Dolly Cross-Dressing

Surely the whole reason for our dolls is to express what we ourselves cannot? At 36 I aint gonna be no supermodel/rockstar/nobel prize winner but my doll can be, so I say, be free . . . life is too short

 

I don't care if someone cross dresses their doll, but there's so much of it that it looks more like a cheap fad to me. I think that could be offensive to people in the LGBT community.

 

No offense to anyone who cross dresses their doll/s, but why cross-dress? Why not just have a girl doll if you're putting dresses on all your boys? It doesn't make any sense to me, but then, I guess I don't understand why real people cross dress either...

 

Real people do it to feel more comfortable in their own skin for the most part, it makes them happy, it makes them feel pretty. My personal opinion: Unless someone knows or has known someone that crossdresses they don't really understand what it's all about. Some of my favorite musicians have been crossdressers IRL and while I plan on making dolls of them, I don't plan on having 15 that do it. I'm not obsessed with having crossdressing dolls, only goths.

 

People in the LGBT community have far more important things to worry about than whether someone sticks their boy doll in a dress.

What happens within our hobby really has very little impact on anyone outside the hobby, and it's a bit silly to presume otherwise.

 

For the very simple and basic reason that a girl in a dress is a GIRL in a dress.
A boy in a dress is a BOY in a dress.

You may as well ask me why girls wear jeans, an item of clothing does not represent gender to me any more than hair or eye colour would, so my answer is, why not crossdress them?

 

For some people it's because they honestly don't like any girl doll sculpts, or feel that they can't relate to girl dolls. I personally use my dolls as representations of characters I have created, but the few female characters I have ever made up I have a very difficult time in feeling that connection with them as I do my male characters. I don't know why I don't feel as close as them (maybe because so many of them end up feeling entirely flat and cliche, no matter how much I work on them), I simply don't, so I only collect boy dolls. And quite frankly, some girl clothes for dolls are just really, really pretty. So why not put them on my boy dolls if it suits their looks? Granted, I don't have any cross-dressers at the moment (though some might argue), but I don't kid myself that I won't in the future, so I don't really see why I'd have to get a girl doll just because I like girl clothes. I already know there's a good chance I wouldn't even like her so there's no point bothering in then (in the end, she'd probably end up 'cross-dressing' too anyway in pants and vests and things).

I won't even touch upon the real-life aspect of it though, that's en entirely different issue.

 

a] is it unethical/wrong to picture "underage" (that means 21 for me) dolls cross-dressing? Nah, I don't think so... I don't see why it'd be a problem at all. Besides I see lots of little boy dolls in dresses, ha!

b] when cross dressing how far does one go? Does one leave it to feminine clothing/face-up? or does one go all the way? One goes as far as one wants, I should think. I don't do this myself, personally, as I don't have boy dolls, but I've seen them every which way.

c] Is it wrong to post pictures of your cross-dressers?
Well I don't think there are any rules against it here, so I'd say not.

In general dolls have historically 'represented' whatever humans do, so I find it only natural that people dress them in Lolita or Jrock or retro styles or cross-dressing. It's an age-old practice found in many cultures, like any sort of costume wearing, really. It doesn't bother me at all. I love seeing RL cross-dressers, I think it's very interesting that someone would do this in public at great personal risk to themselves on multiple levels.

As for dolls, well I'm always intrigued to see what people do with their dolls. I find it no stranger than anything else we do, really.

Raven

 

As far as you know or care, anyway. As long as we look past everything we won't have to see anything.

 

For your information, I happen to be bi, I have a large number of friends within the London LGBT community, my OH is bi, two close friends are in the early stages of transitioning, and I am also good friends with a large number of post-op trans people. They have all seen my dolls on many occasions, including when I've crossdressed my dolls. Not once have any of them expressed offense over it - in fact quite often I've received compliments and they've said they wished that some of the outfits came in human size! These are not the sort of people who would be exactly reticent about telling me if I'd crossed a line.

 

I don't see it as a 'problem' that has to be 'fixed' or anything like that, if people want to dress their male dolls in dresses that's fine...from my perspective it is more irritating to have to explain to other doll owners that my dolls are female when dressed like females! I have had a PM from someone complimenting my SDC Kurenai in a fer, saying 'he' looked cute. I don't know of any male Kurenai's and I know she's got an S bust part, but Melangell is really a girl, honest. I accepted the compliment, but stated that my doll is in fact a girl not a boy! I wasn't rude and I didn't flip out, a compliment is a compliment after all, but I had dressed my female doll in a feminine manner and still someone managed to confuse her gender, which frustrated me.

I feel that since so many male dolls are crossdressed in this hobby, it doesn't make the statement that men can choose to wear whatever they like anymore, it instead makes the statement that everything in an elaborate dress is a boy, which is obviously inaccurate and frustrating; possibly more frustrating than for those people who have to constantly explain their male doll in a feminine frock is a boy.

 

Because it's cheaper and less permanent than a sex change, human or resin? Maybe you don't like the female body sculpts offered by the company making your male head, maybe you don't want to make yourself a hybrid, maybe *most* of the time you just want a group of guys and it's not worth investing in some bustier bodies for them when cotton balls are 99 cents a bag?

