I've wanted a reall doll all my life, but noone ever really made one until now. I'm 61, and at long last I can have the special woman of my dreams, and never have to hear her bitch at me. I can have sex with her anytime I want it, I can hardly wait, my savings grows a little more each day. My beautiful real doll will never tell me no for any reason. I can't wait to get her, I already have a name picked out for her. Finally after 61 long years. I'll tell you the name when I get her. I don't consider myself to be a creep or sick either, I just want to be happy and left alone. Real women are too much trouble and they all bitch, and want to run a man's life. My real doll won't do either, and I can be sweet to her as much as I want to. Kissing, hugging, culddling,

and all the rest that I miss so much. Thank you for creating a reall doll.

a very well written essay

Reading the reasons men have opted for the Real Doll brought out feelings of compassion in me.

It is apparent many of these men have had a string of bad experiences with women, and it makes me sad for them that they were not able to find a loving, generous, companion in their search. Finding someone worthwhile can be a daunting task for a man or a woman.

Others, I feel are better off with a doll, because yes, if you get involved with a real human being, you will have to grapple with another person's belief system, expectations and behavior. Men who are prone to simply objectify woman do us all a favor by choosing to purchase a doll on which to exercise a dominance that cannot be acheived with another thinking, autonomous human.

I also see this as an unwillingness to grow.

Being with another person forces you to consider someone other than yourself, to listen to another viewpoint that you may or may not agree with, and to make compromises and sacrifices out of love to another. This man loses out on what can be the most rewarding aspect of a great love, which is selflessness.

The unfortunate thing with the dolls, even though we can now make them quite lifelike, is how much can they really give back to these men? Aside from relief and a feeling of companionship, they can not relate to these men emotionally and intellectually or challenge him in any meaningful way, laugh at jokes with him, cook him a great meal, massage his shoulders and kiss his neck when he is worn out, make him a killer cocktail, go on vacations with him or out with friends. She also can't belittle him, use him, or lie to him.

I realize that many of these men have no choice and I'm glad there is an alternative to get them through a dry spell or enable them to experience their darker desires in a safe way.

To the Real Doll men out there who are still looking for a Real Relationship, I wish you all the best of luck and love in the future.

Thanks to Meghan for an excellent, thought provoking essay.

are here:

www.salon.com/mwt/letters/2005/10/13/realdolls/?sid=1400604

This article created a false gendered argument and people took the bait, here and elsewhere. It tried to take a 2002-era topic and create some kind of "Are Women Necessary?" buzz. Please. I must say that pitting this against Dowd's fluff would have provided Jon Stewart and those of witty ilk a good joke...and set feminism back a few years. Real Doll folks are FRINGE, as numbers and behaviors go. This isn't the craze that'll be sweeping the nation & there won't be aristocratic Real Dolls ads in the back of the New Yorker. Thousands? Really? Is McMullen going IPO soon? The misogyny and patriarchy evident in a fringe element like Real Dollers (and any followers in its community) needs to be contextualized within those boundaries. How Real Doller attitudes towards gender and gendered relations create a spillover effect is quite another. The case for Real Doll hegemony has not been made here. Also, why were NO WOMEN were included in the story, except for a crastaperson who works on the dolls. How do women feel about men using dolls and the dolls themselves? I don't think most smart women would be terribly alarmed by silent Real Dolls taking their place. In any case, interesting articles on gender, representation, and technology have been written on teledildonics, which has a much greater chance of being mainstreamed than Real Dolls.

Those pathological Real Doll users and abusers, aren't they an interesting bunch? Straight out of central casting! Hearsay from the Real Doll "doctor" and creator on archetypes like "the nerdy foreigner," "Zed from Pulp Fiction," pederasts, and "Norman Bates" seem rather convenient. Fact check, please. Oh, I'm sure these people are out there but, unlike the "husbands," these guys are caricatures here. Stop lurking and dig deeper. Since there is no depth, this reads like Victorian smut with a pseudo-feminist twist: Let me condemn something through my framing, tell you about these lurid details, and provide illumination for the reader along with mock compassion for the poor misguided sots. I say mock since I feel the author never gets past her smirk and thinly-veiled condescension.

I'd like to think most feminists like myself saw this for what it is: all about the shock value. A little like CSI without the C. The style of quirk and smirk wears thin, given the author's strange penchant for using words like pussy, lone skirt at a Ducati convention, and eternal gangbang, in an obvious manner. Okay. This could be one of a long line of "sexposés" on paraphilias. I can see one on fursuits and representational objectification of animals, etc., etc. I actually have no problem with that. I do take issue with reporting that focuses more on effect than fact!