Thoughts on heteronormativity and doll 'cross-dressing' / the gender spectrum

I think it would be pretty cool and interesting if done more realistically. Generally what I see is the young girls cross-dressing their dolls for yaoi fantasy stuff which I dislike anyway.

 

I think that there are as many approaches to the "gender spectrum" in the doll hobby as there are people who are in the doll hobby. Certainly there are some who simply like the androgynous boy dolls because of the yaoi/shonen-ai trend, some that like the androgynous boy dolls because they identify with them (I have seen A LOT of FtM people online who collect this kind of boy dolls), and also some who like the androgynous boy dolls because of their political message (queer identity and politics) - and there are also people who like the androgynous boy dolls because they simply like their aesthetical features.

I think "uneducated and negative views" is maybe a bit of a strong wording, when talking about the way the doll owners represent and style their dolls. Maybe your tranny example is right (though I haven't seen many such posts here yet), but yaoi/shonen-ai, in terms of a doll's "gender and sexual orientation", is not "uneducated and negative" in my opinion - it is simply a genre that is as far from reality, as, say, something with vampires in it (and there is a huge amount of vampire doll characters!). I don't assume that anybody into yaoi automatically thinks that yaoi is a description of real homosexual relationships.

I would also like to disagree that transgender automatically equals non-heteronormative. Some people who decide to live as the opposite gender just switch from one gender to the other, often in an extreme form. For example, many MtFs become extremely feminine, sometimes in a rather anti-feministic way, after transition, while many FtMs are representing as extremely masculine. In this, they reinforce gender duality and hence heteronormativity instead of questioning it. So, a doll that is described as transgender, because it has a male doll body that was sanded to take off the genitalia and then had some additive modding with epoxy to have breasts, is wearing a miniskirt, high-heels, and showing cleavage, shown as "behaving" and "representing" as exclusively "female", AND is depicted as attracted to male dolls only, is not necessarily questioning heteronormativity.

On the other hand, there are also FtMs and MtFs who stay rather androgyne and gender-ambiguous. And there are also many people who don't go the operation road but still represent and live in a gender-ambiguous way. I think both of these are actually questioning the heteronormativity and gender duality much more. To take the example above in a different version - a doll with the boy body that is modded incompletely (either only the upper body or only the lower body) or not modded at all, that is wearing fashion that is a mix of "gender-extreme" clothing of different genders (baggy pants, a pink t-shirt, a frilly bow in the hair, dress shoes and a tie, just to give an eclectic example), that is referred to as male but shown to behave in a "feminine" way, and is depicted as being attracted to male dolls - this is a little bit more questioning gender and heteronormativity in my opinion.

I think it is always depending on the person - the crossdressing of the dolls, modding etc. can be both either reinforcing heteronormativity or not.

 

While the androgynous dolls may have been produced to pander to the yaoi market, I think that they picked up a very different one honestly. (yeah, there are some. But as long as there is a market for yaoi, they will be there.)

Most of the "yaoi boy" dolls I've seen (here and elsewhere) aren't all that androgynous. So I don't really think the yaoi mass marketed stereotype really applies to the androgynous ones as much as boy dolls in general. And I haven't seen all *that* many of them dressed up in ways that might construe them as feminine.

By and large, the cross-dressing and gender-bending trend seems to be done for its own sake. I find it refreshing. (Especially after kinda....running away screaming from the yaoi genre after the initial "ooh pretty" turned to disgust for what they consider to be "good" storytelling. As an artist/writer, I find it deplorable that they perpetuate and even create a lot of the negative stereotyping. Some of it is ignorance, but most is a quantifiable industry standard.)

 

^you took the words right out of my mouth!
I'd say that 95% of the crossdresser dolls I've seen were made because their owner is a yaoi fangirl. and I greatly dislike the yaoi trend. :/

 

Honestly, I think that you're going to get idiots in all spectrums of life and the BJD hobby is no exception to that rule despite the fact that ON THE WHOLE, it's a great deal more broadminded than many others.

Yes, there are the squealing yaoi fangirls, but I find them oddly less offensive than the people who just have a vocal and obnoxious auto-squick at the concept of a crossdressing/trans doll character because, alright, they're not exactly doing the subject any well educated favours, but at least they're not hating on it for no real reason either. I go on the theory that even the poorly done ones are attempting to fathom a lifestyle that may be very different than their own, and that should get some credit in a world where being "different" is still awkward.

