Psychology related to dolls

You also never have to pay doctor bills for dolls, put them through college, explain to them why you don't like one of their friends, or sit up late wondering if their OK because they haven't called.

OK maybe that last one happens with dolls when they're out for faceups....

 

I have no immediate desire for children, so i don't think it's a maternal instinct. It's easy to draw that kind of parallel between dolls (one thinks of baby dolls and little girls playing "house" or "mother") and maternal instincts or behaviors.

I want these dolls because they are so amazingly beautiful and i want that beauty in my life. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever" after all. I also find that they are an outlet for immense amounts of creativity--in faceups, in clothing, in characters, and in stories. They are more like art works than children, by far!

So, as interesting as the psychologist's idea is, i don't think it necessarily applies to all doll owners all the time.

 

...I hate kids...LOL XD But Akira is the only child I will ever...EVER have...besides getting more dolls of course. But Akira will always be my first.

 

lol I don't neccessarily believe it, but it makes one heck of a research paper for class.

That's my subject.

 

And they can't complain if you buy them dresses instead of pants. And don't talk back...or complain and whine. DX

That sounds fun! Well, just ask if you have a question...though my doll hasn't arrived yet...

 

*snort* No maternal instincts here. Can't stand kids. Don't ever want them I may "spoil" them by buying them things, but I'm not about to dress them up, stick them in a carriage and go to the mall xD I don't really refer to them as my babies or kids unless I'm being cute or joking.

I like having a creative outlet. I like buying clothes and props for them. I won't ever have to worry about feeding them, sending them to school or "waste" my money on diapers instead of what I want. It's just a hobby, not a motherhood substitute.

By the way, I'm 25, so I'm pretty darn set in this.

 

Maternal instincts? I should hope not...Star Anise looks like a tranny hooker most of the time...and I'm currently trying to find the 'right' boyfriend for him...*shivers at your friend's suggestion*
prolly a bit of a God Complex, tho.
I love being able to crossdress my boys and I find most of the male dolls soooo beautiful...whereas in real life I find many, if not most, guys unattractive (and harder to convince to wear nylons and high heels)
My dolls are also most definitely a creative outlet for me.

...So uh, once again, a big NO! to your friend's idea.

 

I agree...there are some very interesting studies that have been done that show that collecting is more about having control over items or things.

 

euh - in one way maybe perhaps. When I was 7years old, I had a baby shaped doll but in my mind she grew up to be 16 - and my first BJD is 21.

When I first planned to buy one, it was supposed to be a be a Hound - aka the Perfect Man - the prince charming - and I finally ended up buying a girl (who's character is an actress) ... does that mean that I have lesbian tendencies ?

To me, on a serious note, BJDs are incarnations of dreams - they are the concrete materialized objects of fantasy. You can "own" angels and demons, vampires and fairy creatures ... Impossibility has become more than possible, it has become Reality as your every morning's breakfast.

 

I don't have anything to add to this thread, really, but reading through it was pretty interesting. Certainly puts a lot of things into perspective regarding the attitudes doll collectors express . . . I don't think there's any firm psychological reasoning that can be applied to all doll collectors, but the maternal instincts/desire for control are interesting theories to think about. With some thought, I think I could apply both to myself.

 

Wow. that's incredibaly like a therapist and incredably wrong. In fact, i am neurotically ill disposed towards children and the idea of being a parent. I dislike taking care of most living things (well, except ferrets, hamsters, cats and some dogs, all of which i really love and enjoy taking care of)
I like pretty things. I don't get enough of an outlet for my intensely active imagination in my day to day life, and i don't get to own a whole lot of pretty things. Being in college means i move a lot, so i can't buy nice furnature, i can't decorate my living space, and I don't often have a lot of space to work with. My dolls give me something that is portable, easy to move with, and pretty. They also give me an opportunity to use my imagination in a fairly sterile adult world.
Also, i would like to mention that the stories i imagine about my dolls make them adults or older teens, who would be my intellectual peers. If i were to imagine a relationship between my dolls and I, they would be friends, not children. If i MUST attatch a negative connotation to this (why do therapists think everything has such negative connotations, anyway?) it could perhaps be that i am lonely. I do spend a lot of my time alone, and i am often ill as well. But my dolls are never substitutes for human (or even ferret) companionship, and while i don't have a huge group of friends, i do have enough functional friendships with people that i'm not worried about it.
As for studies done about "collecting" as a method of control-usually the collections in question are large collections where the person being studied is interested in getting "all" of something or a large number of something. Most BJD collectors, in my expirience, only pick a few dolls they like best. It is rare to see a BJD collector only interested in getting the "rarest" dolls or the most dolls.

