Just like a woman


Davecat keeps a picture of his girlfriend in his wallet. She's pretty, with long black hair, an alluring mole under her left eye, and glossy red lipstick. Her sheer tank top shows off her full breasts and the hoop through her left nipple.

Ask Davecat about Sidore -- pronounced She-doh-ray -- and he'll tell you she's everything that turns him on: beautiful, loyal, a great listener. Si-chan, as he affectionately calls her, is half British, half Japanese, which is nice because he's always had a thing for both British and Japanese culture. Even their clothing style and taste in music is simpatico -- they're both Goths.

Like many born in the sun sign Cancer, Sidore is a homebody, but then, she couldn't leave the comfort of the bed she shares with Davecat even if she wanted to because Sidore is a 100-pound solid silicone Real Doll.

Go ahead. Flinch at the notion of a man having sex with an imitation woman and classify him: lonely loser. Pathological creep. Misogynist. Potential rapist. Sicko. True enough, some men who have sex with Real Dolls are creepy, the kind of guys you wouldn't want to be alone with. But not all. Many are simply lonely -- some tragically so. Others are disfigured or infirm. Some are oddly sweet, like Davecat, for whom a Real Doll is a "teddy bear with benefits." And others proclaim their normalcy and defend their Real Dolls as no different than a 3-D version of a Playboy centerfold.

Many doll lovers -- or "iDollators," as some of them call themselves -- participate in a confusing online subculture where the lines between art and pornography, the ludicrous and the tender, and fantasy and fetishism blur like watercolors. Spend time talking to Real Doll aficionados as I have over the past year, and you come to understand that behind every Real Doll is a man with a reason.

Collectible Barbie Dolls


Barbie is a best-selling fashion doll launched in 1959. The doll is produced by Mattel, Inc., and is a major source of revenue for the company. The American businesswoman Ruth Handler (1916-2002) is regarded as the creator of Barbie, and the doll's design was inspired by a German doll called Bild Lilli.

Barbie has been an important part of the toy fashion doll market for nearly fifty years, and has been the subject of numerous controversies and lawsuits, often involving parody of the doll and her lifestyle.

Collecting: Mattel estimates that there are well over 100,000 avid Barbie collectors. Ninety percent are women, at an average age of 40, purchasing more than twenty Barbie dolls each year. Forty-five percent of them spend upwards of $1000 a year.

Vintage Barbie dolls from the early years are the most valuable at auction, and while the original Barbie was sold for $3.00 in 1959, a mint boxed Barbie from 1959 sold for $3552.50 on eBay in October 2004. On September 26, 2006, a Barbie doll set a world record at auction of £9,000 sterling (US $17,000) at Christie's in London. The doll was a Barbie in Midnight Red from 1965 and was part of a private collection of 4,000 Barbie dolls being sold by two Dutch women, Ietje Raebel and her daughter Marina In recent years Mattel has sold a wide range of Barbie dolls aimed specifically at collectors, including porcelain versions and depictions of Barbie as a range of characters from television series such as The Munsters and Star Trek There are also collector's edition dolls depicting Barbie dolls with a range of different ethnic identities. In 2004 Mattel introduced the Color Tier system for its collector's edition Barbie dolls, ranging through pink, silver, gold and platinum depending on how many of the dolls are produced.

by Tru-life