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Females as males? (Objectifying "males")

Jul 31, 2007

    1. But it is probably the most relevant influence in regards to these dolls because a large number of the male dolls in question are owned and created by the younger female crowd that has latched onto the BL phenomenon. It's hard to not see how the highly sexualized, girly boy ukes in BL manga or bishounen in anime/manga are being turned into the highly sexualized, girly boy dolls.

      As for myself, I don't see a problem with objectifying either sex in any way you want. They're dolls, they are intended to be fantasy objects, and why should we have to censor our fantasy objects to be politically correct?
       
    2. It's not being myopic to limit one's post to a few points felt to be the most salient to the present discussion at whatever point it's at. Just a judicious use of bandwidth and some attempt to keep close to the already-staked territory of on-topicality.

      And frankly, while historical and cross-cultural research is both terrifically interesting and definitely mentally rewarding, I doubt that most of the doll owners in question here have undertaken such lengthy studies. While the yaoi/anime/fanfic experience may well be based on more far-reaching and ancient tendencies of the species' psyche, most people tend to base their actions on their own psychological underpinnings and their recent and most important (a.k.a., to which they are emotionally receptive) current cultural exposures and influences.

      It's only a matter of time, if the discussion is allowed to range too broadly (or too deeply into other fields), before someone will point out the thread is no long BJD-centric!
       
    3. Goodness gracious, Armeleia. I love you for this. Please stop me from quoting Aristotle's Poetics about the artist as presenting possible realities in sheer academic glee XD
       
    4. the only thing id do for my doll as in 'girl/boy' would be to give him a skirt, cause they are easy to make. XD
      although I cosplay guys on a regular basis. XD
      hoo! that would be funneh. a girl cosplaying a guy with a guy doll girl cosplaying. . . . did that make any sense at all?? o.0

      and id totally carry around my seme/uke paddle. XD
       
    5. I have a feminine boy doll, and his name is MiYuki. He was never raped. He has not been sexually abused. He may like the company of males, but he doesn't suffer from 'BWS' (broken wrist syndrome) and he doesn't dress slutty. His head is androgynous, in case you were interested to know.

      I'm 28, so I don't quite fall into the youthful yaoi category. So what does that say about me?

      I created him because I had a love for Sai from Hikaru No Go (a manga, I know). I am a graduate in fashion design, and have always been fascinated by the lithe somewhat serious, beautifully fashioned and effeminately dressed characters depicted from the 15th - 19th century. He seemed to be the perfect mesh of tranquil graceful gentleman and older wiser sister... XD

      About the rape aspect... Hmm... I can't say.

      Do they do it for depth, angst, tragedy? Does it assist in character creation, because in essence the 'creator' is projecting issues and psychological wounds, onto the dolls ~ in essence attempting to make them more 'human'?
      I don't know... that's my only guess. ​
       
    6. Just another two academic cents:

      Mm... if the idea of the raped femme-boy story is distanced from reality, then distanced again by using imitations of humans (dolls), then therefore, the artist creates a possible reality that makes the audience see the topic/story as one that fascinates them and at the same time, invokes these feelings of pity and fear for that character. I don't know how to equate gender into this puzzle at the moment but, oh goodie! Aristotle's Poetics are applicable to dollies! :D

      Mm... imitation of reality~ (slips away to bask in great geekery)

      :D Perhaps the doll becomes the artist's form of catharsis (a release of built-up emotions) Not to say that all those who make these slutty boy dolls/feminized boy dolls are releasing emotions from the exact same experience as their dolls, but perhaps the idea is that the release emotions from an experience distanced from, but at the same time conceptually related, to their character's experience.
       
    7. I don't have boys that I consider feminine, though I suppose others might interpret some of them (Umbrae comes to mind, because of his faceup, especially the lips) as being that way. But then I look at my female dolls, and see that THEY are all rather masculinized, though I still identify them as being very female. In fact, one of my girls is regularly mistaken for a boy doll by non-collectors and collectors alike! Amusing, considering how often people mistakenly refer to male dolls as girls.

