Thoughts on a guy doll having breasts?

If a character is designed to reject a harmful stereotype, then it isn't reinforcing harmful stereotypes.

An example of a harmful stereotype is in fantasy settings, many times all the "good" guys are light skinned, and all the "bad" guys are dark skinned. If you made a character with dark skin that seems to be a "bad guy" - but turns out to be a hero - that would not be reinforcing a negative stereotype but subverting the stereotype. You couldn't make a character like that if you were blissfully unaware the stereotype exists.

With LGBT and intersex people, you have to remember that these groups cannot learn about themselves from their parents. What they see in culture around them is how learn about themselves. I grew up in a state where homosexuality was a crime, and read books that described homosexuals as perverts. I can't deny that had a strong impact on my sense of self. It wasn't until I was an adult that I was able to realize how pervasive homosexuals have been throughout history and find positive role models.

 

One would hope that if one were interested in creating such a character, adequate research would be done. What I'm saying is just that if a person wanted to make their doll representative of a minority without much personal experience there is no reason they shouldn't. If the doll owner fails to create a compelling character, other doll owners certainly have the right to their own opinions of the hackneyed or insensitive end result and they can couch their opinion in whatever format is socially acceptable for the relevant forum, but I don't think they should tell the owner that she shouldn't have tried in the first place.

 

What if the dolls in question came from a fantasy world and were never intended to be based on racial groups here in the real world? My one dark skinned doll is a fantasy character - a nature spirit, though he looks 100% human. He does happen to be a pretty good guy (at least from where I'm standing), but that's beside the point. I didn't create him to be a realistic interpretation of a real ethnic group and stereotypes one way or another had nothing to do with my coming up with his character's actions or appearances. It wasn't my intention to make a statement about race relations in the US, I just though he looked good with a darker skin tone -- Just as many people aren't trying to make statements about other groups or real world issues.

This is what I'm trying to get at. It's not that I don't understand your point, but in many doll situations characters/personalities aren't really based on the real world. Trying to hold those characters to the same standards as something found in reality based fiction doesn't work. If someone were trying to create a story that was very true to life or really make a point about a particular issue, then I agree they should try and get their facts straight if they want to be effective, but a lot of people aren't in that boat. A lot of people are just having fun with their dolls and going straight off into fantasy land.

I agree that positive role models are important. However, realistically in the vast world of fiction and characters and creators, not everything is going to fit the bill. Not everyone creating a story is setting out to be a role model, they may have their own other personal reasons for doing something. You can't foist that job on everybody that's putting together a character -- dolls aren't such serious business to everybody. A lot of folks are just innocently having a good time with their dolls without trying to have any kind of an impact either way. Again, this is something where if you (and others) feel that the doll community needs more characters to act in that capacity, you need to make them yourselves.

 

Oh.......so sorry, I posted in the wrong area! See this is why when one wears glasses they should WEAR them!

Again so sorry!

 

Sorry I must have missed whoever posted that. The argument is that if someone makes a character, it isn't real, and therefore it doesn't matter and can't be harmful to anyone. No one should care if it's a fictional representation, because fiction isn't real. The counter argument is to consider LGBT and Intersex people as minorities who are not well represented in our culture, and therefore, making characters that perpetuate negative stereotypes is harmful to those communities of people.

 

I think unless a doll owner posts a lot of photo stories and photo shoots of his or her "harmful stereotype" doll, the impact will be limited and certainly not as big as a stereotype character in a popular TV series or movie. I may have dolls that people may or may not consider questionable, but nobody has made a fuss, because my dolls are not out there under everybody's noses. So far I've only seen a handful of male dolls on female bodies and most of them were going to have the breasts sanded off soon. I wouldn't consider it harmful as it doesn't happen that often.

 

Treating the LGBT community as a sensitive minority that rejects all negative "stereotyping" seems like clumsy political correctness to me. People who are LGBT are still only human at the end of the day, there are "good" and "bad" among them too, so why should people not be allowed to freely represent all sides and stories with their dolls/art? Isn't the best way to make something acceptable to get it out in the open for people to think about for themselves, whether negative or not? Even negative portrayals spark interest in a subject and get people thinking and researching it.

I just think it's about time the people who choose to view the creations of others were left to take responsibility for their own minds, rather than the artist being shackled. Imagine if all artforms through the ages had been censored/banned because of this vague, prudish concept of "Respect and Taste" (who decides the battle lines anyway?), that's a world without, from the top of my head, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Dante, Shakespeare, John Milton, Mark Twain, right through to Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Marilyn Manson, Vivienne Westwood, Damien Hurst, Takashi Miike, Banksy, Tarantino, and an infinite number of others.

