Making Boy Dolls....Boys! [~Small Edit~]

Oddly enough, no one mistakes Theodore for a girl. At least they haven't yet. Maybe it's the hair and the hoodie or something, haha. I suppose the necklace isn't particularly feminine either!

 

No one believes me that Blake is a boy. They all ask if he's a mini me because I have pretty short hair then I'm like, "It's a guy..." And then they argue that he's not. Sometimes I end up saying, "HE'S ANATOMICALLY CORRECT!" Then they look at his "manhood" and still say he looks like a girl. The ironic thing is that he does look like a boy -_-

 

Patrick looks like a man and no one has ever mistook him for a girl
he is a fantastic sculpt, even if he doesn't have a torso joint

 

Even when he is not cross dressing, people call my boy a girl. Honestly I just gave up. It will be too much trouble to explain that my boy looks girly(and likes to cross dress). I expect folks to think that he is probably a girl when he cross dresses(sometimes they know he is a boy though, yay), but I didn't really expect it when he is dressed like a boy. Sometimes I just leave a jacket open and don't put on a shirt when I feel like making him look more boyish. x'D

 

I think they need to look really grouchy and grumpy half the time for people to realise, like my Finn he just looks like he is in a bad mood.

 

Actually I have at one point pulled my boy's pants down and been like "Look, he has a penier! He's a BOY!"

 

I've had quite a few random strangers comment on my dolls when I've had them out at the local botanical gardens for photos, assuming they're girls. And you know, I never bother correcting them unless they're actually asking specific questions and seem interested in the dolls. Otherwise if I hear "Oh, she's so pretty!" I just say thanks and get on with it.

One thing I've noticed though is that even random passersby will be more likely to recognize one of my dolls as a boy if it's one with a fur wig. The ones who wear fiber, even shorter styles, still get mistaken for girls, but the boys with fur usually don't have that problem. O:

 

I've had success by:
Introducing my boy as "my boy doll" (works since he's my only boy)
Introducing him by his name (only works if the name is well-known and common for boys, e.g. Daniel, Matthew, James)
Dressing him in suits and Renaissance/Baroque-style clothing

 

I don't remember My first boy ever being called a girl, even though he has a fairly feminine face, and a long wig... though this may be because he was stuck in bondage pants and a fish net shirt... I don't know how that will work out once I finally get his actual clothing, as he is meant to ware more frilly period style clothing.

 

I love this thread! I just started collecting the BJDs and I have been having a hard time finding clothes for my tinies that look boyish. I finally resorted to clothes from other dolls - my yosd size boy is wearing Ken clothes and my 20 cm boy stole Frodo Baggin's outfit. I just want them to look like daring adventurers. Maybe I will find time to sew for them this summer.

Ava

 

A beanie, camouflage pants, boots and no shirt go a LONG way.

 

Here's something I put together for my 20cm Rialia:

 

Agreed. Other possibilities are business suits. Or other clothing considered stereotypically "manly". And accessories. A skateboard works wonders, for example (and no, I am not saying there were no skater girls! It is just something people rather expect from boys).

Here in Germany I rarely have the problem though, because if someone says "she" they mostly just mean "the doll" without mentioning the gender of the character, since "doll" is a word of female gender in German (in a linguistic sence). So unless they refer to my boy dolls as "girls" specifically, I don't even notice if they mistake them for female

 

People have said that Tharesion looks rather feminine. I usually just replay that, since he's an elf, he's allowed to. He's no cross-dresser but I guess if I put him in a robe (fantasy style), I'll have to take care it won't be mistaken for a dress ...

 

It's weird actually.
My boy has short blond hair, flat as flat, HUGE hands.
Regular jeans and just everything about him screams boy.
However he has been mistaken as a girl plenty of times by people unaware of the hobby.
Funny thing is though my SOOM Breccia was mistaken as a boy.
How does that happen when she has HUGE breasts? xD'

 

Vince has been called a girl before, but he doesn't mind as long as you think he's a pretty girl. He spends a lot of time in a glam pink sparkly leopard print shirt, so... it's not like it's outside the realm of possibility *grin*. And even after trimming his regular wig down, it's longish for a boy.

