Horns, antlers (aka male symbols) on woman dolls

Ah, I'm in agreement with your points Rosslyn.

And thank you to shiori_hime for bringing up Hathor, who is the goddess of love and motherhood, so an extremely feminine goddess. Or if you don't recognize Hathor, Isis, another Egyptian goddess with some renown, is also often portrayed with a headdress bearing two great cow horns and she is also closely tied to motherhood. Cow horns, as in the divine bull/calf, were extrapolations of the moon, which is widely considered a feminine symbol today without much contention. ::shrugs::
So I would find it counter intuitive to eliminate horns from the feminine sphere in this regard, and especially in mythology. ^_~

 

I have an anthropomorphic lioness character who has a mane, so unsurprisingly I have no issues with female dolls with antlers/horns. I think it has been well explained about female animals and antlers, so I'll just say "ditto" and not repeat everyone else's posts

 

Saraquill: I daresay you have not heard of subincision or genital bisection (and to be honest, I don't know how I have). These are genital modifications that, er, grossly misshape the aforementioned regions of Freudian focus. Click if thou be'st born to strange sights. (NSFW and I don't recommend it!)

Shiori-hime, I know I have had sufficient evidence to come to this conclusion before, but you are awesome. XD

 

First he'd offer you a shot of cocaine, so you can better join in with his wild sweaty-eyed babblings, and THEN he'd tell you you had penis envy. ZOMG this thread.

 

So this would be the thing behind the pop culture thing of depicting Viking helmets with horns even though Vikings never actually wore horned helmets, yeah?

Also, I don't think much about Satan's physical appearance is ever described right? (Could be wrong, it's been a while since I was Catholic or had any motivation at all to read the Bible.) It's very much a popular image though and I think for a lot of people who aren't familiar with the depictions of deities in other religions or mythologies, a horned version of Satan and/or demons would spring to mind faster than, say, Cernunnos.

@Harlequin-Elle *bows* I do aim to entertain and am pleased to know my efforts paid off!

 

Err... To be honest, I never even gave the notion a thought. My only doll with antlers right now is a "boy" (he technically has no sex, as he is a god - and it makes zero sense for a god, a being that isn't usually ever corporeal, to have a set sex. He assigns the male gender to himself for the sake of convenience), but his antlers are actually a representation of his "noble" birth among gods and his rather high position in the hierarchy. Because to me (and it seems like that was also the case to a lot of people) antlers really resemble crowns and other elaborate head-dresses that bear a distinct air of authority - and at the same time, because they're antlers, and associated with forests and nature - seem like a representation of a positive divine force (only gods in my story have antlers - the demons have horns).

My first thoughts when I see a doll with horns and antlers is to always interpret the doll as a supernatural entity - demons, gods, spirits, etc - with the horns/antlers being a representation of their fantastical nature and the type of being they are. I rarely think about the animals they may represent, because to me the horns are almost always a symbol for power, very far removed from the actual animal they may have been taken from. As power has nothing to do with gender, I don't give the latter much thought.

 

He kept his crack-pipe in the couch cushions, so I hear XD I love Freud. Probably because he reminds me of a penis.

Anyway, just to actually get back to the matter in hand (shut up, Sigmund), my thoughts on women with horns are: it's completely acceptable. I've seen a great many lovely dolls, male, female and otherwise, with horns and other phallic accoutrements. Hell, if you want to stick an actual penis on your lady doll and still call her Madame, that's completely acceptable too. There's another thread about male dolls with breasts (which is also completely acceptable), so it makes sense that female dolls with penises are fine and dandy too. As for it being ridiculously unrealistic, female hyenas have a pseudo-penis, and they're awesome, in a bone-crushing cackling kind of way. Why not have it both ways and have a penis AND a vag? Then you won't experience any kind of envy at all!

 

Horns don't really bother me on female dolls any more than they bother me on child-dolls who wouldn't exactly have horns yet. I will admit though, for some animal horns like moos or long bull horns that are distinctly masculine looking, I will do a doubletake.

However I don't glace twice at spiral-style ram's horns, or other horn types. Deer antlers often pass mroe me as well, being so slender.

 

Are horned or antlered woman dolls acceptable for you?
Very. I have every intention of owning several myself and I love seeing other people's as well.

Do you think that their woman-being is in conflict with these male attributes?
I don't see how horns would be interpreted as phallic. If a female doll has horns she's just a female doll with horns. Even if I saw a completely androgynous doll with no apparent gender clues and it happened to have horns/antlers, my first thought would not be 'oh it must be a boy, it has things growing out of its head'. There are plenty of examples in nature, myth, and art - even in dolls - of the gender-neutralness of horns and antlers .

