Why are so many boy dolls so girly?

I think it has more to do with the heads being very gender-neutral by western standards. It's a reflection of the trends in the originating countries of BJDs. Men with very soft and childlike features and medium to long length hair are common in magazines and on TV.

It also is an ethnic trait of these regions that faces are typically shorter, rounder and flatter. Western ideas of a masculine face are lot more angular and slim and what would be considered a male-looking face in Korea could come off as appearing more feminine in the US.
The plucked and preened look of most doll eyebrows and long eyelashes don't help either.

But looking at them for the first time a lot of people don't consider that they're ASIAN BJDs and they think that they should look more like Ken rather than... Kenji.

There's a different aesthetic preference in mind when the head sculpts are being designed. The primary customers are in the same regions the dolls are made, too. And this is what THEY prefer.

Of course it would be a bit difficult to explain that to a random somebody on the street asking questions in case they interpret the answer as racist or some crap.

"So are you saying all Chinese people look like women? That's racist and I'm offended!"
"Are you saying being a woman is a bad thing? That's sexist and I'M offended. Lol."
"SHIIIIIIIIII.....!!!"

 

I agree with Carmine... but I also agree with the OP, I am only interested in MSD or smaller sized dolls, so owning boys who actually look like boys rather than girls with short hair is quite difficult.
Even more so since many stores like LUTS or BlueFairy actually sell the same head sculpt with the option for it to be male or female, so the mold is actually made to be quite androgynous... I was so lucky to find Leekeworld, my Christian is a Wien head mold and he would never be mistaken for a girl, he looks exactly like a young boy should look. Masculine MSD boys are a very rare breed...

 

I was wondering about this question too :/
maybe a lot of people like femanine boys..
sometimes I even found boy dolls dressing like a girl too so I thought it was a girl doll, so some people likes to crossdress their dolls ._.

well for me I prefer manly-looking boy, but not too much...but I only have girls

 

Well most BJDs are made in Asia, right? Their idea of masculinity is different than the Western one. Personally I like androgynous looking faces so it suits me just fine, lol :p but I can see how that could bother folks who want a manly man doll.

 

I thought they just had attractive facial features (large eyes, spacing, whatever) and that guys ended up looking more feminine when 'attractive.' Don't know about 'manly' but yeah I guess there could be some variety.

 

simply because a lot of girls like pretty boys...

 

I think the biggest factor is the wigs. Western men generally have very short hair. There are not that many wigs that I have seen that resemble western male haircuts.

However, there are plenty of boys in countries like Japan and Korea that have shoulder length hair, but they are also very fashionable. When I think of western males with long hair...its not usually cut and styled in the way that Asian boys hair is. Many westerners look at these Asian boys and think they too look girly.

There is also the face shape, many of which don't resemble western face structures.

 

I'm sure there are a lot of different factors as to why, but my first initial thought was simply because it makes them much more child-like. Masculine features aren't as child-like as feminine features are. People tend to be attracted to child-like features, kind of like in a nuturing sense. Dolls in general also quite fashionable, and since in society, most men aren't really interested in flashy clothes and such, especially in Western society. Being fashionable and putting a bit more into your look is still seen as a very feminine and 'girly' thing here, so people might figure it's girl since it's so well upkept and fashionable.

 

I think there are many companies treating boys look like boys. Well, more like men, actually.
It must be just how each companies make dolls...

 

I agree with snsd4203, I prefer male dolls to be more masculine, which is probably why i prefer iplehouse male dolls over any other male dolls out there... ^^;

 

I think they give boys more femine faces for those people who like to cross dress their dolls or people who would rather have that male sculpt as a female. I agree, it would be nice to have more masculine faces and there should be an equal amount of femine faced boys and masculine ones.

 

Because dolls are meant to be good-looking. There's a joke among Asian countries. "If a woman looks like a man, that means she's ugly. But if a man looks like a woman, that means he's good-looking" I DO not believe that woman are better looking than man in general terms. On the contrary, because of the thousand years of sexism man was the one who have all the powers and treat woman like doll, inforcing women to be pretty as they wish. As a result, women are better looking because they are somewhat forced to do so and spend much more attention to their looks than man. But I don't think woman are natually born to be more pretty.

