble-No
300 pound guys with stubble in a matronly print dress -No
Glam rock-less time on garish makeup and more time on musicianship pretty well sums up Glam rock for me.

 

I'm in the company that doesn't particularly like the androgynous look. I mean, I appreciate each doll for what it is, but me personally, the reason I got a girl instead of a boy was being unable to find one sufficiently... boy-like.

I think part of it might just be the inherent grace that *seems* to be implied by the "pretty-boy" look. They seem to be thoughtful and gentle - like a knight out of some storybook, perhaps. As a woman, it's sort of hard to link those sorts of looks with the many negatives of dealing with the opposite sex.

I'm not sure that made any sense at all...

 

I love androgyny, personally, doll or person. I own only, and plan on buying only male dolls. I just don't get attached to female characters, and I think boys can so easily pull off either being soft and feminine or rough and masculine or somewhere in between, that I don't feel the need to have a female character anyway. Its just me. I do so love my ladyboys.

 

I kind of grew up around Japanese men so it's what I'm used to seeing, plus I think I've only mistaken a doll once for a girl but that was because it was an incredibly feminine sculpt and he was wearing a dress! (not laughing at the dress, just the fact that I was finally stumped!)

 

I personally don't want my boys to look too girly since they are boys after all. I want one that looks just a bit more masculine so they don't get confused as girls.

 

I simply enjoy the concept of androgyny. If I had a female doll, I would probably make her look just as androgynous as the male dolls are. As for the youthfulness of them, I never really thought about it. D:

 

It's an interesting subject to look at but if you look at all the most famous pieces of art we find that the subjects are either extremely non-gender ambiguous or they stride that middle line of androgyne.
I think overall most people that indulge in such artist endevours enjoy the ambigouity that the human body can hold.
But more than that, I think the reason for the huge amount of androgyne found in dollfies is because they're mostly made by asian countries, which tend to have a much more androgynous appearance.
Personally, I like that blending of gender appearance because I personally find it beautiful.

 

I've grown-up in an all white school and neighborhood all my life. Ever play that game where you told all your girl-friends who you had a crush on? I was made fun of because I like the skinny nerd with the long brown hair and glasses . I was the only asian in my classroom (maybe the whole school).I totally agree with you Die Blau, "gender is biological", but roles and appearances can be criticized heavily by society

 

LOL!!!!! I had to think a second but totally got the pun.

I didn't think they looked girly at all, despite the hair and makeup, and always had a huge crush on CC. I've always liked long hair on guys (when it's done right) and have never seen a guy who didn't look hotter wearing eyeliner, so I suspect my perspective is skewed a bit.

As for dolls, I think it's just preference. I tend not to be drawn to the super-masculine faces in most cases. I think it's because they often have something that turns me off, usually odd lips. But there are also some masculine dolls that I really like (Akando! Though his features are softly masculine rather than angularly masculine, if that makes any sense). I may at some point (WAY down the line...) have a doll that is really androgynous deliberately, but for now I prefer my boys to be boys and girls to be girls. No matter how girly my family and friends think they are.

 

Yes, that's what I meant about Poison being a product of their times... Nowadays (at least here in North America), they couldn't pass for very manly, but in the era of 80s Hair Metal, they actually were the reigning alpha males. (I couldn't stand them, even back then, but I thought their shoes were fabulous.) ^.^ The charm of Glam, & related niches like hair-metal or deathrock, was that those guys DID maintain their masculinity-- all that rockstar swagger and crassness and virility-- while decorating themselves from the same style-box as the women used. It was quite a revolutionary thing for the 'straight' world to see these guys painting themselves up in glitter, yet still getting lots of girls. It made many people think twice about whether the traditional trappings of masculinity really ARE necessary to 'be a man'.

A lot of kids today, who didn't live through the 70s or 80s, just can't grasp how that would be possible: "Poison? How could you possibly consider THAT masculine?!" Ditto Bowie and the NY Dolls, even further back in history. Ditto the ruffle-clad Dandy men, for that matter, even further back in history. It used to be a very manly thing to show off your legs in tights, paint beauty-marks on your face, wear your long hair in a ribbon, or enhance your goodies with codpieces (precursor to the Wonderbra). To modern eyes, dressing your boy-doll in Elizabethan tights, garters, & crotch-padding only gets called Androgynous, because it's seen out of its original context. A Shakespearean time-traveller would take one look at such a boy-doll and say, "what a fine figure of a man is he".

PS. I agree, most guys do look better in eyeliner. ^^ That's just me.

Bingo. Lots of people have SUCH a mental block about beauty. It's not just for women & children.

 

Sometimes gender stereotypes are painfully boring. At least with the dolls we are able to combine all of our favorite traits in to one form.

 

so this is going to be a bit of a different answer.
i personally identify as third-gender, a term that falls under the umbrella of transgender. someone who identifies as third-gender doesn't identify as male or female.
alot of third-gender folks (myself included) choose a style of dress and hair for themselves that is androgynous.
when i was looking at dolls, the doll having an androgynous body was very important to me, in a way, the doll had what i wished i had - a compleatly genderless body. i looked at some dolls and decided NOT to get them, because their shoulders were too broad, or they had breasts, or some other feature that screamed MALE or FEMALE. i needed, more than a want, it was a need, a doll that instead of screaming a gender, playfully whispered "guess!"

 

interesting that you say that, because a close friend of mine is transgender (FTM) and two-spirited (a native american term to decribe someone who feels they are both genders, not physically, but spiritually) and he's starting to get into BJDs because of me... although interestingly enough, he's drawn to the female dolls.

 

i'm just attracted to genderless things (on an aesthetic level) :P boys with long hair and flat girls with short hair