Real Dolls: Transgender Sex Toys & the New Authentic

"Why, in our culture, does the term 'anatomically correct' 

automatically equal genitals?"*

Unapologetically Female

*Note: if you are a church member or a search committee,
please, actually ready the scholarship and don't jump to conclusions based on visuals.
The thesis of the argument is about thinking critically and not judging on first glance.

______________________________

______________________________

In 2012, I began the "Feminine Products &  Queer Objects" Project

examining a series of trans-human matters including

Estrogen, Saline, Mercury, Sugar, Heat, Music, & Bra-Straps.

Among them, Silicone received the most hits,

standing today as the 1st and 2nd most read posts on this blog.

______________________________

______________________________

Authenticity

Real dolls are popular high-end sex toys. Each ranges from $4,000 upwards. In addition to preconfigured versions, shoppers have the option to customize their doll with a variety of eye, skin, and hair colors. Despite the range of possibilities this customization offers, the dolls remain relatively normative in their presentation of the human (excepting skin and eye options mimicking Anime and sci-fi characteristics). The height, weight, number of limbs, facial features, and genitalia follow normate standards of beauty. By mimicking these imagined human standards, these dolls substantiate their claim to "realness."

[The Real Doll developers] got lots of questions about whether they were "anatomically correct", which is why they ended up with fuckable vaginas. And it struck me -- why, in our culture, does the term "anatomically correct" automatically equal genitals? When someone uses that term, we know exactly what they're talking about. (Sort of like how we know what the term "legal" is supposed to mean, when we're referring to young girls. Shudder.)

~ Real Dolls and the Problem with "Anatomically Correct" Unapologetically Female, SUNDAY, JULY 25, 2010

The allure of the Real is that it is effective at creating the feeling of authenticity while remaining in the realm of fantasy. Reflecting both the norm and cartoon characters, Real Dolls substantiate the fantasy of the Real by embodying it in the prior case and trespassing it in the latter. The standard models exemplify the strangeness of the the others, and visa versa. By creating unreal alternatives, the attractiveness of the Real is heightened. If ever the two are combined, such as in the case of a Trans sex doll without limbs (as in the case of trans amputees) there is a sudden break in the attractiveness of the Real, as evidenced in a review of such a toy:

Really, how can they do this? Can you imagine how a transsexual person, already having trouble fitting into society, feels when they have a terrible accident, and wind up missing limbs. To know there are people who objectify that condition as a sexual fetish must be creepy beyond belief. They should really make this with full limbs, and a head. Then the purchaser can amputate whatever they wish to suit their perversions. They'd probably enjoy that, too.

~ "Review of Mia Isabella's Extreme Fuck Me Silly," Michael Z Williamson, 26 March 2012, Amazon.com

To be Real, the doll must reflect certain fantasies of the norm. This means, in the case of Michael, that the doll cannot be disabled. Even worse, the sex toy cannot be a toy. Admitting to what it is breaks the fantasy (a private affair) and makes it a disgusting political act (a public affair). This makes the toy liable to being policed by such a reviewer. To sustain the power of the object we need to deny what it is and what we are doing with it. Purchasing a Real Doll provides the experience of possessing a woman or man that one can enact one's illicit desires. One can fuck, cuddle, use, abuse, dress, undress, pose and dismember a Real Doll in ways and frequencies that would be too dangerous or illegal to practice on a human subject. In this way, the lie of authenticity appears to be a win-win situation. It is like a human when one enjoys the fantasy and then it is like an object when one fears the fantasy.

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

Fake Fakeness

Realness is then doubly a product of the social imagination. While enacting these sex acts in private is supposed to be essentially an apolitical act, the closeting of desires that contradicts public prohibitions demonstrates that illicit desires are in constant conversation with social fantasies. The slenderness of the Real Doll fulfills the public fantasy about women's figures while being made of silicone rather than flesh and blood makes it justifiable (even rational) for the doll to be given no food. Likewise, the public desire for women to be brainless sex toys is embodied by the brainless sex toy that is supposed to be a woman.

