Females as males? (Objectifying "males")

I completely agree--even if I'm in that stage myself, and my characters are too, I don't really tie the two together... My own girlish boy doesn't really go in for the sex thing much. Not that he's opposed, he's just shy and would like to do it to feel connected to another person, not just for instant gratification... (Uh, not that it really matters. He's still plastic.) I'm just saying.

 

I have also thought of it as that. Maybe it's just that phase that most of the younger members are going through (hormones I dunno XD). But I don't know...should be dismiss it as just a phase? I'm sorry I sound so traditional, but...shouldn't the "sex-as-everything" be put down to a minimum?

Well, okay the girly-boy look, I'm not too concerned with that, because the mold is already that way. But the owner is the one to make them more than how the mold make it to be! I mean there are the male/female switcheroos on this site and I think those molds have done freakin' well as the other gender, because of how the owner made them. Say my Kiss...I've seen plenty that have looked more feminine than him and I guess the mold automatically tells the owner that this is a girly-boy. But I chose not to make it so. I dressed my boy up...well...like a boy, and at least to the doll society (oooh doll society XDD; ), my Kiss looks like a boy.

So what I mean is, I don't mind the androgeny and the "girlyness," (well sometimes I mind b/c it's a bit cliche...but whatever) but I think the "look between my legs" and "look at my garters" are a bit much. I think some of these galleries can do without that. I think some need to self-restrain themselves about the sex. I mean...if it can be don't tastefully, I don't mind...but if it's very straightforward, it's just ugly.

(lols did that make sense? XD; )

 

That depends.

If you want to follow the traditional, Puritan-influenced American standard for that kind of thing (ie: "Family values" and all that-), it's more or less required that sexuality in any form be treated as something taboo and, not to put too fine a point on it, dirty. No sex is good sex according to that line of thinking, because it's all nasty and sinful and seeing it or thinking about it can warp innocent minds.

Personally, I don't agree with that point of view... I don't think it's psychologically or socially healthy given that sex is a natural, instinctive desire common to a majority of the living things on this planet... very much including humans, even if some cultures are in denial about that.

That said, I do think that there's a balance to be struck. 'A rational meeting point somewhere between the hard-core Family Values camp who would prefer to pretend that sex doesn't exist and the Anything Goes camp who want it all out there, warts, fetishes, tentacles and all.

We, both as a hobby and in the sense of the broader culture, would be well served by finding that balance. You can't make everyone content, and there are always going to be people on either end of the spectrum who won't be happy with a compromise because it doen't cater to their point of view... But there's still a happy medium somewhere.

 

In my girl-girl pairing (Ivy and Ginevra), I tried very hard not to fall into the traditional stereotypes ("butch" and "femme") -- Ivy is a bit tomboyish, but more on the punky side than anything else . . . she has spikey purple hair and likes to wear combat boots, but she also wears ballgowns with said combat boots if she feels like it ;>

The seme/uke stereotypes do bother me -- I've known a number of gay men in real life, and have talked to them about sex, and there's very rarely a set-stereotype sexual role like this unless there's a BDSM component to the relationship -- and even then, D/s is rarely a full-time relationship, normally people who enjoy roleplay don't act out those roles ALL THE TIME.

-- A (speaking as a fairly femme-style woman who prefers other femme-y women, for the record!)

 

Well, no, I understand that it is natural and there is a phase to go through. And no, I'm not thinking that far into the "no sex" thing. But that was just what I was saying. I guess I wasn't pointing it out correctly.

I understand that there should be balance and that there are those that go one way or the other, but I believe people should understand that there should be a balance met.

I'm starting to think that this is starting to sound like a "That's how it is" thread now. Oh well I guess I have no need to express anything anymore. ^^'

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "I'm starting to think that this is starting to sound like a "That's how it is" thread now.", but we're agreed on the need for a median point between All-Sex-All-the-Time and No-Such-Thing-As-Sex-For-Us-Thanks... There's still the issue of how to arrive at that balance, though.

If we accept the premise that neither of the far ends of the spectrum are ideal, how do we move one part of the community away from Rape-and-Prostitution backstories while convincing another part that just seeing mentions of sex won't ruin the moral fiber of civilization?

 

EDIT: yeah...I think it's about time I leave this thread lol

I'll just say..."Well, that's how it is..."

>_<

 

Wow! It's been fun reading all this stuff, but I have to admit I thought all the gender weirdness was because the "young people" would be embarrassed having girl dolls (eek! No I'm not being an immature little girl/creepy old lady), but it's "cool" (therefore ok) to have boy dolls.