      How does that compare to the prevalence of femme-boys? I've never really thought of having a boy who dressed like a woman, or was particularly rich in characteristics commonly identified as being feminine. Not because it bothers me - far from it! I love quite a few of the femme-boys on DoA, and could name five or six off the top of my head that I regularly look for pictures of. but it simply...didn't occur to me.

      I do have one "feminine" doll. She wears mostly EGL and the like, and her girlfriends (yes, girlfriends) look great with her. So it's not a dislike of the feminine, either.
       
    8. I can't remember who sais it was a matter of "bjd owner", sorry, but I agree with him/her.
      Dolls are culturally a girl's attribute (well, in Europe/USA as far as I know), so it does not suprises me that "BJD world" may be 90% of girls and women owners. Maybe we can bridge BJD male and female relationship with owner to Barbie/Ken ? Originally, if I remember well, Barbie was created "to help little girls taming their future woman body" by giving them a mature girl doll, who can dress as a princess, ballerina, but also as a nurse or a stewardess. Ken dolls had been created as a partner for Barbie and not for little boys discovering the great mysteries of puberty..
      About BJD, there was only female dolls at the beginning, designed from the majority of young asian women's tastesto match with them (if not, the BJD would not had been sold).
      Barbie was firstly created from american standard (mature girl, around 20/25, shaped like a mannequin, caucasian blonde...), and BJD were created for asian women, who live with asian men with soft features, small size and delicate limbs (compared to Europeans).
      It seems that younger women may like softer-shaped male, attenuated manliness, no hairs, in a way more feminine than really "virile" (if we look at the casual manhood rule). If we melt this fact with the fact BJD were created in Asia where males are thinner and more ambiguous than in Europe, I think we can understood why mostly of the male BJD have really soft features and sweet faces. Due to that, they are easily turned onto female...
      That may explain why we can found alot of female/male or male/female.

      A stupid idea :
      Barbie was firstly created for little girls discovering their woman body, and later was criticized because it was objectifiying women.
      What if Female-male BJD was a revenge ? ha ha.. well, some of them are mostly female BJD without breasts... nevermind.

      For me, the point of the question has something to do with manliness.
      Such as taming something unknown and quite scary which is the real virile man's body and sexuality. I think adding rape, torture and abuse in the background of such characters may be an attempt to catch a glimpse of men's inner violence, which is real and terrifying if unleashed, but also beautiful. As if people who were creating such backgrounds needed to reassure themselves about men's strenght and taming this violence, by attenuating (scary ?) virile features : very different shape of body, jawbone and bone part of the eyebrows, hairs, sex (in erection or not), heavy muscles and so on.
      Warning : I do not say that rape or horrible things like that are beautiful. I'm just saying that men have in their deepest being a part of violence and hatred, who sometimes appears to the surface, but fortunaltely which mostly of the time stays quiet, and that's this strenght and controlled might who make them beautiful.
       
    9. Just wanted to throw in my two cents...in regards to 'rape' fascination...

      I will admit to having a fascination with 'rape' situations, but kept it a secret until it was finally explained. Having a fascination with 'rape' is not a desire to be 'raped' but the idea and concepts of being desired so completely. The ability to have all control taken away. However with stories and dolls your still completely incontrol of the situation, it's just a desire to not have that control, to give up that control. Doesn't mean you want to be raped. And 'actual' rape is wrong, and we all know that. But in a society where woman are having to be more independant, the idea of the man on the white horse banging down the door and riding away with his princess is desirable. It's just taken to an extreme. (Shrugs)

      Edit: And why males vs females? Because it pulls us away from 'actual' rape towards the fantasy concepts as explained above.

      -Anneke
       
    10. ..........:eek:...........
       
    11. I think the whole "modding girl doll to boy doll" is a little overrated. Couldn't one just sand a male body if they wanted it curvier? Also, the female-to-male modding kinda takes away from the doll's original gender. It also brings up the question "why mod the bodies in the first place if I can buy a body of that gender originally?"
      There are enough companies out there selling a variety of bodies. It's not like there's nothing to choose from.

