Why are so many boy dolls so girly?

See, this question just never goes away, but the answer will always be, the dolls are what you make them. If a lot of people happen to like girly boys, then the majority of the dolls will end up looking girly.

I suspect, as other have already said, that a large portion of it is inspired by the manga/anime/j-rock aesthetic where a lot of boys look incredibly femmy to the point of people not familiar with the genres being unable to tell male from female.

For a lot of people, androgony is a fascinating subject matter (myself included) and I think that has fuelled the current dorrie trend for very delicate boys *shrug* Personally, I have a pretty broad range of dolls from the boys-dressed-as-girls through to the OBVIOUSLY male variety and I can honestly say I've never really given a stuff when people think my girly boy is a girl. Fair enough. You can't mess with generally accepted perceptions in "the real world" and expect not to confuse the normals! If you could, they wouldn't be generally accepted perceptions would they

 

I guess I like the idea of a feminin man, because I'm a J-rock addict, which mostly includes the make-up and clothes that makes them feminin.
Though I think both feminin and masculin is very close, and it's only the small things that makes it different.
We could take a Visual Kei example.
Mana - He dressed as a woman an make-upped as on, he is very feminin in his actions and movements.
Klaha - He's also make-up feminin, and his clothes is also semi-feminin, but because there's some other elements in the waderobe. It make's him more masculin.

I think the definition of masculin and feminin is very about the "aura" someone is ejecting. So mostly I think that the personality is the main thing that makes you believe that it is feminin or masculin.

I own two whole boy dolls.
My Ducan, often is dressed in a more exploided way, not in skirts and stuff, but just clothes that might make him seem more feminin, he also has a rough eyeliner and eyeshadow.
Then my Dillui (modded to boy) is wearing more boyish clothes, brown, dark green, dark blue and alike, which should make him seem more manly.
Of these two, my Dillui still takes the more feminin role and Ducan the masculine, ofcourse the Dillui is a girl mold, which ofcourse does make him more feminin, but still - my Ducan is showing stomache, hips, neck, everything that could seem the feminin form of "slutty", he still is fairly masculin.

So as I said, it's all about the aura of the character.

 

I personally think that companies intentionally sometimes make more "softer" faces due to the simple fact that this hobby is made for customization. People like to take a head sculpt and turn it from a girl into a boy, from a boy into a girl.
I would still love to see a SDF Cian as a girl, and for excample all the Lishe boys out there, they can look really manly and are just so stunning aswell.

Personally I find that it varies very much depending on what face up people put on their dolls if they are "femme" or not. Blushing in the face can also make the difference, if you make the cheak bones more prominant then the whole doll becomes more masculine. Also the way that people dress their dolls makes it sometimes slightly ambiguous.

I find very many ABJD to be very masculine. Just for excample SDF Ethan...
Although his face is really soft and seems very femine you can easily give them a bit of a "testosterone" boost just by giving them a little bit of a edge.

It all depends on how you portray your doll.
Heck I know plenty guys in real life out there that all the time keep getting confused for girls aswell. (Long hair tends to do that, I dont mind though, the longer the hair the better)

And in the end of it all.... Who cares?
Its your doll, your hobby, your money. Your doll is yours to do with as you please and if people think they are "girly" then so be it. Just point out to them that even though their faces are slightly more soft then the next "GI Joe" doll they atleast have all their bits and pieces unlike all the Kens and Action Man of the world.

 

It isn't even a recent trend either. I can think of the 80s and some of the "gender bending" and pretty boys that were popular then - Duran Duran anyone? Even a friend of mine in high school had terrible problems, pugnacious Irishman who wore blue eyeliner, had a gold hoop in each ear, was slim, and below shoulder length blonde curly hair. The guys would not leave him alone when they saw him from behind (or his behind for that matter)! And it usually took a moment or two to get past the earring and eyeliner, before they registered the fact that there was 5 o'clock shadow below that eyeliner...as well as an irate Irishman. Boy did I miss him when he went home to Ireland.

 

Oh I would love to see this done! It is a fantastic idea, IMO.

And to weigh in on the 'femmy boy' debate, I have to agree with what's been said by quite a few people. I too am a j-pop fan so I guess I already have a leaning towards boys that make good girls like Mana and even Gackt. I often joke and say I'm jealous because they make prettier girls than I do - and I'm already a girl!

 

what i find odd is how 'girly boys' in real life, you CAN tell theyre boys, alot of the time, anyway. but in doll form...easily, easily could be a girl. so whats differant..? is it their 'stance?' how they act or pose..? im just not sure what does it

 

I think the uber-smooth skin and perfect bodies tend to help the dolls personally! No pesky five o clock shadow on an El is there lol

 

I think with minimees showing up more and more of esp. American actors we will see more male faces. Now how they are faced up as well as the wigs we can find to pull off the stars look will vary but we shall I hope hear less and less of how pretty shew looks to how handsome he is. We can only hope! MK

 

Well, I like the more femenine sculpts probably because I like more feminine looking guys. And because they're versatile: my boy, who actually has a female face sculpt, can look good in guy's clothes or in a dress (he has one to match an outfit of mine). I don't really mind people mistaking him for a girl if he's dressed like one, but they could at least ask if he's obviously dressed in traditional male clothing.

 

Well they're dolls from asia like manga and anime, where guys looks so girly and charming and girls always fell in love with those kind of unreal guys.. XD
Did I have to say more?