Given that the authenticity of the Real Dolls is a social fantasy, what then do we make of the sudden appearance and popularity of "transgender options" being offered by the manufacturer? What does it mean that buyers want a "transgender option" from the manufacturer?  While trans, intersex and other gender identities are not preconfigured, the presence of an option to transform a male or female doll into a transgender Real Doll is suggestive of a new fantasy for authenticity in the public imagination. 

By naming the variants (still not considered a standard model) "transgender options," Real Doll acknowledges an identifiable and relatively benign term for a range of identities. Real Doll is not using the contentious word "Shemale" despite its continued use in the porn industry, but opts instead for the language used by LGBT political groups. The public vetting of Transgender has been adopted for private use by Real Doll creators and users. For at least a subculture of Real Doll buyers, there has been some resolution of the "female/male" dichotomy still suggested by the term "Shemale." Instead, the transgender sex doll reflects a cultural synthesis, allowing that a (trans)woman can have a penis, for instance, in this new social order.

Her penis feels great but it is NOT for anal beginners. She has LARGE durable breasts. Her mouth is so tiny that even a small penis isn't getting in. She had me cumming almost immediately and I was able to squirt it all over her breasts while she was still inside me.

~ Review of Gia Darlings Transexual Love Doll, Viblover, 12 October 2012, 69AdultToys.com.

The selling of Transgender Real Dolls suggests that Transgender has begun to be essentialized by the neoliberal sex industry. There is a new authenticity that can be sold and marketed to in society. The buying and selling of Transgender sex dolls demonstrates that there are public desires and prohibitions that can be enacted and transgressed in the private sphere. There is an imagined "Transgender reality" out there that with the cost of a few thousand dollars you can get in your bedroom.

We all have shemale fantasy's, tranny porn is some of the hottest on the internet, but very, very few of us are going to have the opportunity of really fulfilling those fantasies. That's where tranny sex dolls come it. They are hot, and a great placebo for the real thing.

~ "Tranny & Transsexual Sex Toys," Flesh Toys for Boys.

Imagining such a thing as a Transgender realness is particularly striking because of the ongoing history of the Trans person figuring the artificial or fake body. The relation between Transgender and breast implants (fake tits), facial reconstruction (plastic surgery), sex change operations, and hormones (often developed from animal urine) has been used to depict Transgender as essentially unessential. It is common to hear the terms "a real woman" used in contrast to a transwoman (i.e. the "fake" or "unreal" woman). Indeed the Born this Way rhetoric of Gay and Lesbian rights movements only deepens the gulf between Transgender and Realness. This gulf allows for participation in and with Transgender without committing to being responsible to either Transgender politics or the persons. 

This non-committal relation to Transgender is evident in the optional aspect of the dolls. "I like that the cock is removable," writes one reviewer, "but with the cock on, I can't dress her up. The face was cute, but nothing special and the back door wasn't as tight as most females. But it all-in-all works for me!" (Review of Jesse Transsexual Doggie Style Love Doll, Dirty Boy, 6 December 2011, 69AdultToys.com). Manufacturers of top of the line dolls do not usually commit to making a line of Trans dolls but create add-on dildos to the female dolls. Not only does this cut out a large portion of the Trans community from representation but allows buyers to take it or leave it ("it" being a penis). Either way, as Dirty Boy notes, the experience is never complete. Realness remains a fantasy.

Yet for the same reasons, Transgender Real Dolls may be considered the fantasy of the Real par excellence. Transgender is the human that isn't human. The real fake body. The flesh and blood human that embodies plastic surgery. Transgender embodies the fabrication of reality. The New Authentic offered by the Transgender Real Doll is a Realness that acknowledges its own lie and thus allows us to be free to play out our own fears and enjoyments.