      Personally, my boy (Shiwoo) is very girly. But it's not like I needed to mod a girl body for him to get my point across. Even in a tight shirt, people think he's a girl. He doesn't need a girl body to confuse people even more.

      I don't want to be taken the wrong way in this conversation. I've seen many beautiful modded girl-to-boy dolls that I think are lovely. I just think you could do mods an an already male body to make it slightly more feminine.
       
    12. I'll confess, I'm guilty of having one of these girly-boy dolls... Though I wouldn't consider him "slutty" for lack of a better word, and he only cross-dresses on occasion. I'll also admit that I am a yaoi fan, however, I was a member of Gay Straight Alliance and various gay youth groups before I discovered yaoi. So for me interest in yaoi stemmed from that.

      Getting back on topic, I think that in some cases it's easier for a female doll owner to portray her male dolls as feminine and having much more female thought patterns. As opposed to having to guess at how a very masculine male might act. Having a feminine boy might make the character seem more authentic in some ways... For an example, most of my female friends chose the feminine uke boy as their favourite character from a yaoi manga, where as my male friends (some gay and some straight) chose the masculine seme boy character. So, maybe the appeal of the feminine boy to females is that they can identify with them more easily...(?) All this is just speculation, and might only apply in some cases. I should add I don't believe that it's true of myself either. I could be way off, so feel free to correct me or disagree. ^^
       
    13. ::mwah:: :thumbup Kisses to all of you. Everything about this issue I believe, or even think possible, has already been said here. Has already been explained & explored in depth. Has already been phrased and rephrased and counterphrased. Has been eloquently questioned & eloquently defended. All within two pages! I'm struggling to think of another facet I could add that'd bring anything new to the question of "why"... but I'm in awe, because I can't. You people are all amazing and wonderful and brilliant, and thank you for this.

      My two farthings on "why all the girlyboys?": These dolls SO often come to us pre-eroticized. We can hardly be blamed for keeping them up in the spirit of beauty in which they were created. They's jist so purty. And they offer a nice pretty way for us to access manhood, without all the jerky bits.

      But I'm in the middle of the question: even my trampiest boys, I don't see as being particularly feminine. They may be queeny, as rockstar types are, but they aren't actually femmie. I would like to speculate about the more specific "femininity" (or not) of glamour-type male fashion, which is so common to the current BJD market.

      I'm not talking about little boys in dresses, or crossdressing elves in gowns, or Fruits kids in barrettes & miniskirts, I'm talking about guys that are "all man" with high androgyny: Jrock, vis-kei, superdrag goth, couture punk, etc. If you put your ordinary boy doll into any one element of these styles, something about him automatically turns queeny. For example: I may dress my Isao (who has a very butch faceup) in a tight black tank-top and skin-tight leather jeans. Both pieces of clothing were made for boys, and there's nothing feminine about their design. His wig is near shoulder-length, pretty, but also not terribly girlish per se. However: when you look at him, you think, "that sure is one feminine-looking pretty boy". All his tough-looking clothes, hair, accessories, etc. add up to MORE femininity than the sum of their parts.

      So I'm wondering why. What exactly makes one element of style vs. another "feminine"? Is it tightness or scantiness of clothing? A pair of ordinary bluejeans may look manly on a doll who fits loosely inside them, but when they fit tightly on another doll, the same pair of bluejeans looks really queeny. Or is it the presentation? I love long-haired tough guys, who wear the same long wigs as the female-impersonator dolls, yet look worlds different. Or is it-- (and this is my theory)-- the mere fact that eroticizing males, glorifying ANY part of masculine beauty, automatically turns it feminine? Men aren't "supposed" to be gazed at with the beauty-eye, they're supposed to be the gazing.

