Complexity of male emotions seen in physical dolls (I)

Male desire is much more complex than imagined.

 

When you see rows of head carvings on the shelf, your first impression should be that you have walked into a terrorist cabin, painted with high gloss lip gloss, and combed messy hair. Their static eyes stared at everyone passing by, one pair of eyes flashing, and their face looked like some once brilliant star, as if they were staring at people. I smiled awkwardly, as if to say "Hello", and then quickly left its lifeless eyes.

 

In the late 1990s, Time Warner's HBO TV network released a rather thrilling documentary Real Sex, in which one episode was about the founder of the physical doll brand and their factory. These factories provide perfect human sculpture, 1:1 real scale and beautiful appearance, as if calling. One of the words is impressive: "We can create a dream lover for you." I think that is what most people are eager for.

 

In modern society, these markets of inanimate bodies reflect a similar materialization of sexual rights and human pleasure. The physical doll factory mainly sells so-called "female" dolls to men, and its "male" models only account for 10% of its sales. Every year, more than 1 million physical dolls are sold in China, including exports, with prices ranging from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of yuan.

 

As a writer deeply involved in the real doll industry, the content of his work often complicates people's stereotyped assumptions about male orientation. Of course, Xiao Bian has encountered many unexpected metaphors, but he often finds that men do not accept the clich é of superficial and unemotional desires. Whether it's about their intimate life or answering the readers' questions in the column of physical dolls, you can often encounter problems such as sadness and anxiety.

 

Familiarity with the early history of physical dolls may reduce these surprises. In the 19th century, European sailors used dolls as their "toys". In the 1960s, scientists brought a pair of plastic inflatable dolls nicknamed "Antarctic No.1" and "Antarctic No.2" to the Zhaohe Scientific Research Station in Antarctica. Later, it was said that a doll named Judy was sold as a companion in Japan. It can sit with others or lie on the sofa and watch.

 

Historically, physical dolls have always been associated with loneliness. This theme still exists, even though cloth and plastic have given way to surreal silicone or TPE. Some customers of physical dolls are married DINK people. They want a family with many people, so that they can get rid of the chaotic human feelings. However, many people are single, divorced or widowed recently. Some customers simply lack the social skills to maintain interpersonal relationships. Many people gave their dolls names, personalities and background stories. Amateurs wrote romantic stories and feelings of love on the forum. Sometimes, the doll owners will share the photo of the doll, in which they will pose for the doll and change clothes.

 

On the forum Art Beauty of the physical doll, a man wrote that, for him, the physical doll inspired his desire for "a person who really loves me". Another repeated the simple companionship they provided: "A doll sits on an empty chair, so you can have someone sit down and chat. You can embrace, live in a room, and love and be loved." Similar reports have also been reported on another fantasy field: lust.

 

Such a description goes against people's stereotype of desire, but so do some emerging research in this field, which is not a big field. The assumption that men's needs are relatively simple is universal. Therefore, many contemporary studies on the complexity of desire focus on women.

 

In 2001, sex therapist Rosemary Basson published a "reactive desire" model, which considers many relationship and environmental factors that lead to reactivity, including emotional satisfaction and intimacy. Her work deviates from the basic theory of sexual response - excitement, stability, orgasm and determination, and challenges the concept and ideal of lust as a spontaneous impulse.

 

Since then, her work has been widely interpreted as a model of female desire, but she never thought of it this way. In fact, this also applies to male desire, because male desire has incredible elasticity and variability, and is vulnerable to external pressure. The male desire is not properly understood, nor is it endowed with enough nuances or subtleties.

 

In 2016, a study investigated long-term single men to find out what can trigger their desire, and found that the key factors include feeling desired and intimate communication. The experience of rejection and lack of emotional communication significantly reduced their interest in their partners. The researchers concluded that men's desires may be more complex than previously thought.





--Reprinted from the public account: Entity doll combat experience