Also, he bears more than a passing resemblance to Ch/arles Jo/hnson, but that's neither here nor there.
Victimless crime. And who would want this guy, anyway. Takes him out of circulation. He's happy, the dolls are happy, everyone's happy.
I haven't watched the video, but he sounds harmlessly nutty. (Possibly on watching the video, he'd sound frighteningly nutty, but who knows.)
Safe for work, but still.
Such a great sentence.
Victimless crime.
No crime whatsoever. He's not breaking any laws. I'm just a little surprised at the self-promotion. He has a fan club (of sorts).
Takes him out of circulation. He's happy, the dolls are happy, everyone's happy.
Especially if this keeps him from turning into a serial killer.
Yesterday was Our 7 year anniversary. I can't believe I have had her that long. Just seems like yesterday I was taking her out of the crate.
Reminds me of a whole bunch of guys I went to junior high with.
Poor Ginger. Will she forever labor under the yoke of having been not as new as Kelly?
Safe for work, but still
Blocked here, like so much else.
I'm not for intervening in this guy's life, the literally prophylactic effect, particularly if it keeps him from being a serial killer, of leaving him to it seems compelling, but "everyone's happy" doesn't include me.
10: You might be happier if they didn't block YouTube wherever you are. At least then you could see Gordon talk about his RealDolls and their range of motion.
Breaking: Yglesias is featuring deadly carp. Where's Heebie?
12: It's Obama vs. deadly carp over there. Sexy.
http://www.big-river.com/br.story.a.html
I bet Real Dolls depreciate really fast when you take them off the lot. I bet the return policies are strict too.
Especially if this keeps him from turning into a serial killer.
Totally, because that's clearly where this guy would be heading otherwise.
Dems should propose a "Real Dolls for potential serial killers" program as a follow on to the midnight basketball program.
15: On the other hand, that means you can get some incredible bargains on eBay.
I know I've told this story before, but I went to a screening of this movie (guy falls in love with girl, girl doesn't notice him, guy buys RealDoll that looks like girl, girl starts noticing guy, RealDoll gets jealous) at the Tribeca Film Festival a few years back and it was a spectacularly awesome Q&A session. It started out normally (inspirations, filming techniques, etc.) and then we slowly began to realize that half the audience was full of actual RealDoll fanboys who were there to complain about how the way RealDolls had been portrayed in the movie and to accuse the director of stealing their internet fan fic.
Richard Thompson, "Psycho Street":
I don' t think you have told it. That's wonderful. I wonder how many RealDolls are out there named Galatea or variants. (Oh, who am I kidding. None.)
All of my RealDolls are named Galatea.
And 19 is indeed awesome.
Am I the only one who thinks the guy isn't serial killer material at all?
He may or may not be serial killer material. But I'd file him under capable-of-going-postal-in-the-workplace material, which is not quite the same thing.
24: It seems that people have very poor intuition, in general, for who is serial killer material. I wonder if that's the same for `going postal'
23: no, not at all.
You people have no sense of romance.
I didn't say he would be one of our nation's more successful serial killers.
I wouldn't want to make RealDolls illegal, but y'know, if a friend says he's found the love of his life and her name is Galatea and she's machine-washable, I'm not going to be so much with the housewarming gifts as I'm going to be hoping he finds a good psychiatrist.
19 is like the greatest story ever. It fills me with a profound sense of the harmony of the universe.
19 is wonderful. true. i should have noted that previously.
His online profile is a pretty narrow glimpse, I'll grant, but he just seems like a weirdo. He doesn't have a distorted self-image, he's not reclusive or hateful, he doesn't appear to have violent fantasies, it seems like he's not even delusional -- he seems to be under no illusion that his dolls are alive or have feelings, and he seems to understand why people would make fun of him and not get upset about it.
Maybe he'd have been abusive if he wound up married to a human, who was not as submissive and quiet as he demands.
7, 10 -- but what if it hastens the transition?
he doesn't appear to have violent fantasies
Though he does have a fairly impressive arsenal, even leaving out the two-handed broadsword his mom gave him for Christmas.
Doesn't looking crazy count for anything anymore? Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts.
He seems like an eight-year-old boy with a sex drive. Generally not dangerous, but kind of unpredictable.
32: basically yes. When you get down to it, sex with dolls isn't that far out as a kink. Granted, most kinks require some sort of involvement of other humans but I'm sure plenty don't. Without any sign that this is symptomatic of something else, why on earth should anybody care what gets this guy off? The default position for anyone's sexual proclivities should be `nobody elses business.' There's plenty of room for censure of actions that are actually harmful of other people, or whatever.