      Tie-in: I have had my long-haired Yukinojo mistaken for a girl more times than I think is reasonable, even for Muggles. He's shaped like Mr. Universe, and he wears a leather jacket & camo pants & workboots & a tank-top. If that outline doesn't register as "masculine" at a glance, then I'd like to know what does! Does he have to wear a suit before people think he's a guy? Ideas, anyone?


      Well, some people want shorter boys than are offered. And some people specifically want a boy character with big hips or narrow shoulders, which are things you can't really shape on a boy body. Imagine adding hips to a boy body, or shaving width off its chest & shoulders and then resculpting the arm sockets--! It would be way more work than sanding the breasts off a girl body. And of course there are those who want a hermaphrodite or transgender character.

      I personally love the boy bodies that already come shaped like narrowhipped broadshouldered flatchested boys, so I won't say anything about this trend one way or the other. But if it's your doll, your imagination is law.
       
    14. I fall into the anime-loving category, but I am not a fan of BL or yaoi. I like anime because it portrays men as being beautiful - not merely handsome, sexy, or other masculine adjectives.

      I find that that taste carries over into real life and dolls. I like "feminine" males - that is, the ones with soft features and long hair that could be mistaken for a girl.

      In nature, it's the male of any given species that has the fabulous colours and does the brilliant displays to get the attention of a female, who is drab in comparison. Why is it, with humans, females are the ones who wear the makeup to look younger/prettier/cover up flaws? We're the ones running around trying to get the attention of the males.

      It just seems a little backwards, to me. I never wear make up unless it's for theatre or a formal occasion. And while I'm not confident in my looks, people outside of my immediate family and people who are not obligated to cater to what they think I want to hear simultaneously say that I look fine without makeup, but ask me why I don't wear it.

      Why? I don't have any need for make up. It covers up what is natural. And for those who know me personally, so I don't sound too hypocritical, I use natural products to dye my hair, so my natural rich brown with golden-red highlights can always return after the dye has faded. ^_^

      And I find myself agreeing with Lorelei_D - what if the androgynous body is embedded in our psyche as the 'perfect'? I love that idea. :D
       
    15. Why is it "okay" to sexualize and objectify male characters/dolls? (Is it okay?) Is objectifiying a feminized male different from objectifying a female? And where does the influence and desire to do so come from?

      I don't think it's necessarily okay to sexualize or objectify male characters/dolls but I know I do sometimes objectify men(as overall I'm not a huge fan of em! XD). I think it's pretty much just women trying to show that they're not all that different from guys. I mean, a lot of guys like lesbians and that's okay-people accept it as a truth. But as soon as a girl likes yaoi she's a loser who can't get a boyfriend or 'weird'. So now that girls are finding out "hey, it's okay if you're a sexual person, that doesn't mean you're a freak or a guy wannabe!" there's going to be a period of time where they act like well...spazzes(i'm guilty so i'm not calling anyone out!) until they just calm the heck down and realize it's okay to be a sexual person but not an objectifying person. just because guys used to(and sometimes still do it) to us ladies doesn't mean we gotta act the same way.

      I think objectifying a femanized male character is different from objectifying a female character in some ways. but objectification is objectification regardless of gender. objectifying a femanized male could be seen as stripping away the power from men but also getting rid of the 'weak'(meaning we're seen as the 'softer gender') part of women that leads people to believe that a woman has to be either cute or sexy. they can be smart but ultimately must be cute or sexy as presented by the media. However, on a somewhat contradictory note perhaps, I also agree with Ashtray_girl in that I do think that girls may be able to relate with a feminine boy type of character because he has all the traits the girl is "supposed" to have(I don't have anything against girls who are nice, please don't get that impression!)

      I'm not really sure where a motivation to objectify or sexualize male characters/dolls would come from in general. I myself don't want to be seen as the softer sex just because I happen to have breasts and a vagina so I on occasion objectify male dolls/characters just because I can at the moment.I'm not saying it's RIGHT I'm just admitting guilt. ^^;(see i'm proving my earlier theory about acting like spazzes true! XD) Objectifying the opposite sex is 'expected' from males(or people at least accept it as an inevitability because society 'says' males have to act like that) and not necessarily from females(though every girl has her celebrity crush)

      I honestly have no clue what i'm going on about. remind me never to attempt a debate when i haven't slept in 24hrs!
       