 

I'm not arguing all depictions of minorities must be rainbows and kittens. It's strange people even think that is what is being argued here. However, you do have to take into consideration if you are presenting a three dimensional character or a two dimensional character that represents a negative stereotype. You can't argue that these are the same thing. You also can't argue that representing a stereotype is doing something new, creative, or unique. A stereotype, is by it's definition, not new, creative, or unique.

 

That might not be your intention, yet at the same time that's what the end result feels like. You yourself used an example of a dark skinned character being a bad guy in a story as perpetuating a negative stereotype. Pardon me if I'm wrong and misread you, but I've gotten the impression that anything that isn't positive or anything not strictly realistic = negative stereotyping for your purposes. That's putting creators on a very short leash.

I don't think most doll people are creating characters with the intention of perpetuating negativity towards minority groups. If they did, I believe that would even be against forum rules and would probably not be looked fondly on by most hobbyists. What I see this really coming down to is realism vs fantasy and the difference between different genres -- there's a lot of gray area there and intention and purpose does matter.

Characters as you mentioned can be multidimensional with the capability of conforming to one stereotype and then being wildly different in other ways. And though stereotyping can be very problematic, that doesn't mean that no person anywhere will ever seem to fit into one. Whether or not a character is a solid example of a bad stereotype really depends on the entirety of the character as well as what that character was created for. I think another thing -- a really important thing -- to take into consideration is that when it comes to creating characters in this doll related context (not people writing scripts for movies and TV, not professional authors etc), people have different skill levels as well as different goals. Not everyone's characters are super detailed or brilliantly created, but it doesn't matter because they only really exist for the enjoyment of that one person.

 

"Given the parameters of the world and characters that the writer has created, something of that world and those characters must speak to what we, as readers, know to be true about the human condition. If nothing corresponds to what we, as readers, know to be true about the human condition, then everything becomes unbelievable." Terry Brooks, The Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference

'Fantasy land' isn't real, but it has to be true, or it's crap. Realism and reality aren't the same thing either. Realistic fiction and fantasy fiction are not held to different standards in that sense.

Fictional representations such as resin characters do have the potential to influence, and just as importantly they reveal things about the creator or the society in which they appear. Too many negative portrayals of a certain group is damaging in the long run, or in the very best case scenario symptomatic of a big problem in society.

However, the problem with the current argument on this thread is that it's working under the assumption that there are a bunch of transgendered resin characters out in the hobby that are portraying negative stereotypes, which I personally don't think is true. Those dolls simply existing doesn't mean that they're being done in a harmful way.

 

I get what you're saying, but that doesn't mean that something that happens or is a certain way in fantasy world X necessarily has a 1:1 correlation with the real world either. The fact that my fantasy character has dark skin has zip to do with race in the US -- there's other things in the story that are very much influenced by the real world, but not his skin tone. Or think of all of the doll couples (a lot of them boyxboy, but probably not all) whose relationships are not particularly realistic because they are the resin equivalent of a yaoi manga or romance novel -- erotica is pretty much guaranteed to not be realistic whether it's target audience is women, straight men, or gay men because that isn't it's purpose. Comparing that to another form of fiction would be apples and oranges.

Anything has the power to influence (and of course lots of negative portrayals can do harm), yet I would hesitate to make a comparison of the harm done between a popular TV show that millions will watch and a doll that most people aren't going to see or know much about. There would have to be a lot of doll characters done very very badly to have that kind of influence. When it comes to picking battlegrounds, I don't think the doll hobby is a great one to fight on.

I agree with this. And honestly, it's not that I don't care how people are portrayed. However, I do think there can be a tendency to read too much into things at times. In this case, it feels like unless everything is done in a very specific way then it's automatically perpetuating a negative stereotype and doing great harm. So perhaps part of the issue is what is being considered to be a negative stereotype in the first place.

 

I'm on the fence here. While I see what you're trying to say -- and I don't disagree with it at all -- I do think there are some subtleties that might be overlooked. (They might not be, since it isn't addressed directly either way, but it's something I felt was worth mentioning.)

Mostly, that a character is much more than their skin color, religious group, ethnicity, gender, and so on -- and that sometimes it's the 'more than' parts that are the tether to what we recognize in those characters as being similar to ourselves. Do they love? Do they hate? Do they understand each other? Do they fear death, or isolation? These themes, to me at least, are some of the more powerful crossover elements than the physical ones. They're what makes me feel more or less able to connect with a character or setting than, say, whether they are the same color as I am or are the same gender identity.