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

Entrance Points

There are those for whom Transgender remains more than a fantasy but a fable. They see it from the outside or even further like a child hearing of a faerie world just beyond the next hill. There are even those so close as to be pressed up against the glass, staring through the windows of a dark club or bending aside to see what is up a gurls skirt. For them Transgender Real Dolls are a way to touch something from another world. Perhaps they may go there one day, to the city, and touch that, feeling her panties with a bare hand, yet for the moment the Real Doll stands in for the Real thing like a paper plane for a 747.

Fantasy, especially fantasy of the Real, often feels more real than the reality we know. When one reviewer writes, "I have never seen someone so beauitful as this she-male doll" we may wonder that a doll gives them something a human cannot (Review of Gia Darlings Transexual Love Doll, Robert, 30 October 2007, 69AdultToys.com). Yet is this not the case for many other things? How often when attending a concert where the venue employs giant screens do we find ourselves, even when an excellent view of the stage is available, gazing at the facsimile rather than the thing itself? Being trained to look for impossible standards (in weight, bone structure, etc.) only representations of these standards, such as dolls or television can embody them. In the particular case of the Transgender love doll, by emphasizing a double artificiality it sets itself so far at a distance that it becomes a transcendent Real. The nonhuman becomes more Human than a human.

The special ability of a Transgender love doll is that it offers an object on which one can physically enact an entrance into the impossible Real while sustaining its impossibility. Another reviewer writes of this feeling of encountering the doll as moving towards consummation of his desire, I have always been curious about the trans-sexual scene and now feel I have the confidence to pursue transsexuals now." Review of Gia Darlings Transexual Love Doll, Anthony 'Horney Bastard' Decunto, 26 January 2007, 69AdultToys.com. It may be possible that the 'Horney Bastard' does enter into the scene and bodies of transsexuals, but what is key here is it he has not yet. So long as he moves from facsimile to facsimile he can sustain his curiosity by sustaining the impossibility of encountering the Real of Transsexuals. Each time he fucks an even more Real Doll he may get that orgasmic transcendence of the "now" that changes everything. 

The production of a Real which is "never" realized (as in Robert's case) or the Real which can "now" be pursued (as in Anthony's case) keep the Realness of the Trans Doll attractive. This is not to say that pleasure or enjoyment of a trans body is truly impossible, but it will be of a different nature than the Real Doll and even more different than the fantasy of Realness they inspire. The power of the faerie is that it remains just out of reach or an incomplete experience. The Trans to-be is ever more enchanting than the Trans that-is because it denies all the insufficiencies of the present that lead us to desire it.

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

The Purple Dollar

What about the faeries themselves? What do persons who consider themselves under the auspices of Transgender make of the Transgender Real Doll and her authenticity? While a Trans person myself, I shrink to suppose what the Trans opinion (or rather, opinions) to be. We are like a flooded plane even more than like a river. We are in constant motion and are ever shifting our boundaries. Material is constantly being washed away and inundated so that Transgender appears to incite more differences than to mark an discrete center.

Yet this reality is not the Real that the Trans doll represents. It insists on a Realness not only on the side of the provider but on the side of the consumer. Neoliberal market economies want there to be a Transgender community so it can market to them. Already so much of the Trans polis gravitates around technologies (surgeries, hormones, clothes, therapy) that all costs money. The fight for access or for insurance coverage does not contest the expense of money to be Transgender but insists that we change who is allowed or who should spend the money. The introduction of a Transgender Real Doll is yet another method through which the call to pay for Trans Realness is marketed. Greed is in the heart of the politics of representation. The demand "me too" is as much as request for services as it is a desperate plea to offer up one's money to the market.

"I bought this doll on sale at a local shop because as a tranny I love everything tranny."