    16. lols I wish I can quote, but I'll just generally respond to what I've read so far.

      I guess I'd be a "former" yaoi fangirl too? (XD I like the way decadentarisu put it).

      Well, as many have said, it's not that ALL femme boys come from influences of yaoi, but as for me, it has. It just all started with liking anime with a lot of boys, and then suddenly I liked the idea of boys with boys. I actually don't know why I used to be so attracted to that, though I guess I could say it as "being jealous of the girl character, but if it was a boy...well...if both boys were hot, it's okay." But it was still funny how I was still okay with a very feminine boy with another more "seme" boy.

      As the years gone by, I started making the situations for my characters (all boys...yes...) even more brutal than I had used to. And as there are many young female bjd owners (not restricted to however), maybe giving those backgrounds to their characters reveals their sexuality when they can't do it in public.

      My characters also had that feminine quality to them, both mentally and physically, and looking at drawings and stories I did with them now...it really surprises me. I still don't know why I did it, but as some have already mention, it was "safer" to have girly boy than a "slutty girl."

      But as for me, as I mentioned being a "former" yaoi fangirl, I really do not like the idea of objectifying males (and automatically not females either), because as much as dolls are a way to live out your fantasies, I think the dolls have to be respected, in a way, too. Like...think about it...is hentai any better and not wrong compared to porn? Even though hentai is " fake," it still portrays sexuality in the wrong way (sorry for that being a bit off-topic).

      As I have said, my characters used to have that feminine quality to them, and I have had them in those helpless situations, but now I feel that I need to represent them more like men, and as I still like that "beautiful" look to them, they have more strength and have more of a mentality of a male. Sadly, since my characters have developed from my old storylines (where I really can change some of those "ahem" situations...^^'), I have been revising them and made it to where they weren't always helpless in certain situations.

      My interest is yaoi isn't as pertinent as it used to, because the way that men were portrayed was unreal and started to look more like they were females with male genitalia. But same with how male dolls are portrayed in a female light, it's just not appealing to me anymore. I get more pleasure from seeing a manly male doll being able to pull of that beautiful look without having to have that female structure, female make-up, and female clothes.

      Now in an aesthetic point of view, the modded female bodies and modded heads, etc. makes sense to me. I have male characters that have some muscle tone and and have characters that may have a younger, slimmer body. Especially with height differences, females tend to be shorter, but what if you had a male character that was shorter than the rest? Well, mod a girl body (though I think I found the perfect short boy body for one of my boys tee hee X3)! And the point about not adding male genitalia after sanding the boobs off...well...I mean...if your doll always wears clothes, should you really need to add it (I wouldn't, b/c it'd be more work :/ ). As for the androgyny...well...they're dolls...they're supposed to be somewhat "effeminate." lols

      sorry for the longness and the occasional repeated point...^^' and I hope I made my point clear too lol
       
    17. This is stunningly well said! But in some way it...negates or still calls into question the act of taking the female-gendered doll (in this case) and modding it to male-gendered. But that being said, I absolutely positively agree with your brill truism that "eroticizing males, glorifying ANY part of masculine beauty, automatically turns it feminine" and would even wager that those of us who collect primarily male dolls are attracted to the form for that very reason. It's an ultimate form of fangirlling male beauty. And we can then "objectify" the male in fantasy...
       
    18. Although I'm newish to the BJD hobby, I must admit it was the very graceful, feminine vampyre looking males that first drew my attention to them.
      From a personal point of view I prefer 'softer' youthful looking men anyway, can't stand hairy blokes ... blegh!! Never have and never will. Also being artistic, I prefer things that look different from the 'norm' and that includes males.

