sex doll Tag Archive

Oskar Kokoschka and The Silent Woman

September 20, 2016

4425

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20th Century • Sex Toys • Sexuality in Art

Some people just can’t get over a breakup. They pine for their former lover, taking out old photographs, memorabilia from their time together, maybe even going to their old favorite places. Or just stalking them and harassing them with repeated plaintive texts. Some people go to great lengths in their refusal to let go of their ex. Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka went that extra mile; he had a doll made of the girlfriend who jilted him.

Oskar Kokoschka was an artist, poet, and playwright. In 1912 he started a relationship with socialite and composer Alma Mahler, the widow of composer Gustav Mahler. They only lasted about two years together as in that time Oskar became more obsessed and enthralled with her while Alma’s feelings for Oskar became a bit more “meh.” Oskar volunteered for the Austrian army at the beginning of WW1 in 1914. While he is away, he gets nearly fatally wounded and returns home in 1915 after his recovery. He is wounded again, but this time with a broken heart. Alma had taken up with a former lover, Walter Gropius, and married him while Oskar was away. He deals with the breakup by finding a way to keep Alma with him. He commissions a doll maker to recreate Alma in life size doll form. One that looks and feels like her in every way.

Oskar contacted doll maker Hermine Moos with a detailed description of how he wanted the doll to look and feel. He sent all of Alma’s measurements along with a life-sized drawing and instructions to not only make the doll to the exact measurements but pay close attention to the dimensions of the head, neck, ribcage, rump and limbs. He wrote, “Please permit my sense of touch to take pleasure in those places where layers of fat and muscle suddenly give way to a sinewy covering of skin.” He wanted to transform her into reality, an experience he can embrace. He even gave examples for the main body stuffing and different stuffing for her breast and buttocks. All this detail was so time consuming, it took Hermine six, excruciatingly long for Oskar, months to finish.

The doll is indeed quite lifelike except for one disconcerting detail; its skin was made of feathers. The doll actually looks furry, though seems to be covered with small downy feathers. My guess is that Hermine took the idea of soft skin a bit too much to heart and found the softest thing she could find. Oskar was impressed with the look of the doll but not the fluffy body. He was upset that it made it extremely difficult to dress her in the fine Parisian clothing and undergarments he had bought. He said it was like she was covered in polar bear fur which made it difficult to even get a stocking on much less the clothing and delicate robes he wanted to dress her in. Despite the unnatural plushie quality of her skin, he did seem happy to see the likeness of his love and tried to make the best of it. Unfortunately, it never lived up to his expectations

Oskar spent most of his time sketching and painting the doll, something he had done often with Alma. There were rumors that he took the doll on carriage rides and to the opera, there may have even been sexual relations with it. There was no evidence that he actually did these things and may have been purposely spread by Hulda, whom he was involved with at this time, at his request. He had first thought of this doll as Eurydice returned to Orpheus from the dead. Instead of fueling his addiction, it cured him of it. After all the posing, sketching and painting, he had lost that loving feeling.

Once he had moved on from his obsession he decided to throw a party for The Silent Woman, the name he and Hulda called his ersatz Eurydice. The party got pretty wild. The next morning the police arrived and woke the sleeping post party participants along with Oskar with a report of a murder. When they went out into the garden the doll was found covered in what looked like blood. She was also missing its head. The blood turned out to be red wine. In his drunken state, he beheaded the doll and broke a bottle of red wine over its head. Apparently, he had been cured of his passion and was ready to move on.

Photos still exist of Kokoschka’s Silent Woman, as do the paintings and his original sketches and instructions to Moos. Perhaps Oskar would not have been so disappointed had he been around in modern times. He could have commissioned a RealDoll version of his beloved Alma. I’m sure there would be no risk of dressing his RealDoll feeling like wrestling with a polar bear. Those expensive Parisian fashions would have looked lovely on high-quality silicone.

