Respect for Dolls

I don't think you're being oversensitive. I would be really put off if someone wanted to put my DM Kid in a risque pose on purpose. Even the older-looking ones, I'd be creeped out to do. My DM Kid is supposed to be an underage character, and I never want her to wear a skirt higher than knee-length. I think that's just being close to the character. That's where I think the OP is coming from, too.

I'm usually OK with my dolls being photographed out-of-character, for the most part, if the image is really light-hearted; but I'm not OK with out-of-character sexual poses. I've seen relatively sexual pictures taken of dolls, and I've seen the subject matter handled very well. Sometimes, you have a character who doesn't mind being nude all the time for whatever reason. Manx Minuet of Mistula comes to mind very easily. Her character is kind of promiscuous, and some of the posts show that. The photos aren't being taken arbitrarily, per se.

 

I would be upset in your position too i havent gotten my dolly yet so i havent experianced this but i will probly experiance lack of respect for my doll soon sadly to say knowing my family. But i do think they deserve respect and even that respect because its your possession as well i also find people dont have much respect for anything in some cases not even living things which makes me sad. Dolls do deserve respect all things should be respected for and even more if someone cares about them dearly.

 

While I agree that he definitley should respect your wishes for items that are your property-they are just dolls. You are not going to embarass or hurt them by posing them one way or another.
On a slightly seperate note, I dont really believe that sexual=innapropriate, so I dont believe that an overly sexual photoshoot would be disrespectful. Its all about perspective.

 

Interesting situation. As someone with a BFA, this exchange bothers me. I have been ok with some of my friends doing silly raunchy things with my dolls, but it's with the awareness that they are doing to get a kick. This sounds like his peers were making "art" an excuse to get a kick, and are too immature to be doing art classes. It is also, your partner's art. If he originally had stated he wanted to do suggestive things and you ok'd it, that would be one thing. He was alright without the need to do such, unless he really expressed the desire to do so, and from my guess, he's going for a more nude study than for shock value.

To me, this is not just about your partner's respect for your wishes and things, but his classmates, as much as art can be doing something that makes the artist a little uncomfortable in order to achieve something or as much as a critique can be about how to grow better, his classmates are not respecting his wishes as an artist either.


That said, in the case of childlike dolls being discussed, most countries have rules about children in such situations and it extends to "images" or "likenesses" of children too.

Fist-bump to your partner for being interested in using your dolls for art and also for standing by your/his interests. Boo to his peers for not growing up enough.

 

I wouldn't say I have respect for dolls specifically, but I treat my possessions with great care and I try to be respectful towards other people. It may sound selfish and controlling, but I'd be annoyed if anyone touched any of my possessions without my explicit permission, whether it was an expensive doll or cellphone or even a pen. (I've had things broken or misplaced this way. ) I'm sorry your partner's classmates were rude and thoughtless; I can understand why you were bothered by their actions.

 

Sounds like he was surrounded by some really immature people. :\ He should have told them to get their own dolls.

I'd be mad if people treated my dolls like that, yeah. But I also wouldn't allow myself to be goaded into doing something with them that made me uncomfortable.

 

I was reading more of the thread, and I thought about this, too. The OP's partner's classmates probably have no idea about how these dolls came to be, what BJDs are, what her characters are... they're already looking at these dolls in a overly sexual way. I would be worried, if the person I lent my dolls to caved and did it, that people would get the wrong impression of who we are as a community and why any of us chose to buy the dolls.

It would leave the impression that the sole reason anyone buys these dolls is to take risque photos of them.

 

Let's talk a second about exactly what dolls are. They are a representation of a person. Specifically in your case a female person. Now, doll or no representing a female in a way that you are uncomfortable with because it seems exploitive or incongruious with how you would like women/girls portrayed is perfectly fine in my book. That the class found it ok to have your partner go behind your back seems pretty crappy. I think it's cool that he came and told you about it.

 

In that situation its more about respecting another person's property and wishes than the dolls themselves.

Doesnt matter what it is, I wouldn't feel comfortable knowing that my dolls (or any other posession for that matter) were in that kind of scenario.

I'm really glad your friend kept his word though. Those girls really just had no consideration for someone elses property. "They're just dolls" has nothing to do with it. Girls like that shouldn't be having photos like that taken of them if they can't even be mature about it..

 

Honestly, I see "respect" for dolls more as respect for the person who owns them. They are personal property and if someone respects you, they'll respect your possessions. Obviously your partner respects you enough to follow your wishes and not treat your dolls in a disrespectful way.