Maurice I would like to be clearer with, although since he doesn't have a body of his own... well, right now he's got an androgynous fantasy faceup. I'd like him to have stubble because it suits his character, but his face is so delicate I'm afraid he'd just look silly if I tried...

Pete is in the same boat as Vince, where he likes pink, and he's not opposed to frills and sparkly things, but unlike Vince, who's attitude is 'Sure, I can be a girl if you want, tee-hee, that might be fun for an hour or so!', Pete's attitude would be 'Oh, HELL no! What, a man can't wear pink? Well same to you, buddy!'...

And my attitudes are kind of informed by their attitudes, so when I'm asked if Vince is a girl, I can shrug it off and say 'he's just a very girly boy today, and tomorrow he might be a pirate instead of a glam disco kitten', but I might be annoyed if Pete got called a girl, just because it's in his character to be offended by the imprecations.

(It's funny, though, that while Maurice would get the angriest about being mistaken for female, when it happens to him it's kind of funny to me-- probably because before he had a name, my sister said he looked like he'd be a cute girl. He turned out to be a boy, which, theoretically makes it easier for him to share Vince's body without things being weird...)

I'm looking at a couple of big boys-- which of course I once swore I wouldn't do-- and I think with the SDs, it's easier to find more masculine males, so at least people who know a little bit about BJDs would know they were male, even if some people who haven't seen boy dolls before might still have some gender confusion going on. Of course, one that I'm considering saving up for next might still get that, because I'm looking at him based on his big, full lips, and that reads as 'feminine' to a lot of people...

Well, at least on an SD, stubble is less likely to look out-of-place. A big scruffy, musclebound boy will read as masculine no matter how plush his lips are.

=^__^=
Anneko

 

I know that Alicestor will be mistaken for a girl a lot... but, he's a cross-dressing girly boy, so, can't be helped XD
Chase on the other hand, I would think that a CP Moon head on a 68cm muscled body, beefy arms bared while wearing a black tank and black leather pants, would be instantly be recognized as male. Sadly, this was not the case. Apparently, any doll with long-ish hair is automatically a girl... I just spent four hours playing hairdresser to make it shorter. ... It still needs to be shorter. And now I'm covered in itchy hair shards. >T *itch itch*
Maybe once I redo his face-up with some thick, manly eyebrows and do his tattoos, he'll get the manly cred he deserves.

I suppose facial hair would help, but, most of my boys aren't the type.

 

The one boy doll of mine that is constantly referred to as a girl is my F26, Phoenix, and he basically deserves it. His character is meant to be somewhat androgynous, so that's all fine. My Williams is occasionally mistaken, to my surprise. I blame his luscious golden curls. ^_~
Now that I actually own a girl doll, I find that a great way to have people NOT mistake my male dolls for female, is to pose them with or around my Rinon, Eveline. For sheer comparison. It seems to do the trick most of the time.

 

Gabriel get's mistaken for a girl all the time, but he's a puki in a bunny suit so....yeah. My other boys are generally in colors and styles that umm "say" boy. Blues and browns and no frilly bits. Peyton has one outfit with small lace on the hems of his vest and shirt, but even then it still looks boy. Oddly, Peyton has been questioned once or twice because of his shoes! His shoes are the brown t-strap mary janes from Fairyland. I just write it off and remind them that boys have had shoes like that before; I think Christopher Robin had regular plain brown mary-janes in some of the old Pooh movies.

 

I have that issue with one of my tinies who frequently wears Mary Janes and a plain white dress....I get tired of explaining that he existed back in the day and those are his playclothes - I have pictures of boys dressed like that!! - so now I just smile and say thanks when people tell me my girl is pretty. That's actually my answer for most of my dolls these days...and I really really don't think most of the boys look like girls |:<