 

I've been sitting here looking at heads for my Miro doll bodies now for hours. I can find plenty of 1/4 girls to choose from but finding a boy the doesn't look like a 14 year old kid is a lot harder it seems. I don't like the mature body really young face thing. It disturbs me on some level to see what looks like 14 year old head on a 25 year old body and those Miro bodies they are not bodies of younger teens I don't think. I've been looking at just about everything but with a few very expensive exceptions I'm not seeing much that works in terms of the guys actually. I get the whole Asian aesthetic thing but I've worked with Asian guys. Guys from China, Japan and Korea, and not all of them were small delicate people. In fact I had a boss once who was Chinese and he was 6 foot 3 and built. He was a good looking, very masculine guy and he'd have made a gorgeous doll sculpt actually. I wish I could sculpt. I'd make my own head, and cast it, I think because I like guy dolls that look more like men. I think that's why I like the Iple boys like Luo so much, but unfortunately my wallet can't afford them...

 

Honestly, I'd love to see more manly MSD dolls, even if they are meant to be younger. Don't get me wrong, I love having cute girly boys, but I equally like manly dolls.

 

I think it's because most of BJD made in Asia and they like pretty face boy. I 'm also one of them.

 

I agree with @Kittymutt because my MSD boys range from age 14 to 16 and how many boys in real life witht that age you see with masculine faces? not many because they're still growing up and it's not the head, per se, that makes a doll 'girly' but the face up and the way you dress them is what makes a doll look feminine. As for SD boys, I love the boy next door kind and the older the more masculine for me. ^^

 

I know that when this thread was started, Iplehouse probably didn't have many, if any, of their 'newer' sculpts yet... But pretending Iple's manly men don't exist, yeah, it's pretty hard to find guys that look like GUYS. Even a lot of not-very-masculine-but-slightly-less-feminine boy dolls get mistaken for girls by people outside the hobby all the time. My favorite doll, migidoll Ryu, will always be a boy in my mind, but even though he is a lot more masculine than a lot of dolls out there, I'll agree that he's still pretty darn feminine. I took him to my old psychiatrist once, right after he'd gotten his faceup, and he had a short wig, normal jeans and T shirt, and I always referred to him as HIM, and my psychiatrist still asked me 'What's her name? What kind of doll is she, again?'


Remembering that Iple's manly men DO exist, I'm grateful for the available variety. Having said that, my only other adult male dolls will be a Soom Photon Reaper skull head hybrid (SKELETON MAN YEAH) and an Iplehouse Felix (Not the MOST masculine of the Iple guys, but just enough of a step above pretty-boy for me.) So even though I'm happy there are just enough manly man dolls to let non-hobbyists know that not every single doll is female, most of them ARE a bit... MANLY for my taste... (Don't get me wrong, they're gorgeous, I just don't want to own most of them for whatever reason.)

 

Right... There are masculine sculpts available. I'm really not sure why this thread still is getting posts!

The dolls all started out as being pre-pubescent. SD-13 used to mean that the dolls were supposed to be around 13 years old. Boys do not get all hairy and lantern-jawed until they are MUCH older! And some guys remain "boyish" all their lives. And some women also look boyish or more masculine. There is a whole spectrum. I LIKE that there are more androgynous dolls available, since I grew up with the stereotypical dolls like Barbie and Ken, with no room for variations that exist in real life. So BJDs that are male that look androgynous are fine with me.

I have Iplehouse EIDs for my manly men. And there are plenty of other sculpts out there for those who like that.

It's really not a big issue any more... or soon won't be.

There's still a lack of smaller-sized dolls who are all testosteroned out, but many smaller dolls were meant to be younger in age and that's a bit slower to change, but change is out there, so no big deal.

 

I actually discovered that the faceup makes all the difference. An IH man can be made to look feminine with a soft face up. I have a Soom Mega Gem Monzo which looks pretty masculinebut all other pics I've seen of Monzo's appear generally femini. Look funny on their muscular bodies to me