~ "Review of Gia darling transsexual doll 7in removable cock," Jasmine, 12 October 2011

The arrival of a Transgender Real Doll is a step away (or less than a step) from a Transgender Barbie Doll, where the "me too" pay-for-politics is heard loud and clear. "Gia is America's Transsexual Barbie," writes a review, "Go ahead, boys can play with dolls too! ("Review of Gia darling transsexual doll 7in removable cock," Justin, 29 November 2009). While the call for inclusion appears innocent, it remains indebted to references and systems of capital. Barbie's power is that she is at once a market force and a social force. These figures have the power to mobilize mass exchanges of money, including the Purple Dollar, a term I am using in reference to growing associations of Transgender with purple after Pink came to stand for Gay men.

Barbie authorizes a kind of Realness that is mimicked by the sex doll. This is an ironic plea, however, as Barbie has publicly rejected and marginalized Transgender political movements. When the Barbie website released a poll with a third gender option, "Boy, girl, and I don't know," certain anti-Transgender, anti-Gay and Lesbian groups threw a fit. "To pose 'this transgender question at little girls, they've really crossed the line,' [Bob] Knight said, who added that 'bisexuality gender confusion' is the Web site's agenda, which is 'very dangerous.'" ("Barbie Accused of Being a Part of the Transgender Movement," Jake Tapper, 3 January 2006, ABCNews.com). In response, Barbie replied that "This was just an innocent oversight" and "I don't know" was changed to "I don't want to say." This moment of inclusion was rejected, in part, because neoliberal capitalism only wants fair weathered inclusion. Everyone is free to join in and give us their money, until the crowd becomes too diverse and scares off the target market (white heterosexual women). The call for "Trans too" or "boys too" can only be made in the already pseudo-marginalized setting of the sex toy store or the privacy of online shopping where people can't see or won't say who is being included.

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

the Best of Both Worlds

Sometimes Realness succeeds where Transgender fails. In social landscapes where "Don't Say Gay" is enforced (including the very politically turbulent arena of the bedroom), Transgender Realness is often appropriated by heterosexuals without acknowledging the history of the object. In this case, both the fantasy and the realness are denied in order to allow for silent enjoyment of both of them. While producing an extremely delicate situation where words, desires, and enjoyments must be tightly policed to keep men and women within the precarious grounds of heteronormativity, Transgender becomes a silent instrument undergirding systems of homophobia and sexism. Incapable of imagining Trans Reality in and of itself, this relation to Transgender Realness is typified by the statement that Trans bodies or sex toys are "the best of both worlds."

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, shemale sex toys and tranny sex dolls are all the rage – and with good reason. You get the best of both male and female sex dolls with a bit of fantasy thrown in.

~ "SexZie06 Tranny Shemale Sex Doll," Flesh Toys for Boys.

Where "male and female" genders and "female for male" sexualities work in relation to LGBT networks through the politics of denial, Trans sex dolls are seen not as concrete wholes but as a mixture of parts. If a penis is for a woman's enjoyment and a vagina or boobs is for a man's pleasure, then the combination of these organs must either suggest a multi-purpose tool for hetero couples or else a personal toy with excessive extras. Such instrumentalist reviews of Transgender sex toys tend to ring with a tone of wonderful amusement or else uncomfortable homophobia.

This is a fascinating toy to help nervous couples interested in possibly introducing another person. Just imagine how the woman can have her regular male partner and another penis to be able to play with. Now add some female parts for him to play with too! Finally, to test the less regular waters, allow him to imagine the fun of anal.

~ "Review of Mia Isabella's Transsexual Realistic Sex Doll with Cock and Balls," BullsPrincess, 1 March 2013

Denying both the Transgender and Realness of the sex toy, the object becomes "fascinating." Ignorance or naivety mildly inoculate users from self-inscribed homophobia. This method presumes that only a gay man or lesbian would immediately recognize the possible uses of a Trans doll, anxiously covering over that the user evidently recognized a desire and pleasure for the mixture of penis, ass and breasts when it was purchased. The winking suggestion of a third person allows for the heterosexual pair bond to be underlined to help build the case against accusations of gay, lesbian, or trans desire. Other possibilities may be suggested but must be regarded as comical (i.e. unnatural) if the realness (i.e. naturalness) of the heterosexuals are to be maintained without speaking the forbidden terms.