Photo: Henriette Moos, Oskar Kokoschkas Alma-Puppe als Venus, 1919 © Privatsammlung, Courtesy Richard Nagy Ltd., London

 

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Mughal Painting: Dildos, Sex Doll and Anal Sex

August 23, 2016

54356

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19th Century • Anal Sex • Sex Toys • Sexuality in Art

In my travels around the internet to find interesting (well at least to me) pieces of sexual history, I’ve come across some things that I don’t seem to be able to fit in anywhere else. They just need to stand alone and be admired, discussed or pondered over. One such thing is one particular photo I found while researching sex dolls. The painting shows a copulating couple using some sort of improvised sex toy or machine. The first thing I notice is the two dildos are attached to a board, and one of them is being used for anal sex. Upon closer inspection, I see that the woman is headless. I find the same thing every time I search for more info about this painting, an article using it as evidence of sex doll use in early Persian culture. But is it really a sex doll? Is it really from early Persian culture? This painting was a mystery I just had to solve.

I’ve done some investigating but so far haven’t found out anything that relates to this particular artwork. Not even Wellcome Library in London which houses the actual manuscript page in its collections has any more information other than a possible date. Wellcome has it dated as 19th century, which means it’s not a painting from the heydays of Mughal paintings. It would have to be from the 15th-17th centuries. The piece looks to be part of a manuscript, and there are several other pages done in a style that appear to be part of a series. The other pages have similar looking backgrounds and the same man playing a reoccurring role in them. The manuscript pages seem more like a catalog of sins than a sex manual like the Kama Sutra. The other paintings show the same man copulating with a deer, having anal sex with what looks like a demon or the devil, a crocodile performing cunnilingus on a female demon, women masturbating with vegetables, and more. It’s possible that the subject matter is influenced by the time period. The 19th century found India becoming much more conservative about sex.

There have been several centuries of evolution in Mughal painting before we get to the time of this painting. The Mughal’s Muslim Persianate empire started in the 16th century. The Empire peaked in the mid 17th century, which was a golden age for architecture that included the Taj Mahal. By the mid 18th century, the Mughal’s influence started to decline and was given over entirely to the British Empire by the mid 19th century. During that time, the empire was known not only for its art and architecture but also for science and technology. Mughal paintings were often about the lives of royalty, including their sex lives. The sex portrayed in these paintings is quite explicit, even if the body positioning is painfully unrealistic. Erotic Hindu art greatly influenced Mughal art. Sex was shown as natural and commonplace, even if those practicing it are Mughal kings with their large harems or gods and goddesses. The tone of this painting and the others that seem to be from the same manuscript is entirely different than the ones from the three centuries before it. The sex depicted here is distinctly taboo. It has 19th-century Victorian moral hangups written all over it.

Knowing that this painting is from the 19th century also means that it’s not proof of the early use of sex dolls. I also find that the “headless model,” as Wellcome refers to the figure the man is copulating with, doesn’t look much like a doll. It has pubic hair, and henna on the hands and feet. Perhaps it’s more of a depiction of a headless woman, a way of further dehumanizing the already extremely dehumanized women of the Mughal dynasty. Another possibility is that the figure is a headless goddess, something not uncommon among Hindu deities. The most notable is the tantric goddess, Chinnamasta. She is often shown holding her head while blood gushes in three streams from her neck. This makes it unlikely that the figure in this painting is her specifically. It could be just a random headless goddess. And as if having sex with a headless goddess/doll wasn’t edgy enough, there is the double dildo contraption behind him.

The two realistic dildos, including hair covered scrotum, appear to be attached to a swinging board. I’d bet you dollars to donuts that he can push back on the bottom of that board and have the top part push forward to penetrate himself anally. He may not have all the cast members for an official threesome present, but he’s MacGyvered a sex doll and dildo board for a DIY threeway. We’re talking major maker innovation here.