All of that said, gonna have to pull you up on there not being enough discussion on this topic and it's surrounding issues, because if ever there was a thing this community is apparently OBSESSED by, it's gender/sexuality and the issues surrounding it and I know I've listed them all before in another thread...

There we go a mere selection of relevant topics that are being flogged like the proverbial dead horse as we type.

 

From what I know, often only one of the partners in yaoi/shonen-ai is usually androgynous and/or feminine, and portrayed as the "fem" part of the relationship; the other one is usually pretty much the "straight male" stereotype, looking justr like your guy next door (even their roles in sexuality are fixed and strictly divided). This is why yaoi is thought to be mimicking heteronormative patterns (but only mimicking - if two men REALLY would live in such a relationship, this would actually be far from the heteronormative ideal). So yes, the trend applies to ALL doll boys.

On a side note: I think I begin to notice a trend in the doll community to strongly dislike yaoi. I wonder why we think it important to say that we dislike it in a thread that is about the gender-spectrum and heteronormativity. Almost everybody in this thread, including the OP and the poster to him I responded above, has reacted saying they dislike yaoi in some way:

I don't ask why we dislike it - I ask why we see it as that important to state we do. Is it because the stereotype of the female doll owner is usually (rather wrongly) mixed up with the stereotype of the yaoi-fangirl? And if so, then why is "yaoi-fangirl" such a negative stereotype in the first place? It is not like pornography for the male audience would be less unrealistic.

I would like to write down a thesis which in my opinion show the hidden way how heteronormativity works: what if this dislike of yaoi in the doll hobby is actually a consequence of heteronormative influences?Maybe yaoi is regarded as wrong in heteronormative terms - even though it is mimicking its patterns, but try to ask men about it! -, much in contrast to het (or pseudo-lesbian which is not seen as threatening to heteronormativity as much as pseudo-gay, which yaoi is) pornography. Poor artistic or dramaturgical value is not present in usual pornography neither, so why do we search for a plot or quality in yaoi (it is different in shonen-ai which is not pornography, but the words of the posters in this thread are all towards yaoi and not shonen-ai)? When we carry this perception of yaoi over to our hobby, and show disgust and dislike towards the "yaoi-fangirls", blaiming yaoi for an "uneducated" view - aren't we fallen into the trap of heteronormativity too, just in a different way?

 

I believe firmly in freedom of expression, freedom of love, and freedom of lifestyle choice. Many of my friends are LBGT and I am fiercely protective of them, considering I live below the buckle of the Bible Belt and homosexual activity was illegal until about five years ago. People are...less than sympathetic even today towards alternative sexuality, and it makes me crazy mad.

That having been said, I suppose I'm in the minority when I say that I like to dress girl dolls as girls and boy dolls as boys. I guess I'm old fashioned that way. But hey, the rest of you kids do what you like. Just don't get all miffed when I mistake your boy doll dressed in full-out loli for a she.

 

For what it's worth, I know that what makes some people uncomfortable is less about the material/genre itself (either it being for females or it being about male-couples) and more about certain elements of the fandom taking it more seriously than fantasy/porn should be taken, which can lead to uncomfortable social moments. One example: Reading the comments on anti-bullying/anti-homophobia videos online, it's not unusual to see responses of "Oh, you should read yaoi! It's all pro-everything!", ignoring that recommending a fantasy story is not a solution to serious real-life social/political issues*.

Which isn't to paint all fans of the genre with the same brush (that wouldn't be fair to the majority who presumably read it and take it for what it is) - in all likelihood it's just a small (but vocal) minority who are trying to force fantasy fluff into a serious conversation, but when I see someone say "I'm not part of that fandom", that's where I imagine the distancing is coming from. And obviously distancing yourself from a fandom is separate from expressing dislike for the genre, but I think they tend to get merged together in casual conversation.

*And to be clear, that's not meant as an insult: there's nothing wrong with a fun bit of fantasy fiction!


ETA:

I don't think you're in a minority at all - I think the overall tendency is to dress dolls in either gender neutral or gender-traditional clothing. That's just not something people comment on in the same way!