"As a straight girl, the breasts and the anal entrance (could be a good chance for ladies to test out a harness, though, or practice for a partner) are wasted on me, but the flexibility and size are super. To be honest, I bought this instead of the Dude model because this one was on sale for half the price and the cock measurements were a bit bigger. Having said that, I will buy the Dude in the future as I'd rather have washboard abs under me than breasts. Still, ladies can get use out of this by 'sitting' Mia in a chair and riding backwards. That way you get the feel of the breasts behind you which act more as a stabilizer than anything."

~ "Review of Mia Isabella's Extreme Fuck Me Silly," Bex, 7 July 2012, Amazon.com

If these other possibilities are to be acknowledged than then they are stated in the most emphatic terms as if repeating one's heterosexuality gives one a free pass to enjoy queer pleasures without being affected by them. In this case, one must maintain ignorance or else indifference to these alternatives throughout the act of enjoyment so that rejection of queerness becomes a part of the pleasure of touching the queer/trans body.

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

Freaks and Fetishists

So tenuous is this dance, a slight whisper can break it open to let in all the unspoken homoerotic and trans-erotic desires. Take for instance what happens if the Trans sex doll is used outside the context of heterosexual sex, suddenly the fiction that each partner sustained for each other vanishes and the lone partner opens themselves to being disciplined and rejected by the other partner.

My girl friend and I had bought this wonderful love machine it got both of us off all night long, The only problem is my closeness with LULU my love doll has caused issues with my girlfriend since she came home early one day and found us together in the tub. Was not a pretty seen and she has left me and will not talk to me any more :-( Note to all...........dont get to attached to this doll it will only break your heart.

~Review Sexflesh Ride Me Transsexual Love Doll, Heather More, 24 February 2012, Amazon.com.

"That's what happens when you buy a female doll with a cock."

~ Comment on "Review Sexflesh Ride Me Transsexual Love Doll by Heather More," Justin Wolf, 28 February 2014, Amazon.com.

Based on a system of exclusion and denial, the impulse to deny a partner when they enact a perceived transgression into the love that dares not speak its name, then the rejection by the other partner adds self-defense to the already overstressed compulsion to police. In the case of Heather More, seeing her boyfriend alone with the Trans doll transforms an object and a sex act they had already enjoyed together. The toy turns from a "wonderful love machine" into a too Real queer body. The enjoyment turns from a social performance that "got both of us off" into a display of private pleasure. It turns from a silent fiction into the announcement of hidden desires. As such, the girlfriend evidently denies the boyfriend and the object together, not simply because she compulsively rejects things associated with homosexuality, but so the finger does not get turned around on her. She had enjoyed it too. She had enacted an illicit pleasure and desire. Now that the shared secret had opened up the question of their personal attraction to the object, she tosses away toy and boy together as shameful evidence of her own transgression. The best of both worlds turns out to implicate both worlds in crossing the divides they have sworn to silently maintain.

The game of this dance then is not to exclusion of Transgender or queer Realness but the denial of it. For those whom maintain their heterosexuality but admit their illicit desire and enjoyment, the act of self-othering and self-rejection can become a form of self-pleasure. In this way, homophobia is inscribed in a queer heterosexuality for those who consider themselves freaks of fetishists.

Okay, I'm a "freak" who likes hermaphrodite/Futa porn and the idea of a hermaphrodite masturbator is a joy... The Cock is weirdly positioned, it's not quite anatomically placed, my best guess is so it is easier to handle as a dildo. Aside from that the feel of the cock rubbing against my belly as I pounded the pussy was novel, if only I got more pleasure from the canal. Unless you're really into this sort of thing, I would not recommend it.