Additionally, I think touching my stuff without asking is disrespectful and annoying as hell. I used to have to deal with a lot of that sort of thing in highschool, especially since everyone seemed to want to grab my books/sketchbooks and flip through them without asking??? I haven't had to deal with any of this in college, thank goodness, but the experiences in highschool did make me rather territorial and irritable about it.

 

I am an artist and a doll owner, and I know that I would feel personally violated if any of my artwork was made into something raunchy. Disrespecting the work of the artist behind the doll is a terrible thing to do. I can also understand as a doll owner how that would be uncomfortable. Many doll owners have characters attached to their dolls, and I know I personally wouldn't like to see Ailís, (my doll), disrespected in that way.

 

This. I would be infuriated especially if it was a doll that I've been known to pick up and hug when I need something that won't try to figure me out, (I've picked up my male Obitsu a number of times when I was crying and just hugged the poor thing tightly) disrespected like that they'd find very quickly on my bad side.

And that bad side is not pretty. Cursing in french and spanish and english.

Yeah....

 

I agree with a lot of the posters here - it's all about respecting people and their property.
I would also be uncomfortable with my underage dolls being put in explicit positions - I think if you know (or it's obvious) that a doll is a representation of someone underage then putting them in such positions could be taken as a rather bad reflection on the person posing them (I'd probably be wary about letting them around actual children).
I also don't really like people touching my stuff, mostly because it seems so many folks have a distinct lack of respect for other people's property these days

Good on your BF for sticking to his guns

 

I personally haven't dealt with something this like but I would be kind of pissed off because they're being disrespectful to the owner. I don't mind sexual photography too much if it's more artistic than it is porn. But I mean, you're nice enough to let them borrow your bjd, which you love and spend a good amount of your hard working earns on, then for them to suggest doing something you did not want to done to your belongings. yeah...

 

"They are things that I've invested a lot of personal time and effort into".

You've pretty much said it for me. I'm sentimental and therefore generally reverent when it comes to things I hold dear..I even tend to get upset when a book I like has a dog-eared page or dented cover. Sure it's a book, but I like this book, and I want to keep it in the best condition I can not for resale value but because I take care of the things that mean something to me. Same goes for dolls, maybe even more so.

Of course, I'm not saying that people who view them as "just dolls/things" don't know how to take care of theirs. We throw down a ton of money to acquire these dolls, and I'd just be damned if I ever personally started objectifying their creative/therapeutic potential. I'm a college student paying $40k or more for just a year of school; if they were "just dolls" to me, I can almost guarantee I wouldn't have had them to begin with.

 

So: Have any of you ever dealt with somethinglike this? How did (or would) you feel about it?
Do you think dolls merit our respect (for onereason or another)?

I have never been in any similar situation but I do understand the feeling of respect towards inanimate objects.
I also don't believe that dolls (or other inanimate objects) posses souls or a spirits but that doesn't mean they
should be "disrespected."I was raised vegan my parents turned to veganism out of respect for all living beings,
they mainly raised me to be a respectful person not only towards other-living-beings but to show respect towards all things.
Just because it isn't a living breathing being doesn't mean it's okay to trash it or treat it like garbage – especially if the
inanimate object it's not yours. I believe showing no respect towards material possessions shows a lack of maturity and
really tells the type of person the individual truly is.


- Enzyme

 

I think this mostly shows the either the immaturity of his classmates OR an attempt to make him get a worse grade. Either, all they wanted was some form of porn, when this was, after all, a FINAL PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT for SCHOOL, or they figured that if they peer-pressured him into some form of porn he would get a lower grade.

Or, very likely, both. They would get their "porn" AND he would get a lower grade, a win/win so far as they were concerned.

I don't know if you should suggest the competitive motive to him. It might make him feel better if THEY are feeling that threatened by his work.

 

Yes; and what's especially aggravating (though human, because I'm sure we've all been guilty of this at some point) is that once someone gets an idea about something stuck in their head, they're probably not going to do any research to see if this is true or not.

And like you said, even if you do have thick skin - it gets kind of annoying after a while. A friend even told me once "There's always going to be something that can pierce the thickest hide." It has to get tiring when you constantly have to take time away from your photoshoot, or doll meet to fight the same misconception. I'd be OK taking time away to introduce people to the hobby, and field the general questions about why they're so special when compared to other dolls, but otherwise, it's going to get on my nerves. It might even deter me from mentioning or bringing my dolls out again.

There's a reason why I resist the 'anatomically correct' discussion until the very end - or omit it completely; I, personally, just don't see a big need to include that in my description of what makes these dolls so unique. Yes, it does make them unique, but there are plenty of other factors that go into the doll's uniqueness that saying my doll is anatomically correct has never needed to come into play. I don't think I've ever told anyone minus the one friend who knows about these dolls, too.