I still can’t quite figure out where that second dildo is going. Perhaps he borrowed this from someone who uses it for double penetration. Or maybe there’s another painting where headless goddess sex doll is going airtight.

Perhaps I have thought way too long about this painting.

I can’t tell what was the purpose behind these manuscript pages. Were they part of someone’s kinky manuscript of sexy perversions that were meant to titillate or Victorian Christian propaganda trying to make this Mughal king look like the host of a satanically influenced sex party that includes demons, root vegetable dildos, crocodiles, and vagina birds? Yes, vagina birds.

Most of these paintings have some writing at the top, as this one does. I couldn’t find any translations and an email to Wellcome about the text has yet to yield an answer. The writing is in Urdu, which I would love to get translated at some point. I didn’t want to wait until I got a translation to write about this painting. Lakeside anal dildo sex seemed the perfect thing to share with you before Anal August is over. I’m going to continue looking into the mystery of 19th-century pseudo-erotic Mughal paintings. Look forward to sharing what I’ve learned with you.

Here is the full image:

Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org

Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
http://wellcomeimages.org

 

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History of the Sex Doll: The Era of Plastic

July 19, 2016

9993

Written by:

19th Century • 20th Century

By Dollfriend (here) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

By Dollfriend (here) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I remember seeing ads in my younger days for sex dolls. The photos always showed a very realistic looking woman that seemed to hint that this doll would be incredibly life like. You too can have your very own sexy maid or luscious girlfriend. Even back then I knew this couldn’t be possible since most of the blow up dolls I had seen were less than life like pieces of plastic. Even today, blow-up dolls based on famous porn stars have a misleading real photo on the box. When you see what they look like inflated, thanks to a handy site that inflated them and posted pics, there is much room for interpretation. The disclaimer by the manufacturers often states that the doll is based on the model show in the photos. (There isn’t even fine print to tell you that most of the time) We’ve progressed too much more life like dolls since those early days but the simple inflatable doll that barely looks human is still sold and enjoyed by their purchasers. Science helped us go from cloth and leather to rubber then vinyl starting in the mid 19th century

Vinyl and plastic have not been around for very long if you consider how long humans have populated the earth. Rubber has been around for a while but before the advent of vulcanization, it quickly became brittle and would gum up if heated. Around the 1840s, the process of vulcanization was developed paving the way for a more versatile and long lasting material. There is very little information to be found about early sex dolls made out of rubber. Iwan Bloch wrote about sex dolls in 1908, stating they were made out of rubber and other plastic materials, in both female and male form, and that some were made more true to life with the ability to simulate vaginal lubrication and even ejaculation.

Sarah Valverde’s thesis makes mention of an ad in a 1902 Paris circular that was translated by Henry Carey about a custom made doll. It suggests that they were capable of making something quite close to nature. I couldn’t find the source material for this but this is what is quoted in the thesis: “All moves, arms, legs, buttocks, head, eyes; a perfect likeness of the person whose photograph is sent…the complete apparatus, guaranteed against breakage, man or woman, 3000 francs”

I’d love to see how close this perfect likeness was. I’m thinking it may not be as life like as we see with modern love dolls.

Polyvinyl chloride was discovered in the 1870’s. Vinyl or PVC in its plasticized form is lightweight and flexible. It’s also cheaper than rubber, latex or silicone and allows the doll to be inflated. The blow-up doll was born. It’s hard to know how early vinyl blow-up dolls were created since the Comstock Law made it illegal to advertise or send via mail anything of a sexual nature. In 1968, the law had lost its last foothold and we start to see the first ads. Blow-up dolls can be made of welded vinyl or latex, which was invented in 1920. These dolls barely look human with simply shaped arms and legs that often don’t have fingers or toes. The head is often just a bulbous shape with a wide-open mouth lined for your pleasure, although not all of them have an open mouth. The doll will also have one or two other orifices for vaginal and/or anal penetration. The breasts will often have nipples painted on but very little else adorns the body. A head of hair can be painted on or can be just a crude wig. They usually don’t last long as they pop after repeated use. Ads in the 70’s and 80’s show dolls that can be ordered with different color hair and sometimes even different hairstyles to suit the customer’s tastes.

