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.

Objektophilie, Otaku, & Biophilia

Funny how life works. Only a couple days after I posted ad nauseam about Objektophilie, I learn that a Japanese fellow, known as SAL9000, married an avatar.

The Telegrapher tells the tale of how the gamer came to marry his sweetheart.

Googling this story led me to a tale in the New York Times about Nisan, another Japanese fellow, who married a pillow case. The story noted that:

"Nisan is part of a thriving subculture of men and women in Japan who indulge in real relationships with imaginary characters. These 2-D lovers, as they are called, are a subset of otaku culture— the obsessive fandom that has surrounded anime, manga and video games in Japan in the last decade. It’s impossible to say exactly what portion of otaku are 2-D lovers, because the distinction between the two can be blurry."

Let me be clear: I think that Nisan and SAL9000 are engaging in activities that are fundamentally different from objectophilia. But they are blurring some lines, and the "fundamental" bit of the difference between objectophilia and biophilia is, I think, becoming fuzzy.

If Japan is the future, it's clear where we're headed. Once robots look, act, and f^ck like people, will there still be words for objectophilism and otaku?