 

In addition to physical appearance, there are a lot of mannerisms (such as the way a person walks, sits, poses etc.), and voice/ speech quirks in humans that tend to indicate one or the other gender. I have trans friends who have worked very very hard on changing not only their appearance and clothes, but their voice and all their other mannerisms in order to really take on the persona of the other gender. I have other friends who enjoy cross dressing but do not want to change their underlying gender, i.e. they are happy being a pretty, somewhat effeminate guy in a dress but do not want to "pass" as a female and hence will wear feminine clothes/makeup/hairdo, but won't change their walk, their voice, and so forth.

On dolls, they pose how we want them to and do not speak or have mannerisms that would indicate a gender, so it's very easy to switch them back and forth.

I agree that this topic comes up continuously, second only to money as the "most discussed topic" for BJDs. I have always taken androgyny for granted and never found it particularly fascinating or repelling or felt any which way about it except it was there. So I can't understand why it fascinates other people so much or gets discussed so much. It's just sort of a fact of existence to me, like how one person might prefer jeans and another might prefer a fancy dress.

 

Hmmm, I think what people on this board are saying is all pretty true. The asian sculpts are rather feminine and/or young looking, not very defined. Take into account customization, you have to have a generic sculpt to start with. Basically, people who say that's a girl when it's a boy or why does that doll look like that, really are not getting it. They may never understand or want to understand. Look, I love my dolls and the hobby. End of story.

 

Took the question right out of my mouth! I couldn't believe it was back again...

I'll speculate why the topic won't die. Bear with me. Maybe every time a new person joins the hobby, we get yet another person who isn't quite at-ease with the degree to which she's attracted by her girlyman dolls. She's stopped by the very big (and very real) hurdle of "what will people think of me if they see me liking this?" And she keeps thinking, "Hmm, this must be some aberration here... but surely I'm not the only one who's noticed this rampant androgyny, and liked it, am I?".... And so she has to speak out about it in discussions, over & over, until she's more comfortable with the notion of being attracted by androgyny, and doesn't feel the need to justify it anymore.

Repetition breeds familiarity; this familiarity breeds comfort with one's own choices. Which just makes you so much more Zen & more fun at parties.

(Disclaimer: I only used 'her' instead of 'him/her' to save space. You guys out there, you prolly worded your own inner struggle differently, but y'know who you are. ;D)

But from a personal standpoint: I'm with you, bunnydots. This issue is such old hat to me, I can no longer remember the arguments I used to use to justify it to other people. Ever since Bowie in the 70s, I have been perfectly comfortable falling in love with beautiful men with high cheekbones & fabulous shoes. But nowadays, anybody who tries to rag on me about such things, they get met with a withering "are you nuts?" stare that makes it clear they are the one with the hangup. It's the 21st Century. Some people really need to get with the program.

As to why there are so many THREADS about this same topic: I can only guess it's because people don't search before creating new ones.

 

I remember when I first saw a few of boy dolls they didn't look anything other than girls.
It's part of because I only had girl dolls at that time and didn't have a thought about getting a boy doll for me.

Compared to a few years back we see some masculine boy dolls by companies though.
Earlier we only had girly boys. When Asian-style bjd was started as a market we only had girls.
I think companies needed research for "manly doll" that appealed to the community(to some of the whole party, at least).

 

When I first saw Chiwoo-Elf, I was in love. I was showing my friend and going "Isn't she beautiful?" and she was all... "Yes! She's so GORGEOUS!"
Until I scrolled to the bottom of the page, and saw that he came with a boy body: "Wait. IT'S A BOY?!"
I think the reason we thought Chiwoo-Elf was a girl because Luts portrayed him in a sparkly dress with long, flowing hair and long eyelashes. At first sight, we perceived him as female.

When I see normal Chiwoo, however, I see a young boy. This is probably because he's in a suit and a short, boy-cut hair on the Luts pictures. I think it'll all how the doll companies display them.

Also, plenty of boy molds look feminine. I think it's because it appeals to the majority of female doll buyers by making them look like innocent little boys with big, heart-stealing eyes. ^^
I think it's also because, in real life, not many boys look like that. It's different.

 

I don't like the ones that are so girly looking. Needless to say, it's a matter of opinion. There are exceptions. A more masculine doll would make many people happy, probably me too lol. The dolly companies just think feminine-ish boys have a better market, I guess.

 

It’s probably because woman prefer softer face. But that’s why I got my Lawrence Owen, he is a more masculine doll, at least in my opinion.

 

Something else to consider - and I mean no offense to anyone with this - but gender-bending seems to be pretty chic among the teens/young 20's crowd nowadays, as far as subcultures go. I mean, you don't see the 'preppy'/jock crowd going for it, but just take a look at the t-shirts you find all over Hot Topic and similar. It's trendy, in a way, to glorify alternate sexualities. I don't think there's anything wrong with this at all, except in cases where someone's serious struggle with their sexuality is cheapened, but that's a whole different kettle of fish.

Long story short: androgyny and 'prettyboys' are in vogue right now in a few ABJD-related hobbies/subcultures/groups.

 

Hello!
I'm Dollie, and I want to see your dollie bunkbeds~!
All sizes are great! I'm looking for a set for MSD though, preferably metal
So please post pictures of your dollie beds!

 

Bump for bunkbeds~