That doesn't mean you want to hang out with the guy, or that, as Cala noted, you might not be concerned if a friend of yours decided this was the life for them (is this really different than, say, another friend saying she'd given up on dating and was going to stick to conversations with her vibrator. And wanted to be buried with it?) But the world is full of sorts of people who wander off the beaten track. Why go after one who isn't doing any harm, as far as I can see. Otoh, I haven't looked very hard, maybe there is something else there.
Doesn't looking crazy count for anything anymore?
Pop Quiz. Read this thread and the IQ thread and answer the following:
I would rather be locked in a room:
a) full of RealDoll fanboys.
b) full of The Bell Curve fanboys.
c) with some phenobarbital and a bottle of vodka.
10: Why would you care?
Feelings close to Cala's, regret at the thought of such a life, defended without shame.
I'm sorry, to each his own blah blah bullshit, but I don't think I need to know anything more than that someone owns a RealDoll to put them in the "potentially nutty" box. Doesn't mean they're a serial killer, very likely they aren't, but they're definitely maladjusted somehow. (Aren't we all? Yeah yeah, but to different degrees.)
This may be very judgmental of me, but I don't think that makes it wrong.
35: no; conformist tendencies are generally over emphasised, I think.
36: Honestly, I'd be much more concerned about someone who wasn't completely open about this sort of stuff. Because he's so open about it, it seems more like a :look, this is who I am, and I don't really care what you think of it.
As far as the weapons thing goes, that's a bit more problematic for me. I distrust pretty much anyone who is into weapons like that -- but the fact this guy also openly likes to have sex with dolls doesn't make that part any more concerning for me, at all.
The default position for anyone's sexual proclivities should be 'nobody elses business.'
Well, up until they advertise it on YouTube and MySpace and ask for comments. That is to say, I've got no problem with him doing whatever he likes in his Apartamento del Amor. But I'm pretty comfortable pointing and laughing, just like I do to everybody else.
23: No, you're not alone. He's got some screws loose, he know it, and he's adapted. That's a whole lot more than one can say for lots of people.
Dolls are weird because they're like totally compliant people. People who like totally compliant people are weird. Weird people with guns are scary.
Not that I think anyone should "do" anything about this guy.
39 - Can I go ahead and choose "c" without finishing the required reading?
41: Sure, potentially nutty. But what do you want to do about that? Lots of pretty nutty people around, and unles sthere is some demostrable harm to what they want to do, everyone else should just let them do it.
40: Telling people what they should be ashamed of is horrendously overapplied, in my opinion. Pushing conformist tendencies any harder than they naturally occur is a pretty bad idea. If someone is genuinely happy living an unusual lifestlye, who the hell elseses business is it?
43: sure, that's a different issue. If someone invites public comment, I'm not saying you should feel compelled to cheer him along.
OK, suppose someone designs a bitchy, disagreeable doll. "Genuine Girlfriend Experience"(TM). Then will everyone be happy?
39c.
The video obviously kinda loads the deck in terms of making him look terrifying, but what he says about it being better than a "real" relationship because there's no conflict makes me feel very ooky in the tummy.
And then the long shots of the doll's faces made me start feeling sorry for the dolls, and I realized that maybe I could begin to imagine how some crazy lonely person might develop a "relationship" with them and I DO NOT WANT TO GO THERE THANK YOU VERY MUCH APO YOU FUCKER.
I like the way that you don't talk.
I like the way that you don't walk.
I like the way you do nothing at all.
I like the way you don't fuss and squeal.
I like the way your skin don't feel.
I like the way you just lay there so still.
I'm glad I chose to date you.
It didn't take long to inflate you.
I wish I'd known you long ago.
Polly Urethane ...
That's a purty name.
I know you won't play games ...
Play games with my heart.
You're adorable
And you're portable.
Polly Urethane,
You're everything to me.
I like the way your eyes don't blink.
I like the way that you don't think.
I like the way you look when you're wearing hot pink.
I like the way you don't stare at me.
I like the way you don't disagree.
I like the way you leave all decisions to me.
You're soft and yet resilient.
Your colors are so brilliant.
It says here you're also waterproof.
Polly Urethane ...
That's a purty name.
I know you won't play games ...
Play games with my heart.
You're adorable
And you're portable.
Polly Urethane,
You're everything to me.
He's got a little manifesto about why he's given up on flesh-women. Judge for yourself.
48: I don't want to do anything about it. He can choose to fuck a doll, he can choose to fuck his vaccum cleaner, he can choose to fuck a life-sized portrait of his mother for all I care. I just don't want anyone pretending it's normal, or even okay. ("Okay" in the sense that I wouldn't mind at all if someone I cared about chose to live that way.)