It's an inanimate chunk of resin that happens to have some sculpted parts that are usually hidden under clothing. It's not really capable of embarassment. In most cases, people that know you well enough to be seeing your doll outside of a doll forum, knowing it's a different gender than what the clothing would indicate, are probably ones you can explain things to if they get offended. And if they do, it's probably not going to be because they're gay^n. (I have lost track of all the letters they're adding into it now, so I'll just use an exponent)

If they *are* on a doll forum, then they've no excuse for not knowing bloody well how much these things cost. Or that people like to dress their dolls in clothes they find pretty. If it was all about the genitalia, they'd be hanging around naked all the time.

There are people who will dress male dogs in pink sweaters or "girly" halloween costumes, too, and the dogs *are* alive and could, possibly, have the potential for embarassment. (would probably be different for a doberman than a chihuahua, too...)

As for unethical? I wouldn't rigidly enforce gender roles in real live children (Yes, I think boys should get to play with dolls - newsflash: families have daddies, too!), so why would there be a need for that with resin ones, who cannot even have their own preferences or opinions about yours?

 

i find it rather funny why people keep questioning about this dolls gender thing.

i have a boy that have a short hair, wear manly clothings, yet people thing HE is a girl! (which sometimes makes me a bit pif)
i have a boy that have long hair, wearing NOT a dress but a bit girly outfit, and think he is a girl (which i dont bother much).

it's just a mentality of people around me. dolls = girls. eventhough how manly you dress up your boys as :<

in the end i just dont really bother. they dont get married. they don 'produce' children.
they just objects that you love. so, if you care so much with other people's doll cross dressings, just pretends they are girls with a very tiny boobs. end of story.

 

I apologize for assuming you weren't part of our community. I'm bi, as well and I'm on a few different doll boards(including this one). In some(mainly 1/6 action figure boards) you have a mostly hetero male population that seems to fetishize the lesbian part of the comunity. On the BJD boards it seems the exact opposite. It just makes me wonder if people don't get the wrong ideas from things like f/f pr0nz and yaoi anime & manga. It's almost like the fact that it's a BOY in a DRESS is more important than just being a regular ole boi in a dress, to some people.

Do your friends honestly know the amount of dolls on the boards that are crossdressed/gay or do they only know about yours?

 

Oh, they're quite aware; I've often posted photos of meets I've attended where thy can see for themselves that it's not just my dolls that crossdress. They often comment that they wish some of the gorgeous boots the dolls wear came in human size, or remark on the gorgeous dresses - but I've not had a single negative comment about crossdressing dolls. In fact the only negative comments I've ever had were about how uncannily real some of the dolls look.

 

I don't see what being "part of the community" has anything to do with cross-dressing dolls, since they're cross-dressed for very different reasons than real-life people and the two aren't equatable (for one, dolls don't have feelings and a gender, just a sculpted representation of sex). I'm also pretty sure real-life cross-dressers and other such individuals have enough maturity and other things to worry about than a boy doll in a dress, which, all in all, is not in any way a representation of negative feelings towards their lifestyle (albeit oftentimes riddled with misunderstandings).

Personally, I dislike it on the feedback level - I don't think boys in dresses "just because" are attractive (Unless I know the guy and know his personality - a few of my guy friends dressed up in dresses for various occasions (err, backstage in a theatric production) and that was amusing) because I like a certain level of masculinity in my guys, which, while visible with real boys through actions and words, is not there at all with the already hyper-feminine male doll sculpts. So the "Oooo he's so cute " response of this fandom just grates on my nerves a little bit - but hey, it's my personal opinion and I click the back button after shaking my head. I don't think it's wrong or insulting or shouldn't be done (although I think certain people, who are most likely fans of yaoi, need to realize that homosexual =/= cross-dresser) but it just annoys me.

To be honest, people often mistake Mike for a girl even though he dresses sort of masculine and I'm fine with that. I think I'd get way more irritated if I had a girl doll who dressed like a girl and was still called a guy because of all the people who found the most feminine head sculpt, stuck it on a feminine guy body, shoved said body into a dress and raised havoc/skirts [to flash] if someone dared mistake their "hot guy" for a girl.

 

a] is it unethical/wrong to picture "underage" (that means 21 for me) dolls cross-dressing?
no not all.
b] when cross dressing how far does one go? Does one leave it to feminine clothing/face-up? or does one go all the way?
depends on what you are going for and are wanting

c] Is it wrong to post pictures of your cross-dressers?
nope not at all

 

I suppose if there *was* a Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Resin, it's not the little boys in dresses they'd consider the most unethical.

It'd be putting HIM in a dress!

 

Inkybear, wolfmammy, lulu:

Yea, I think if I understood the point/emotional ties of real cross-dressing I might understand where doll owners would be coming from with their characters. True, there's a LOT of really cute female clothes out there, but I think out of the hundreds of doll molds, if I really wanted the clothes that bad I'd be able to find a girl to slap them on, vs a boy. Doing it to a boy just seems confusing? I don't know. I guess I really can't debate it because I just don't understand the merit behind it at all, so it wouldn't be fair to have a fact-less opinion. The only way I really understand it is if the character was gay, or something, but I"m not sure that's the basis for cross-dressing. Crap, I need to google this...

trisana: yep, dogs in pink=cute. boys in pink=cute. boys in pink frilly dresses with heels and a parasol=WTF????

 

Lorti, as Lelite has already explained above, cross-dressing does not equal gay. It doesn't mean transsexual either. A close friend of mine enjoys cross-dressing but is quite comfortable in his masculinity and 100% straight. He simply enjoys dressing in female clothes. It's not even on the level of a fetish; it's just something he likes doing, and he's not alone in this - London has a fairly thriving heterosexual transvestite scene.