>hides lolita elfboy behind back ^_~

Oops!!! Well... my boy is wearing silly clothes... oh dear the shirt even has ruffles and ribbons!!! :-O I've never seen a Yaoi in my life, I swear!

But *none* of my dolls are sexy/sexualized. My boy is cute, perhaps feminine by western (especially American) standards, but he's innocent-looking, no traumas in his background... just a pensive nature.

I like all my dolls innocent and childlike though. I think of them as an escape from adulthood with all its drudgery and ickiness.

Raven

 

Exactly...

Unfortunately, when things get to that point someone inevitably seems to take it all very personally and then gets bent out of shape because they think that the "PC Police" are out to get them somehow. o_O

In spite of that take on things, I'm not seeing an outbreak of oppression here from either side... just an admission that different people have different comfort levels when it comes to touchy subjects (Like rape in character backstories, or the sexual objectification of dolls-), and that somewhere there's a balance point between Too Much and Not Enough that it's probably a Good Thing to aim for when you're posting to a public forum with a diverse set of users.

'Call it recognition of the fact that it's useful to have some respect for people whose tolerance for that sort of thing is different from your own, no matter which direction that difference happens to go.

 

QFE

I'm sure it's eye opening for some to realise that not everyone loves the same things.

 

I'm glad you said that, hobby-- that suggestion really alarmed me. In a 1984 kind of way. We don't need to move anybody away from the fringes & into the middle, if they don't want to come. (Or from the middle to the fringes, for that matter.) Without the extremes on both ends, you wouldn't have a middle ground. As long as they're playing by the rules, leave them out there & let them have their fun.

 

Got it in one. That's exactly the point.

Of course, it's much more fun to let knees jerk over potential censorship and how, OMG, either the Prudes or the Pervs are out to get us all for having some kind of BadWrongFun.

 

Hmmm, I was about to think that the answer to this was psychologically profound, but really I'm just going to admit to myself that my views of such characters were entirely anime/manga BL influenced. There are semes and there are ukes, and as much as feminists might get their panties in a bunch about it, the submissive/uke partner is usually female or feminine. Then again, some of the girliest, femmiest boys in such literature turn out to be semes in disguise.

I personally don't give a damn about objectification of either sex in FICTIONAL characters.

 

I've read about half of this thread. I frankly am always a little surprised that "girly boy" dolls inspire so much discussion and analysis. Two of my friends are boys who wear dresses. One considers himself genderless and the other considers himself somewhere between a girl and a "neither gender". I have a lot of other friends who identify as trans, genderqueer or any number of other orientations. I really couldn't care less what they are or how they dress and have reached the point where it makes very little dent on my consciousness except when I'm thinking, "oh, that skirt really isn't cut so well for my friend, maybe this style would be better for them."

So it's very natural that my dolls and others' dolls would have all different genders and orientations thereof. I don't even think twice about it.

I also find it odd that crossdressing or other representations of "girly boy" dolls always gets characterized as a "young doll owners" thing. I'm in my 40s.

I really have nothing to say except that I don't have an "explanation" or an "analysis" for what I might do with my dolls. I find it weird that someone would insist there must be such an analysis, that I can't just say "Seems natural to me" or "I like it". I do think that doll owners who have storylines to do with rape, regardless of the gender representations of the dolls involved, are working some issue out for themselves that I either haven't faced or got past a long time ago, but then again I feel that way about most presentations of doll sexuality, and tend to ignore them all. I also think gender issues are very trendy in the US right now in a way they perhaps have not been since the 1970s, because of all the emphasis on gay marriage and gay rights and associated politics.

I've read a little manga but it's not confined to male-male pairings (which to me is an idea that goes clear back to ancient Greece and beyond, and is not something that I identify with manga/anime) and I would stress that it's a little, as in a few stories. It's not something I look at on a regular basis - just not interested.

It's interesting to see other people's views but I don't understand the level of analysis that people bring to the topic because I just don't think that hard.

 

That is true, and especially in the West, boys&#180; love and yaoi manga are actually quite often criticized for their unrealistic portrayal of gay relationships, male characters and male bodies
(I&#180;m not sure if there&#180;s similar criticism from within Japan).

It is, however, important to understand that those manga are not, and never were, meant to be about gay men - or for a gay male audience. This is a common misunderstanding in the West. There are different manga - usually published in Japanese gay magazines - who meet the needs of that audience. So, yaoi manga are in fact being criticized for not being something they were never meant to be in the first place.

Yaoi manga are also very much a different kind of story from the male/male relationships in ancient Greece or Rome (or in Edo-Japan) which were all based on the concept that only a male could be the true soulmate of a male, and females were for reproduction.