Can I go ahead and choose "c" without finishing the required reading?
Clearly, MAE is white and an eldest child. And because smart people sometimes need help hooking up, your prize for answering correctly is ... a RealDoll.
39: Is that a trick question?
--Re: Dollboy, I think there are quite a few women who wish their ex's had realized, before meeting said women, that they (the men) were really only cut out for relationships with sex dolls.
38: The best picture in that set is the one in which you're wearing a tie. Just so you know. You know, if you ever end up putting profile up on Nerve or something.
39 is a trick question. c would be the correct answer whatever a and b were.
Nobody's even taken the LHF about DollBoy having a thing against high heels.
Who wants a plastic girl complaining about sore feet? (Seriously, I would have expected RealDolls to have Barbie-type high heel shaped feet. They don't? Or they're jointed enough to fit either kind of shoes?)
I'm not sure I see the difference between this guy and a bitter single woman with three cats and a vibrator. Well, OK, it's a little weirder, but maybe that's just because the technology behind realdolls is a little newer and less accepted.
If she's dressing up her vibrator in little outfits and talking about how it's so much easier than having a boyfriend because they expect you to talk to them, then she's got problems, too.
dressing up her vibrator in little outfits
On the other hand, this could be terribly entertaining. Someone must have put a vibrator in a Ken doll at some point, right? Or, I suppose, a GI Joe for extra manliness. And then you could change its clothes, or dress it up in Barbie's stuff ("Come on, TrannyJoe, come to mama..."). The possibilities are endless.
Sorry, lost my mind for a bit there.
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/60629765.html
On the little outfits, you're right though. Those are much more likely to end up on the pets than the vibrator.
Actually, I like Lizardbreath better on the little outfits.
65: Christ, LB. What are they doing to you at that law firm, to warp your mind so?
It's the ransom-note workproduct from the junior associate. Finally I get a minion, and he's useless.
I knew a couple who had a Real Doll. They knew a fellow from the scene who had one, and then he got engaged. So he had to cut his losses and sell his Doll. They wound up getting it for $500 or so. It didn't fool me, but they had it dressed up and sitting in a chair at a Halloween party, and my friend was completely taken in for a moment. I think that someone clumsily broke one of the thing's wrists after we left, and was that ever disappointing!
The moral of the story is that you should make very, very sure that you are off the market for good before investing that kind of money in an embarassing sex toy.
66: Yep, that woman sounds pretty unpleasant. No mention of dressing it up in costumes or being in love with it, though, so she isn't insane.
I always have to explain to my students that "What you are doing is totally wrong" is completely compatible with "It would be wrong for me to do anything to interfere with your totally wrong practice."
The example I give them is a former apartment-mate of mine who I heard on the phone calling his own mother a rude name that rhymes with "runt." His own mother! And all because she was selling her old car rather than giving it to him! In any case, it is clear that it is very wrong to call your own mother--who birthed you from her loins and nursed you at her breast--a rude name that rhymes with "runt." Nevertheless, there are no coercive measures you could possibly take to stop someone from doing this. The most you could do is say "Dude, you shouldn't call your own mother a rude name that rhymes with 'runt'." I didn't even do that with my former apartment mate, though, because I had already realized that there was no talking to the freak.
In any case, it is clear that it is very wrong to call your own mother--who birthed you from her loins and nursed you at her breast--a rude name that rhymes with "runt."
We have established the Welsh exception to this rule, right?
Have we talked about this before? Is dsquared claiming special privileges?
then we could all turn to dust together. That'd be pretty nice disregards the non-bio-degradable nature of the RealDoll (tm). I was a little surprised to see a Wicca poster on the guy's wall.
75: I imagine the Wicca stuff is not so much about earth mother spirituality as bad Celtic tattoo design.
Someone must have put a vibrator in a Ken doll at some point, right? Or, I suppose, a GI Joe for extra manliness.
Cobra Commander is dressed for the job.
Damn. I just saw the drumset video clip. Dude and I play the same brand of drums. Does that mean we share tastes in RealDoll™ models?
*shudder*
Someone must have put a vibrator in a Ken doll at some point, right? Or, I suppose, a GI Joe for extra manliness.
GI Joe? No, no, all the hip young girls are getting stung. The tomboys, however, tend to prefer the motorized jackhammer action.
Doesn't looking crazy count for anything anymore?
Everyone looks crazy these days. (Everyone on the internets, especially.)
("In the new century, I think we will all be insane.")