 

Couldn't agree more! Many of the FtM and MtF people I come across tend to dive into the gender they most identify with so whole-heartedly that they become much more masculine/feminine than cisgender men and women. Of course there are exceptions, as mentioned, with people who like to play with the idea of gender and appear more androgynous. And some people are just naturally androgynous anyway, whether they mean to be or not!
In terms of dolls, the phrase "girl-to-boy mod" or the more unusual "boy-to-girl mod" are only important to me because they help you learn more about the physical dolls themselves, and personally I find them quite inspiring. If I had a doll whose character had, say, been born a girl and then became a boy, I would just buy a boy body, unless there were other character-based reasons why it should be a girl body.
It's true that in this hobby there is plenty of cross-dressing, and it's rather rare to come across a straight male doll. I don't know why that is, to be honest. It may have to do with the anime origins of the hobby and many doll owners may be avid anime or yaoi fans. But it may be something to do with dolls representing a fantasy, a kind of romantic air-brushed ideal, if you will. There are theories that one reason women like yaoi is because it is seen as "safe"- they don't feel threatened by either a sexual predator and neither do they compare themselves unfavourably with the characters. Doll-based yaoi may be popular for the same reasons.

 

To me, it's just clothes. Clothes and gender are not the same thing(You can link them if you want. I generally don't). Preferring skirts does not make you into a girl. If you identify as a girl, then you're a girl. If you want to wear skirts, then it's probably because you prefer skirts.

I bought my doll because I a) liked his appearence, and b) Because he was a kid doll, so he could wear both girls and boys clothing. I'm planning to buy a girl doll and give her a breast reduction so that she can wear both male and female clothes more easily. This may have to do with my profound interest in male fashion..

To me, it's variety. I like it.

 

Personally, I'd prefer to distance myself from a fandom that thinks things like rape, incest, and pedophilia are not only ok but "super cute" and desired. It has nothing to do with the clothes. Don't even get me started on "yaoi fangirls" at anime conventions.

 

In life, in most parts of the world, with very few exceptions, as far as I've seen, LGBT/etc is less common than "straight". I don't see how believing what is supported by simple facts is "harmful". I have never treated anyone badly as a result of that fact, is is what it is- a fact. I believe certain things are wrong, but I treat all human begins as human beings. Their gender identity or whatever is their business, loving people as human is my business.

ON topic, in the doll hobby, if there's a trend away from Yaoi, thank goodness. Yaoi is a horrible way to depict gay relationships- full of pedophilia and rape and unhealthy abusive relations. If your dolls are gonna be gay, for frick's sake let them just be people who happen to be gay, not crazy fangirl lust objects.
2 cents, yall.

 

I think that sometimes, hot yaoi guys are the gateway drug to gaining an interest in real issues pertaining to homosexuality, or even just gaining an awareness that issues exist. I know that I myself started off with 'ew, gays' to 'hot! yaoi!' to doing random in-depth studies into gay and transgender issues out of personal interest. So if there are owners who are into blurring gender lines because of yaoi or feminine anime men, it means that they have already opened their minds a little bit, and it is possible to use that inroad to fill their minds with more educated and positive views on LGBT issues. Along the way, you'll get annoying people and idiots, and those who refuse to change, but then again, you get them everywhere.

Personally, I feel that heteronormativity is still fairly entrenched in this hobby. I have one doll who is supposed to have a fairly fluid gender identity, that I sometimes refer to using both gender pronouns. When I do use the pronoun opposite to its body's gender, I tend to get corrected, even though it's my doll. =_= When I feel like spamming that doll around in request threads, I find myself vexed because, does it count as a gay couple when he doesn't identify as male. Does it count as a het couple if she doesn't identify as female? Does it count as a boy crossdressing when the only gender marker is a tiny resin penis I never felt the need to remove? It becomes rather difficult (for me) to express that character in any way other than lengthy explanations and walls of text, especially when gender and sexuality is not even remotely a focus for that particular character (he/she/it simply doesn't care, it's not a defining trait).

So, I guess, while the bjd community seems more open to all sorts of different, it is most open to specific types of different. It is also not easy to reflect certain concepts and ideas through the medium of dolls.

