It”s a lot of time to be among men, isolated from the rest of the world. Sometimes the boundaries between an artificial world and the real collapse blurring the boundaries between social taboos and more primal urges. The relationship between thirty-three trapped Chilean miners and love dolls or sex dolls was a bit of a controversial matter as a Western Christian concept; even though in some countries there is a practice of rentals, which shows, that as a substitute, there is a demand for soft silicone against the flesh.Somewhat ambiguously,the issue is whether or not it is inappropriate for men and women to use dolls as a substitute for genuine contact. If placed in a situation where you had the option of a doll instead of no companionship, such as the Chileans, would you begrudge them if they chose a synthetic substitute? Perhaps they are the logical extension of objectifying male gaze. Patriarchy’s cake with sweet and sour icing.

---Lastly on the subject of the BBC's documentary there was one other fantastic quote/moment of the film that I need to share. This part profiled the maintenance man of the Real Dolls who would, um, repair, these Real Dolls. Now, one would think when preforming work on said Dolls that one would wear proper sanitary gear. Not this guy, he hunkers down as he gets into the nitty gritty with no gloves on as he pulls out damaged pieces as he says "I'm running all out of Vaginas."--- Read More:http://imaguylikeme.blogspot.com/2009/03/guys-and-real-dolls.html
Some of the trapped Chilean miners smoked cannabis and looked at pornography during their 69-day ordeal, according to a new book.The book, called The 33, claims that the trapped miners were smuggled drugs in letters from their family. But the drugs allegedly increased tensions in the dark underground shaft. One of the trapped miners, Samuel Avalos, said his fellow miners would isolate themselves to smoke the drug….

Albert Bandura. 1961. Bobo Doll Experiment.---Method: In this experiment three groups of children saw a film which showed the adult attacking an inflatable doll with a stick. The doll was thrown across the room, sat on, punched and kicked. Bandura provided three alternative endings to the film: Group A – Saw only the doll being hit. Group B – Saw the adult being praised and rewarded for hitting the doll. Group C – Saw the adult being punished for hitting the doll. When the children had seen the film, they were given the same doll. Bandura observed their behaviour which showed that groups A and B imitated the aggressive behaviour they had witnessed, while group C were less aggressive.--- Read More:http://www.psychotube.net/learning-psychology/albert-bandura-bobo-doll-experiment/
Non-organic entities already complete tasks that individuals are unable, unwilling and incapable of doing. The love dolls assume a role that most women would be horrified with. In industry, we use machines so often that their place is accepted without issue. From a Marxist perspective,not to be totally dismissed, is that relations between individuals create society, while those between non-individuals establish techniques and methodology. As real men and women are sent to pogey, their surrogates are upgraded, amortized and improved. This can be seen through the evolution of the male ‘sex-toy’ from, for example, pornography to poorly-made vaginal constructions to Realdolls and, eventually, to sex robots. If, indeed “what defines our social relations is, for the most part, prescribed back to us by nonhumans,” then the rise of the Realdoll is symptomatic not only of alienation, but a shift away from human interaction and a rejection of procreative sex-Bruno Latour.As Elizabeth Record notes, all mechanical human delegates have a social role and with Realdolls this is especially obvious. Regardless of whether Realdolls are part of society, they are definitely influencing and reshaping humanity. You can add the caveat here, that the term “human” is a legal construct, thus contractually in the domain of property law…. “studying social relations without the nonhumans is impossible” (Latour).

---Realdolls confuse boundaries, which Haraway argues should be both supported and responsibly analysed. Through this disorder of the natural and abnormal, virtuous and perverse, organic and constructed, we may relearn how to be human and discover our true ethos. The logos of Western male dominated capitalism can be reshaped to be more inclusive and universally relevant. While the occurrence of Realdolls may be seen as the imposition of a totalising and restraining model, ultimately furthering the oppression of women, it may (in time) provide the opportunity to rethink the nature of humans. Moreover, it may provide a space for people to accept “permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints”-Donna Haraway. Read More:http://culturalshifts.com/archives/295 image:http://www.loneleeplanet.com/2009/03/japanese-love-dolls-taboo/
…He told the book’s author, New York Times journalist Jonathan Franklin, the other miners “never even offered me one”. However, according to the book the greatest desire of the trapped men was sexual, with the miners requesting blow-up sex dolls be sent down for relief.This “greatest need”, Franklin says, got doctors working on “how to appease the expected rise in sexual desires”. Once Chilean doctor monitoring the miners’ physical condition while they were trapped in the San Jose gold and copper mine in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert, said a donor offered ten inflatable dolls for the miners’, but was turned down. “I said 33 or none. Otherwise they would be fighting for inflatable dolls: whose turn is it? Who was seen with whose fiancee? You are flirting with my inflatable doll,” the medic, Dr Jean Romagnoli, reportedly said.Instead, the pin-ups from La Cuarta, a Chilean tabloid famous its girls known as Bomba 4′, and pornography were sent instead. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1356573/Chilean-miners-Cannabis-porn-blow-sex-dolls-case-jealousy.html#ixzz1MEL068ko
Evidently, the issue of the love doll plants itself in the psychological theory of the transitional object as well as the complementary concept of transference within the overall context of the life passage to the significant other. There is a distortion with the dolls given their acute technical resemblance with the “object” one is supposed to relate to. But then, pop culture is so imbued with the plastic of perception, that it is almost comprehensible to juxtapose and contradict the demarcation between physical and emotional fulfilling of needs mixed with more profound and sometime suspect wants and desires. The doll is in one sense “perfect” and, yet its seduction is equally demoralizing.

---To the untrained eye, the clusters of synthetic body parts scattered on the floor of a vast warehouse in Italy’s heartland looked very much like — well, like clusters of synthetic body parts. But to an expert like Andrea Bonaveri, whose family company has been making mannequins for 60 years, each slick torso, each sculpturesque limb, has its own story. “These are waiting to be delivered to Burberry,” he said, pointing to one bunch of white bodies. “Those legs are for Emilio Pucci. The somewhat prune-colored ones are for Louis Vuitton, and those gray ones are for Hugo Boss.” There were more: bronze bodies for Roberto Cavalli. Mannequins in transparent fiberglass for Giorgio Armani. Projects for Max Mara, Zara and Loewe, the luxury leather brand. In the world of mannequin makers, Bonaveri is among a handful of companies whose brands are as recognizable as the fashion designers whose styles their models show off.---Read More:http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110219/ZNYT01/102193010 image:http://www.exhibitingfashion.com/post/3380605495/a-nice-nyt-photo-essay-about-the-top-mannequins-to
Elizabeth Record:The Realdoll Doctor mentioned earlier is where these women are sent when they go on strike. Their work stoppage is frequently the result of sexual abuse. While some of the reasons Realdolls are sent away are for routine maintenance (joint tightening, vaginal replacement), there are many cases of maltreatment which can only be described as cruel: Realdolls have been mutilated and left in dumpsters, dismembered or snapped in half …Finally, the vast majority of Realdolls are white, blonde and thin, with the heaviest model being 113 pounds. Read More:













COMMENTS




Great article! I happen to run a site featuring RealDolls as the main protaganist in each scene. It’s nice seeing someone who’s taking a serious look at reviewing the BBC documentary (instead of others who make light of it and don’t “get” it).