 

A-hem, I saw in many posts that I wasn't the only one who didn't want to have a child, and I'm definitely not have a mother complex ( I'm a teacher, and to tell the truth, after a whole day with my 30 monsters, it's no way I have to care about one more on the house after working !!)
I only consider at my dolls as beautiful creations, a mere projection of my ideal of beauty, and also a way to incarn some characters of the stories I've wrote since college...

 

Okay that to me describes it perfectly!! What person doesn't want a little fantasy in there life!

 

I don't really want flesh kids but an army of resin children sounds good to me

 

How does this work then if you ARE a mom? XD XD XD I think, for me at least, this is a "I like pretty things" obsession.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I think saying that doll=baby you=mommy is just too easy. I've always wanted to start a thread that discussed the relationship to illness and dolls. I know several people end up getting a BJD when they are ill or recovering from some sort of health problem. All three of my girls HAPPENED to arrive right when I was getting over some sort of nasty bout. Hmmmmm....

And, there is nothin' wrong with yer kids turnin' out to be crossdressers. As long as they have the legs for it. XD I joke, I joke. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

I already have a child.. a 12 year old who is also into bjds [and whose personal opinion is that she never gets why children are so into "baby doll" type dolls, that you need to be a child as long as you can and "teaching" a child how to care for a real baby in the form of playing house and being a stereotypical mommy is not quite right since you only get so much time as a kid and once you grow up, it's gone - so why would she want to weigh down her freedom with adult problems like children or raising babies] <-- with a 12 year so-called child that thinks this way, yet still owns 2 MSDs and is about to get the first of what will be many 60cm sized dolls to become her years old created Dragon characters.. is this same psychologist suggesting that she too really only wants to mother something?

If this were true, I'd be taken back a bit since I live with my daughter 24/7 and her being a mom now or even ever at this point in her life [she is 12 -and romantic relationships are not something she's into at this particular point in time -haha] would be completely off left field for me

I think it's a bit of a generalization. I may have a daughter and while I love her dearly, I do not like children as a whole... I have no plans to ever have another, I love being a mom to my chibi, but I would never be a mom to another -this includes my dolls.

I don't see them as children in any way, they are avatars for established characters I've created just as my daughter's [soon to be many] full sized boys and girls are avatars for her story she's had going for a long while. I see them as creative outlets, artistic endeavors and a solid 3D form to something that up until I got them, existed only in the 2D world.

Yes I care for them, keep them and constantly strive to do them some justice with the camera so the world might see a bit of what I see when I look at them.. but mothering them is nowhere in there -haha

 

LMAO!! yeah...about that XDXDXD
would that mean my children would be crossdressers??
hahah!! wow XDXD

 

If the way I treat my dolls is my expression of my maternal instincts, I would probably be put in jail since I think it is in general frowned upon to encourage underaged incestuous gay sex and take erotic pics of them.

I hate children and have no desire to raise any of my own, and any nurturing instincts that I have are spent on that which can actually be nurtured - my pets. They respond to love and attention and care. My dolls do not.

I am a collector, I am often compelled to collect all that I find attractive of whatever it is, so these dolls are part of that, along with a way for me to make fanart in a different medium. There's no real elaborate reason as to why I am more attracted to them than other kinds of dolls or any kind of collectable. I just think they're pretty.

 

I have a 13-year-old son. Having him has nothing to do with having BJDs as well. I mean, heck, I also watch anime, read manga and put up pretty posters on the walls. My kid does none of those things. He reads non-fiction books, for the love of Bob's hairy-legged mother!

No relation whatsoever. And it works like any other hobby. =3

 

While some doll people do collect out of a maternal instinct, it's not the motivation for all. Look at fashion doll collectors. I doubt if their desire is to be a mother to those sexy, adult dolls, rather it's to live out a glamorous fantasy life thru the dolls.

With BJDs it seems there are many motivations. Some of us have come from a fashion doll background, some have been inspired by anime, some have characters of their own that they want to incarnate in resin form, some want a friend, some see them as art, & yes, some do pour out their maternal instincts on them. But to make a sweeping generalization of all collectors is simply ridiculous. There are as many reasons for collecting dolls as there are collectors.

While I often refer to my dolls as "my kids", it's simply a phrase I use to avoid calling them dolls. They're a bit too lifelike to refer to them that way. I've never had children (for many reasons) but I do have maternal instincts which I pour out on my spoiled cats.