Yaoi manga are a fantasy, created by women for female readers.
I&#180;ve read a quote from the editor of June magazine - one of the earliest yaoi magazines in Japan - somewhere in which he makes that quite clear, and he described the male protagonists of yaoi manga as being not men, but women in comic book costumes as men - in a similar way as Donald Duck is a man in a comic book costume as an anthropomorphic duck.

The reasons for their popularity have already been addressed here: they offer twice as many handsome men to look at; no female love interest a female reader could get jealous of; the "safety by distance" aspect that lets the female reader explore the feelings involved without guilt; the gender situation in Japan which makes it impossible for most women to ever meet a man truly as an equal - identifying with a protagonist in a yaoi manga is the only way to "meet" a man as a man, even if it&#180;s just a fantasy. I think most - if not all - translate well and can also explain the popularitry of yaoi in other countries.

I&#180;ve always been fascinated by the way manga and anime likes to play with the gender roles (which has its roots way back in Japanese culture throughout history) (and of course my BJDs&#180; back stories have been influenced by this fascination: I&#180;ve got one gay boy and a cross-dresser who is definitely not gay...) - cross-dressing, gender-changing, androgyny is a recurrent theme in a lot of manga and anime, far beyond the scope of yaoi manga. You can find it in boys&#180; manga as well as in girls&#180; manga, and in other aspects of Japanese traditional and popular culture as well: from the popular legends of Prince Genji or Shiro Amakusa down to the Takarazuka theatre where all roles are played by women and whose "male performers" are offering a similar fantasy to women as the characters in a yaoi manga, or characters such as Ranma 1/2 or Lady Oscar.

It all boils down to a fantasy about an androgynous being combining the best of both sexes without (most of) the negative characteristics of either.
The best friend and romatic lover rolled in one, so to speak.
I guess that explains a lot about the appeal of "girly-boy" BJDs, too.

tl; dr:
- Yaoi manga are not, and never were, meant to be about gay men - or for a gay male audience.
- There&#180;s a lot of gender-bending in Japanese manga for all audiences, roots going wayyyy back into Japanese history.
- It&#180;s all about the fantasy of an androgynous being combining the best of both sexes -
best friend and romatic lover rolled in one.

 

THANK YOU. I was part of my uni's GLBT community when I was living in San Francisco. The fact that YaoiCon is held in San Francisco always makes me s-n-i-g-g-e-r a bit at the irony.

THANK YOU TOO. Yaoi has come under criticism of the Japanese GLBT as well.

This isn't to say that I think "girly boys" are a pox on the ABJD community. There are some which are tastefully done, others that are a bit too over the top for my interest but the owners at the very least don't glorify them. That's my problem with girly boy syndrome (and its counterpart gargantuan butch syndrome) and the treatment of sex by others; the glorification of queer (and not-so-queer) sexuality, rape, molestation. Unfortunately the line between "seriously intense" and "glorification" is sometimes hard to distinguish ^ ^;

 

Thank-you for such a well written explanation! I had understood yaoi to be a form of literature (manga) specifically to fulfill a 'fantasy'... to escape cultural obstacles that young Japanese women are faced with.
I think that when a concept like this comes to the west, it is easily misunderstood...over here, when someone sees boy/boy it is automatically filed under 'gay', when in fact it is a genre that actually deals with women's issues (or was... I don't keep up with yaoi, so I don't know if it has evolved into something different).

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

Conceptually, not different; however, I think that a male object is viewed differently. Like it or not, men and women do not have equal status in society... as has already been said, certain behavior is more acceptable for men than for women. While I, personally, feel like washing my hands in alcohol at the idea of a slutty man, society in general would not judge him in the same way they would a slutty woman. (And women that kill their husbands get harsher jail sentences than men that kill their wives...women who allow their children to be harmed get harsher sentencing than men who do the same...unfair? Yes, but statistics show it to be true.)

There is still a social subconscious that allows for different lines to be drawn when it comes to the behavior of male vs. female. Having a sexually forward male character still feels safer from judgment, less inhibited than having the same kind of female character. I don't know if I'd say it is "OK" to do that kind of objectifying, but I think it is a way to explore a different sexuality without having it be too personalized (back to yaoi, roleplaying a male to be on equal footing with other males?)

And where does the influence and desire to do so come from?

I am willing to guess that the popularity of girly-boy dollies is directly related to the popularity of yaoi, but how the individual interprets yaoi will be colored by their own culture as well as their understanding of the Japanese culture.


Or you know, it could just be the dolly owner saying "in my world, bois are the b*tches!!" What do I know?