Uncanny Valley of the Dolls

The Pygmalion story in essence, is as follows:

According to Ovid, when Pygmalion saw the Propoetides of Cyprus practicing prostitution, he began "detesting the faults beyond measure which nature has given to women". He determined to remain celibate and to occupy himself with sculpting. He made a sculpture of a woman that he found so perfect he fell in love with it. Pygmalion kisses and fondles the sculpture, brings it various gifts, and creates a sumptuous bed for it.

In time, Aphrodite's festival day came and Pygmalion made offerings at the altar of Aphrodite. There, too afraid to admit his desire, he quietly wished for a bride who would be "the living likeness of my ivory girl". When he returned home, he kissed his ivory statue, and found that its lips felt warm. He kissed it again, and found that the ivory had lost its hardness. Aphrodite had granted Pygmalion's wish.

Back when I started my last post about artificial life, I'd only recently come across the story of Christian Montenegro, a Colombian man who is married to a doll, and has had three children with her.  He posts the family pics on TikTok.   To be honest, I found it creepy.

Christian and Natalia welcome Sammy into the World

Montenegro and Family

After my post I looked for him on the internets, never having known his name.  He was far from the only man married to a doll.  This page talks about five such men.  And none of them are Montenegro.

https://twitter.com/Davecat/status/831486855577272321/photo/1

One of them, however, is Davecat, self-described "Robosexual and iDollator," whose picture intrigued me.  I Googled him and came across this interview in the Atlantic.  It's thoughtful and worth a read.  One thing he articulates is a common theme: These men have had failed relationships and find it easier to deal with these idealized women; inert and passive.   One way of looking at it.  But Davecat, well, he is one articulate fellow, and a second interview I read with him goes a bit more into his attitudes and ideas about what he calls "Synthetik" women. 

They are all modern Pygmalions.  Repelled or used by women, or otherwise frustrated with more conventional relationships in one way or another, they create an ideal woman, or a facsimile thereof. Like Pygmalion, each one "kisses and fondles the sculpture, brings it various gifts, and creates a sumptuous bed for it."   Not having a sympathetic goddess at hand, however, whatever life their dolls have remains a thing of the imagination.

Attraction to a doll, sexual or otherwise, is called Agalmatophilia a kind of objectophilia....

Davecat appears in a documentary about the subject:

I'm a pretty open-minded guy, but I admit, I find all this pretty weird.  And rather sad that these men can't develop relationships with real women.  Since my divorce, I've been single, and I can empathize. Loneliness sucks.  It can kill.  But I don't think I would find any comfort in a doll.

And it just goes on and on.  Wikipedia speaks of doll fetishism, robot fetishism, gynoids, sex dolls, human furniture....

I remarked, perhaps too flippantly, in my last post that the love of a doll may br akin to necrophilia. One article I read says that it's a product of toxic masculinity. 

One thing Davecat notes is that iDollators tend to be men with female dolls.  Those male dolls he knows about are to a number owned by gay men.

So maybe it is a product of toxic masculinity.  Davecat didn't strike me as a toxic guy.  Sadly he didn't get back to me.  I probably shouldn't have put a reference to necrophilia in my first email.  Maybe he feels he's said all he can, or needs to, already.  

In the meantime, it will be worth checking out Carol Ann Duffy's Pygmalion's Bride, a book which looks at Ovid's story from Galatea's point of view.

Pygmalion is the archetype of all men, who desire to be dominant in the relationship and shape how women should be. 

I'd remove that first comma!

Anyway, until more thoughts come together on this subject, I'll leave you to take a stroll through the uncanny valley of the dolls....

Davecat, if you do read this, get in touch.  I really do want to understand and not to mock or defame. And any women out there who read this, please comment.  This post could use needs a woman's point of view.