I think, to some extent, since these things are less obvious, and less on the surface, it's easy to overlook them -- we are talking about physical objects here that have an appearance, and so it's the appearance that's going to be the focus of criticism in that regard. I think it's important not to lose sight of the fact that we go beyond that appearance, though -- or at least that it seems like a lot of people who are creating characters in the first place do so. In those cases, there's definitely more than what we see going on. The doll can't speak for itself beyond it's appearance; it can't convey those things. What I'd say people should be mindful of when presenting dolls that might have controversial interpretations is that sure, we know all that other stuff, but the casual viewer may not. If we want the casual viewer to be aware of those elements that might alter their perception of what they're seeing and steer them away from negative stereotypes when they're forming their opinions, we need to actually make an effort to communicate them clearly. If we don't, and someone doesn't interpret the character as it is, and instead based on the stereotype, I wouldn't be able to entirely blame the viewer. I wouldn't necessarily blame the owner, either, but it's something I'd consider a wholly reasonable misunderstanding, since no one can be expected to be psychic.

 

The "true" part in my post is about what you're talking about, not about the appearance of the characters. Fantasy works because the characters behave in a way that the reader understands, even if they've got funny ears and blue skin and . . . I don't know, ride house hippos. (Totally wants a house hippo /canadian reference)

I very much agree with you. We do have to sometimes be careful regardless of our actual intentions because we might fail to communicate what we're trying to. And if your doll goes out into the world in any way, say in pictures or at meetups, then communication is happening whether you want it to or not. We do read meaning in appearances like we read meaning in words.

 

In theory, I have no issue with it.

I'm trans myself, and I have a trans character. If I ever wanted to portray him in doll form, then I'd almost certainly use a female body, possibly with modifications to remove the breasts. Being trans I understand the distress of people misunderstanding my gender, and of looking in the mirror and seeing a person that isn't quite me, and unpleasant as it may be that pain is a part of who I am. That pain is a part of my character too, and giving him the same body a cis (i.e.: not trans) man would have would to me erase his being trans. That's not to say that I enjoy being trans or that, given the choice of having the body I should have at the snap of a finger, I wouldn't jump at it, but it's no more a part of my character's background than it is mine for things to be how I want them to.

I have no issue with others taking the same approach, whether for aesthetic reasons or because their own character is trans. However I'd feel really, deeply uncomfortable if somebody treated their doll being trans in a fetishistic way, like it was some sort of sexy adventure (like how 'TG fetish' webcomics always have average guys inexplicably turning into hot, busty women and suddenly developing a submissive personality or shoe addiction or something).

So on a personal level I'd really like for someone who isn't trans but wants to have a trans character to try and portray the character respectfully (go and read some blogs or books by trans authors if you need to). Or at the very least not use terms like tranny. Of course, someone can just say 'well it's my doll so I'll do what I want' and I can't stop them, but they should be aware that they're contributing to a culture that sees trans people as sub-human, and condones their abuse and even murder.

I haven't seen anyone in the doll community behaving in a way that overly bothers me, thankfully, and I certainly hope things stay that way!

 

Yep, we're on the same page then. (I thought so, but wasn't sure.) I think clarifications like this would go a long way to potentially easing some of the tensions about these things. It's hard to tell if people forget it, don't want to bother (and I can't say I blame people for this one sometimes, to be fair I wouldn't want to write a mini-novella explaining the weirdness of some of my creations any time I posted something), or just think people automatically know what's going on in their heads.

 

I would be cool with that; Maybe it's a transgendered boy. FtM, eh?

 

Oh, those androgynous BJDs. Some just can't say no.

 

I'd feel a bit sad for my boys if I put them on girls bodies. But that's just because its not really their thing.

If it suits the dolls personality/owners wishes, then why not?

 

Does it bother me? Not in the slightest.

Not bragging or anything, heh, but I run with a subculture whose demographics of sexuality and gender identity are a bit different from the norm. I have several trans men and women as both friends and exes, and am a genderqueer-identifying occasional (amateur) drag king myself.

That being said, I have two boys with immature girl bodies right now. One of them is going to be modded eventually, but the other represents a FtM trans character. I have another doll in the planning/saving stage who is going to have a boy's body but wear girl clothes, as he is genderqueer and feels most comfortable in female clothing, despite formally identifying as male (although if he gets mistaken for a girl he just giggles a little and doesn't correct them, kinda like when I get mistaken for a biological male.) My characters reflect the sort of group I hang out with and my own attitudes and there really is an entire spectrum out there of physical sex/gender identity combinations.

Personally, when I see trans or crossdressing dolls it makes me smile because it implies that this community is a bit more accepting than the internet at large.