 

Thank you both, now I begin to understand why the yaoi fangirls seem to be as despised by the doll community. I have a rather atypical view and approach on/to yaoi (it is what it is, porn for the female reader, nothing more, and is not anymore cute or any less morally questionable than any other porn), and am rather familiar with "LGBT" (I am putting it in brackets because in my opinion there is no homogenous population, and gay/lesbian vs. transgender is often very, very different in terms of thinking, view on life and behaviour) reality, and don't know many anime/manga fans. All the people I learned to know in real life who liked shonen-ai or yaoi were actually rather mature individuals with what I would call a healthy and sceptical view on it - either simply considering yaoi as porn or being not interested in the sex scenes and only reading shonen-ai for the emotional component and aesthetic. I had no idea that there are actually so many people proclaiming that rape or child abuse are "cute"... >.<

Being "straight" and believing that a big part of the population is not harmful on itself. It is only the assumption that anything not straight or cis-gender is abnormal, resulting in a different, often negative, treatment of these people, that is harmful.

I think you are talking about Fate, aren't you? I have followed your LJ link once (I randomly do this when I see one in a signature, I hope it doesn't make me a stalker or something >.>) and Fate was the one that I remember - because she/he is rather special with the way you depicted her/him. Well, what I want to say, is that most people probably simply don't know Fate's story, and hence assume that you called her/him with "the wrong pronoun" by accident. I think it would maybe happen less if you stated that Fate is "agender"/genderless before in the same thread?

I have a doll that is quite genderless too, but for simplicity's sake, I call it with the pronouns that are usually used for this kind of doll body - because I am too lazy to explain the thing with it being genderless, to be honest. I also perceive hetero-normativity as still present and often prominent even in such an art-based and alternative hobby like the BJD doll hobby - though there are more alternative views here than in the average population.

 

dollblue, yea, I was talking about Fate. Normally, I would just go with 'he' for simplicity's sake, but sometimes, when talking with friends who do know his story, I still get the gender pronoun correction. They prefer him as a boy, I think. Speaking of journal, I should get start updating them again. >_> /cough Time flies...

 

I find this rather irksome, because biologically a FtM would have the form of a female, with external changes to physically manifest towards a more masculine form, with a possible conclusion being the person choosing to have an operation or not. The male and female body are very different proportionately wise; the male as a longer torso and the female longer legs than in proportion to the other gender.

 

No; not necessarily. I don't think that's true at all. I have seen FtM people who, even if you were looking at them naked, you would think they were born male because they have the masculine stockiness, the lack of "curves", the thicker wrists, etc. And this is even without them having a penis, if you didn't see that part. This is partly to do with the hormone therapy, but a lot to do with just having a body that way. Of course there are exceptions, but I feel what you're failing to take into account is the vast disparity in body shapes. I've met boys with really lithe, soft, girlish bodies, and many girls (like myself) with more athletic bodies, fewer curves, and washboard stomachs. Are you trying to say that, based on my "less feminine" body shape, that somehow means I can't be a girl? Or that FtM people who were born female can never look masculine? There's a big difference between girl and boy doll bodies, not just in the genitals but in the build. Thinking that a person should forever be shelled in the body they were born with seems myopic. If I have a character who was born a girl but then became a boy, he would have a boy body: because he is now a boy.
Point in case, I have a doll who has a girl body that's been modded to be sexless. And honestly, to look at him, you would think he was very androgynous, but really just a very skinny doll, which is how I wanted him. I honestly can't understand why you would find that irksome.

 

I'm female, my torso is longer than average, and my legs are a bit shorter, and I tend to appear male in photos, especially next to other girls. It's hard to buy girl clothes, because the waist is always too high. I've been mistaken for male from the back while wearing long hair, just from my silhouette. So, sure, I believe that FtMs can have bodies that look just like male dolls, especially considering how most male bodies tend to be femmy and androgynous in the first place.

 

I haven't actually read Yaoi (not really into the boy/boy thing myself) but I've seen & read shonen-ai - and that's rather realistic as regards feelings etc. I have SEVERAL gay friends who LOVE it (the anime about the most wonderful love - can't remember the exact name - is the one they lap up).
If Yaoi is full of pedophilia & rape, well, even more reason for me not to like it....