Do you need some "explanation" why a woman has horns/antlers?
Not at all. It's just another personal choice about a doll, needing no more explanation than a scar or an outfit.

 

Symbols of power shouldn't be thought of as synonymous with strictly masculinity. That's very unhealthy thinking. But on the topic of realistic functionality of fantasy parts... I wrestle with myelf on that topic all the time. But in the end, that's the point of fantasy. To make the unreal real. You should love what you love and that's all there is to it. If you absolutely need a reason for something, "just because" is just fine.

So of course I think horned women are acceptable, whether or not they occur naturally in female animals. I hate gender, racial or any nonsensical confines.

 

Actually * Ahem, Medieval Reenactor soap box*
the idea that Vikings wore horned helmets is from the Victorian era. It made them look appropriately fierce, and it comes from the fact that ONE or TWO Celtic helmets have been found with horns, and the Victorians were far more interested in sensational pageantry than in actual history. In this spirit, they proceeded to absolutely warp a few thousand years' worth of various cultures, and actual historic enthusiasts still have to deal with correcting their ideas to this very day.

As to the physical appearance of Satan, he technically doesn't have one, lacking a body, but he apparently has used such visual shapes or borrowed forms as a serpent, a metaphorical dragon, and often seen to impersonate an angelic messenger or attempt to look like a god. Medieval monks decided to portray him as having horns because the most popular religon besides Christianity in the first hundred years AD was the Cult of Mithras, in which bulls and horned figures are much venerated as symbols. Mithraism faded off in popularity but the monks' images were duplicated until it became part of the dogma.

Back to the topic:

There is nothing Male or Female about horns, they're just a Power symbol.

Hathor, Astarte, and many Cretan goddesses are just as irrevocably associated with horns as Cernunnons and Mithras.

 

I knew that a lot of animals had males with antlers or horns (apart from females who had none), but... I never really noticed this being an issue for BJDs. Being that these dolls are being used to portray fictional creatures most of the time, I don't see how it really matters.

Besides, there are plenty of animals that have antlers for both genders. But mostly, I agree that people who put antlers on their dolls aren't doing it for any hidden reason - subconscious or conscious - than because it looks nice. It's just what they want to do, and there's no secret meaning behind it.

And even Freud had commented that sometimes a train is just a train...

 

Besides that I find horned/antlered women quite a beautiful artistic concept, as has been noted by others in this thread, horns are also an ancient symbol of sacred power/energy. Think of Hathor, the horned Egyptian goddess of love, as well as the "horned moon" symbol of the Divine Feminine, and other ancient goddesses, such as Astarte, etc. There is also the symbolism of the High Priestess in Tarot, who wears a horned head-dress, denoting wisdom, as well as a connection to the concept of the Goddess, and to the moon.

And (also previously mentioned in this discussion), in nature there are actual female animals who possess horns and/or antlers.

So, no...I'm not bothered by this concept, nor do I find it strange, or indicative of any Freudian undertones.

I have a horned female doll (she represents one of my oldest characters from my stories: A nature spirit / forest divinity, and symbolic of the Sacred Feminine).

 

Physical characteristic stereotypes don't apply evenly to all species of animals. I mean, sure, antlers/horns are seen more as a male thing. But as others have said, that's not always the case.

Another example is size. People assume bigger = male. Not always true. A lot of raptors (birds of prey) don't follow this. If you see a pair of eagles or a pair of hawks, the bigger one you're looking at is female.

So I don't see it as a problem to have antlers/horns on a female doll. I personally probably wouldn't ever do this. I have nothing against dolls like this, I just don't have any characters in mind for one nor have any interest.

 

I'm right on board with the previously made points about antlers and horns not being gender-specific in nature, as well as the mytho-religious female figures mentioned. But I keep coming back to the above.
I cannot wrap my head around the thought of, for example, placing Minoan horns of consecration on a doll (whom I would clearly have to think very special) and then thinking she is then flawed. WHAT?!? That is the opposite of what horns on a woman should mean! I also find it equally disappointing that giving a symbol of power could be wrong because that sort of thing should only be given to a man.

 

Do you people have a problem with a female being horny? Oh good, I thought not! I think every woman should have a set of horns even if to some they look like misshapen penises. Now why did Medusa just pop into my head. Okay, I'll shut-up now..

 

Re: Hathor, let's not forget that later on, Isis assumed some aspects of Hathor and so she was also represented with (impressive) cow horns and a solar disk between them. And Isis was the most important and most exported Egyptian deity in Roman times.

FWIW, I don't remember many horned deities in East Asian myth, but oni of both genders have horns (see Lamu from Urusei Yatsura for a pop-cultural female oni) and Hannya masks *always* depict female characters.