~ Review of Sexflesh Hermaphrodite Combo Stroker , D. Gutridge, 9 May 2012, Amazon.com

In this case, the loaded terminology of "hermaphrodite" used by the manufacturer and the consumer suggests a history of abuse which is here turned back on heterosexuality as an open form of self-abuse. The Transgender, intersex, and queer remain "novel" others to the self, but they are admitted as instrumentally serving heterosexual desires. Those who are "really into this sort of thing" are imagined but are not identified with the same reality of the self. The fantasy and transgression are admitted but maintained as a freakish mirror image of the Transgender Real that is imagined and enjoyed for its own sake.

______________________________

______________________________

Explore more silicone

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

Sinthetics

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

Real Doll

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

iSex Dolls

______________________________

______________________________

Dollification: Transforming Lives with Sex & Silicone

"I am planning to become 100% silicone girl
...completely dollified."*

SiliconePleasure
(Dollification.com)

*Note: if you are a church member or search committee,
please, actually ready the scholarship and don't jump to conclusions based on visuals.
The thesis of the argument is about thinking critically and not judging on first glance.

______________________________

______________________________

In 2012, I began the "Feminine Products &  Queer Objects" Project

examining a series of trans-human matters including

Estrogen, Saline, Mercury, Sugar, Heat, Music, & Bra-Straps.

Among them, Silicone received the most hits,

standing today as the 2nd most read post on this blog.

______________________________

______________________________

Objectification

Dollification is an international practice of transforming a human body into a "Living Doll." Practitioners use make-up, special eye-lenses, clothes, surgery and prosthetics to modify body parts to appear more artificial. Some base their aesthetics on specific icons like Barbie or Lolita, while others model their new look on mannequins or sex dolls.

Most "dollers" are only part-time. For many, becoming a living doll is part of sex play. The prosthetics function as temporary modifications of the body. While the process of procuring and putting on silicone, rubber or latex body-suits may require a substantial investment of time and money, these are able to be removed.

The transition from human to doll is envisioned as a loss of subjectivity and self-control. While BDSM and Sub/Dom play frequently employ "objectification" as a mode of suspending the power of parters, dollers attempt to take this to a particular extreme by becoming literal non-human objects.

For those who decide to become a full-time doll, the distinction between human & non-human objects break down. The consistent use of make-up or clothing associated with dolls draws on how women, children & other human categories share (or can be forced to share) properties with objects that are regarded as inanimate, thoughtless & worthless.

People can be -- and enjoy being -- affirmed as objects, even while consent agreements, civil rights and an insistent humanism protects their subjectivity. The social responsibility to act, think and be a human subject in the world can build up a lot of tension from which tactical dollification & objectification can provide release.

Ariadne, from Dollification.com, testifies to joys of objectification, as part of power-play with sexual partners:

"The mental removal of who and what I am, no choices, no emotions, no thoughts, no conscious reactions to stimuli, nothing more than a still and silent toy for my owner to use, abuse, display and adore. Probably an extreme extension of our O/p relationship, it gives me absolute freedom from human feelings and responsibilities whilst at the same time pleasing my owner, giving him even greater control than normal and ability to increase his sadistic capacity."

It is critical that this form of objectification comes as a "removal." It presumes that the process is contingent on the powers of choice and enjoyment being established, even as they are set aside or suppressed. We can imagine that as an "extreme extension" of an Owner-Property (O/p) relation that power exchanges are contingent on the context of a  "safe, sane, and consensual" environment.

From here more people can begin to appreciate the enjoyment of coming to occupy the position of a sex-doll or mannequin. The release from normal social rules that comes with playing with a toy or facsimile rather than a fully enfrancished "human," allow for a whole range of forbidden pleasures. 

This liberation may be checked by the impossibility of ever fully escaping the human-subject position, but as the uncanny resemblance between human and living doll demonstrate, neither do we ever fully escape our object position. The joy then is not in obeying or destroying these distinctions but by playing at their shifting intersection.

