like a fish needs a bicycle...

real sickness

so i just found about the "real doll." i'm so disgusted, and yet not surprised at all.

i won't link to the official site here, as it's a cesspool of foul things and contains some images that i found disturbing. but i'll tell you that men out there are paying over $6,000 for 3D silicon women. they're designed to look very realistic, and i suppose they're also life-size and life-weight, if your frame of reference is anorexics (they weigh about 100 pounds).

i don't even want to think about the kinds of things these men are doing with their dolls at home, but here's an article on an abuse of an already misused amalgamation of materials.

i just can't help but wonder what the hell is wrong with our society. when i was in college, i once went to a lecture on pornography given by a former porn addict (male) and a former porn star (female). it was a packed house, and there was lots of controversy. but i learned something. up to that point, i was completely baffled as to why people woud watch porn--i just could not wrap by brain around what purpose it was actually serving. maybe some people could understand--i definitely couldn't.

but that night, both of the speakers talked about feeling empty, unfulfilled, disconnected... they said they had no meaningful relationships in life, that they were seeking substance. and they turned to porn, thinking they could find those things. of course the porn didn't fulfill them (no surprise), but actually made their lives worse and destroyed any hope for meaning or fulfillment that they might have had at the time. so when their lives hit rock bottom, they finally had to rid themselves of their illness and then had to rebuild things from scratch, deciding to make it their life's work to help others diagnose their sickness before it was too late.

it was all very illuminating, and i can't help but think those insights apply here. i'm willing to venture a guess that there is huge overlap in the porn consumer population and real doll consumer population, and i'm slightly disturbed at this newest tangible incarnation of emptiness. that sounds oxymoronic of course, but i really think that's what this is.

my question is how do people get this way? why do they get to the point where they have nothing and no one? why is there such a void that they try to fill it with silicon? what are we as a society doing or not doing to allow them to reach that place? can't we pick them up before they get there? love them, help them, be willing to make connections with them?

and why are these people making these decisions? did they not learn what a healthy expression of the human sex drive is? did it never occur to them that owning a real doll is a sign of psycho-social maladjustment? and didn't anyone ever teach them to value women?

i can't help but feel a special tinge of pain at that last one... that's because i'm also willing to venture a guess that the overwhelming majority of consumers of real dolls (and porn) are men. and i can't help but wonder what this gender divide signifies. why are men doing this to themselves, to women, and to societal perceptions of women and the feimine ideal? i realize there are plenty of decent men out there.

but the illness is still rampant... and tacitly condoned... and contributing to the economy in massive ways. it's very real. even more real than a real doll.

Posted by naseem at October 12, 2005 09:55 PM