      From a psychological viewpoint I imagine as a few have said it's a way of making males seem 'safer'. Women automatically tend to feel more secure and comfortable around males with more female qualities than overtly masculine males. Subconsciously we prefer them as we think they make more caring fathers for our offspring. Also more feminine guys resemble a more youthful aspect which biologically would tend to mean more vigour, strength and stamina.
      The other aspects of this discussion (i.e. the rape and abuse part)are a way of expressing control. In reality, those brutal actions have little to do with anything sexual and are in fact all about dominance and control. Expressing this with the male dolls is perhaps a way of making the males seem more vunerable, it's taking away as someone else said the male strength and making the male more appealing to the natural nuturing instincts us females have whether we admit to having them or not. To me the very fact someone collects dolls and gives them their own personalities means that the desire to nurture is strong, myself included in that.
      For others it will perhaps as again someone said, be a safe way of dealing with and expressing sexuality that is considered 'abnormal' by the less accepting members of the population.

      I did want to say more but can't quite think how to word it so I'll stop now >< lol
       
    19. Thanks, Zag, I think so too-- "It's an ultimate form of fangirlling male beauty", spot on. When you take masculine beauty as it exists, unmodified & unfeminized, and you frame it in the way that feminine beauty usually gets presented, why does it automatically seem 'gay'?

      In the same way, a man who grooms himself carefully, goes out of his way to smell nice, dresses well, and takes time with his appearance has to call himself "metrosexual", to separate himself from "straight". (In ye olde days, they were called "dandies". But those are extinct now.) A Straight guy isn't allowed to look in the mirror, work on his appearance, or LOOK like he works on his appearance-- that is what women do. Mirrors must be surrogate Male Gazes (and by extension, cameras).

      So, since male beauty has so long been ingrained in us as "something you're not supposed to enjoy looking at", it's NOT a surprise to me when I see so many doll-people with big cases of Andro-Fear. I see the phrase "muscles are icky" more often than I can count. Masculinity, as Lorelei D & others so eloquently said on page 1, is fundamentally threatening to females... So even masculine beauty must be tamed, by framing it the same way you treat feminine beauty.

      Pardon my sociocryptic ramblings, but most of you know how it is: you take a few Gender Identity & Cultural Discourse classes, and that stuff sticks with your cocktail-party conversation repertoire for the rest of your life.


      Why is it "okay" to sexualize and objectify male characters/dolls? (Is it okay?) Is objectifiying a feminized male different from objectifying a female?

      It is different because the male in our society begins in the 'higher' position of power. Objectifying him is seen as a 'balancing act' by those who practice it. This doesn't make it 'right' at all, but some of us don't mind sinking to that level.

      I happen to enjoy objectifying males, so it is "okay" for me, because I am comfortable with it. ^^ In fantasy, that is! In reality, all the men in my life DO get treated like human beings. But they sure think I'm gross when we watch "Smackdown" together, and I make wolf-noises about how hot it is when Edge puts John Cena into a head-scissor hold. I tell them I learned all my best behaviors from men, and this shuts them up. (I adore "Smackdown". <3)


      I can't speak for the rest of y'all, but-- *waves madly* Yep! Me! Me! Me!
       
    20. This is so amazingly OT, but marry me? Please? I spent all of last year DYING over how gorgeous those two look together. And subsequently crying when they were parted and now Edge is gone with an injury! He's a prime example of a man who has some very feminine things about him - always well dressed, beautiful long hair - who still is very masculine and in shape and with muscles even. And I won't even start on how professional wrestling has become quite the way for women to get a weekly dose of testosterone driven male soap opera that provides plenty of male objectification that is supposedly targeted towards a predominantly male audience.

      From a more practical perspective, a lot of the girl to boy mods could be finding ways to have explore different body shapes and silhouettes, or to have shorter boys. Companies seem to be giving all of their improvements to taller and taller bodies when I know I for one want nothing over 65cm. They ignore the smaller boys for this height craze. And sometimes, the only body that will work for a gender swapped head is a modded one. I want an Elfdoll June to be a guy, but Elfdoll does not make their heads compatible by resin colour or neck sizes, so my boy is going to have to go on the girl's body with the breasts removed.