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

Trans-Formation

The process of becoming-object, particularly in cases where surgery & implants are employed, demonstrates the temporal essence of human beings. We are not "born this way" but transform this way. From Judith Butler (Gender Trouble) to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (A Thousand Plateaus), scholars of the body argue that as subjects or objects, we are always "becoming" rather than merely "being." 

Discomfort with transformation (an insistence on "being" over "becoming") explains stigmas around "plastic" surgery and "artificial" or "fake" breasts. Society insists on "real" beauty, or the random lottery of properties a body was born possessing. Some liberty is given to "malformed" or "broken" bodies to help bring them into the norm, but there remains little candid public affirmation of changing bodies that already occupy a fixed place in the order of things.

At this point, if not already, we can see why "dollification" is critically engaged with Trans-politics. Access to the tools of transformation & radically new visions of what it means to be or become a thing are at stake for Dollies & Trannies alike. This is especially evident when dollification includes gender-transition.

Inaugerated Guy, from Dollification.com, narrates how becoming-object for him was linked with becoming-woman.

"I've always had a bit of a thing for cross-dressing, and finally told [my girlfriend] about it recently, this promptly encouraged her to tell me she has allways wanted to transform a boy into a sexy little dolly girl."

The trans relevance to this instance of gender transition is not as the affirmation of an eternal identity category (i.e. transgender) but the insistence of a perpetual change. He has "always had a bit of a thing for cross-dressing," meaning that what is persistent here is not the occupation of identity but the crossing. 

He is and has a "thing" here which allows for a new form of relation and identification to open up between him and his girlfriend. She "always wanted to transform a boy into a sexy little dolly girl." Like her partner, her desire is not for a fixed body but for a trans-forming body.

Several stores, like 2nd Skin, are available online for Dollification, many of which also market their wares explicitly to a variety of Trans bodies. A customer can buy just a pair of silicone breasts or else a full-body suit complete with a prosthetic vagina, ass, and face. Whether the desire is to "pass" as a born-this-way woman or else flaunt the process of objectification that comes with becoming a woman, many of the materials are the same.

______________________________

______________________________

Valeria Lukyanova featured on Likes.com

______________________________

______________________________

Materialization

As discussed in previous posts, silicone exists at the fraught intersection between living and non-living matter. Resembling our carbon-based flesh in many key properties, silicone allows for us to transform bodies by materializing a wider range possible forms. We can transform things with silicone in places that flesh limits us.

Silicone helps our eyes see new things (as contact lenses), feel new things (as personal lubrication), express new things (as make-up), possess new things (as breast implants), & fuck new things (as sex toys & sex dolls). We transform silicone into a variety of gendered & sexualized things, and in turn, these products change our bodies.

Stepping into a full-body silicone suit, a person becomes a living doll. The body becomes identified with the Real Doll sex dolls that they resemble. Laying totally still, a Living Doll and a Real Doll can be difficult to differentiate. Both are silicone covered bodies. Both may be passive to the actions and penetrations of others. 

Both fulfill the desire of owners to possess a silicone body that they are free to use & abuse. The Living Doll becomes so like an object so as to be treated like one and the Real Doll is so like an subject so as to be desired like one.

SiliconePleasure, at Dollification.com, describes how his desires materialize as a longing to have and be silicone:

"I am planning to become 100% silicone girl with a beautiful silicone face, tight small silicone hands with cute fingers, sweet silicone vagina, very tight silicone ass, and insert in myself some deep silicone rectum...completely dollified"

In this Doller's testimony, the beauty of a silicone face is inextricable from the material from which it is formed nor from the power of transformation it provides. The addition of a silicone vagina is "sweet" and the insertion of a silicone rectum goes "deep" into the body. Joy and identification flow together, materializing a new thing between subject and object, sex and silicone.

Dollification cannot be reduced to a desire to becoming object or to become woman. For many there is a joy in becoming a doll, becoming silicone. What on many Real Dolls or other Sex Dolls are features dictated by necessity of the material (open round lips, vacant round eyes, stiff joints, squeaky skin) becomes a critical to living as a Living Doll. Specific prosthetics and work goes into holding the human body in these positions. Silicone life is desired & valued.

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

Production

Existing at this intersection of objectification, transformation, desire and silicone emerge a host of contingent lives. Meeting in bedrooms, kink parties, conventions and online Dollers are changing what it means to be human and to have a life. They produce these transformations by coming together as a community of human and non-human things. New possibilities are produced every day out of this dizzying collision of contacts, property exchanges, & shared existence.

Dollification has deepened their internal subjectivity as much as it extended their material relations. K-8 (likely a play on "Kate") blogs on her imaginative journey as she explores her "quirks, kinks and fetishes" as The Thoughts of a Conscious Object. As part of her meditations and networking, K-8 contemplates the role anxiety and depression play in her life in the kink community.

"Currently I'm not on any depression/anxiety meds (the negative side-effects just didn't seem worth it to me) and haven't been for quite some time. And I think I'm doing fairly well without them. What I've come to realize, though, is the effect that the meds have possibly had on the blog at different points.

Sometimes side-effects aren't necessarily negative, and with a few meds I've been on, I've experienced an increased libido. In fact, I think that's partly what led to me starting this blog in the first place...being asexual (or kinksexual), having an increased libido and nowhere to direct it meant increased kinky desires, and an increase in a desire to talk about those desires. In hindsight, it also likely led to some risky behavior on my part, not being as safe as I should have with some of my early experiences exploring bondage IRL."

The psycho-neurological states of anxiety and depression at once propelled her through a series of changes: to experience her body as an anxious object and then to seek meds; to move from being an asexual body to developing her kink life as a conscious object; which in turn brought her to start a blog, meet others & continue a line of thought that led her to then abandon her meds. These changes form the story & material journey of her existence. Each transformation comes at points of contingency: the meeting of thoughts & things, pasts & futures, lives & deaths.

Most recently, K-8 shared a digital eulogy for a member of the kink community that has formed around the production of things like Dollers. Matt from Kink Engineering recently passed away. The bringing together of subjects and objects into master-pieces of kink technology supported Matt's life as an engineer and connected him to a wider community of people, things, and people-things. Matt lived and died at this intersection, as the Kink Engineering Blog explained.

"Matt’s death was a direct result of prolonged neck compression from the neck gasket. The bed he chose to go in had been custom fitted to Archean, who has a much smaller neck. The baro receptors in his internal carotid arteries signaled to his body that his blood pressure was dangerously high, and this sent off a vagal response to slow the heart. Since the signal of high blood pressure could not be relieved, Matt lost consciousness and the vagal response caused his heart to stop completely.

Had there been a person to assist outside the vac bed, they would have been able to get him out at the first sign of trouble or non-responsiveness. All Matt’s safety contingency plans relied on him still being conscious enough to implement them, and thus, they were useless."

The word "contingency" here strikes at the heart. Becoming an object for pleasure required the sustenance of subjectivity; his own and/or others from the community. The result, his death, manifests at a breaking point between his body and these subjectivities. As the engineer of many transformative love objects and as a friend, he continues to act in the world but the specific life that met at the former "contingency" leaves an absence behind.

As a warning of what can happen and as a story of what does happen, Matt's death reminds us that trans-formation (subject & object, Living Doll & Real Doll, past & present, flesh & silicone) does not collapse all things into a chaos where forms have no meaning. Change comes at the crossing or spanning of boundaries, it lives at the point of contingency. Transformation exists only through community.

______________________________

______________________________

Explore more silicone

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

MaskOn.Com

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

2nd Skin Online

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

The Marquis

______________________________

______________________________