The porn star dolls have been around for a long time and often take a very active imagination to see any similarities. I couldn’t find any information on the very first porn star dolls although the Linda Lovelace doll that came out in the 70’s comes up. In fact, I can’t even find any information about who made the very first blow-up doll. Unfortunately, when you do a search for first blow-up doll or who invented the blow up doll you get a thousand hits for Hitler. Rumor has it that Hitler came up with the idea for an inflatable sex doll to keep soldiers from mixing with non-Aryan women. The Borghild project was also supposed to save Nazi soldiers from rampant cases of syphilis when visiting Parisian bordellos. A few photos that were purported to be evidence of these dolls turned out to be a hoax. Some say the soldiers were too embarrassed to be found with these dolls if captured by the enemy. The best part of this myth is that the prototype of this doll would be the inspiration for the Barbie Doll but Barbie was derived from the Bild Lilli doll fashioned to look like a popular comic strip character named Lilli.

A game changer for the sex doll would be artist Matt McMullen’s desire to make a mannequin that had more realistic curves. While he was developing these prototypes made of hard latex with an interior skeleton, many people asked if they would be anatomically correct. A light bulb went off in Matt’s head as he realized the idea of just making a more lifelike mannequin was not where he should be heading. People would actually pay for his fully anatomical dolls, thus the Read Doll was created. Latex turned to silicone and Matt’s decision to switch from using tin cured silicone to platinum cured was taken up by the entire industry. The first female RealDoll was introduced in 1996, the first male doll in 2008.

In the 20 years since the first RealDoll was created a whole culture of iDollators has become a worldwide phenomenon. All this is a far cry from the false advertisement of those first vinyl dolls. Blow-up dolls continue to be made and sold, most likely because RealDolls and other high quality realistic love dolls are very expensive and very heavy. Sex doll technology is always improving as companies strive for a more realistic and more interactive experience.

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History of the Sex Doll: Before Plastic

July 12, 2016

6907

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15th Century • 16th Century • 17th Century • 18th Century • Sex Toys

By Dvortygirl (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Dvortygirl (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons

Sex dolls have come a long way in the new millennium. They’ve gone from a homemade companion to odd inflatables to the Real Girl. The need for artificial female companionship (the penetrative kind) has been around for centuries. For some the accompaniment of their own had is simply insufficient. Before modern silicone technology made the real doll possible, most sex dolls were made of vinyl or plastic. But what did we do before the advent of vulcanized rubber in the 1840’s and polyvinyl chloride in the 1920’s? We did the best we could with what we had, apparently.

It’s hard to find much documentation about dolls used for sexual acts before the 20th century. Most likely because those early dolls did not survive the test of time due to the materials they were made out of. Also, people just didn’t document that sort of thing. Stories have been told but not much solid written or printed evidence. We have to go on hearsay and there’s very little of that too.

Cloth was a material used to create dolls for centuries, sex dolls included. There are stories of dolls made of cloth or leather and stuffed with straw or bits of cloth as early at the 15th century. Most notably is the Dames de Voyages (or Damas de Viajes) said to be used by French and Spanish sailors of the 17th century. They may not have been the only sailors to use them. Lonely sailors were looking for “companionship” during long voyages on the high seas of this era. Women were not allowed on board ships as they were thought to be unlucky. Instead, figures were fashioned out of fabric and stuffed to give fullness. At the same time, the Dutch were traveling to Japan. The Japanese gave the name “Dutch Wives” to the dolls supposedly made of leather the Dutch sailors had with them for their long journeys to the east. The term is used even today as slang for sex doll.

The Japanese may have been inspired by the Dutch Wives to make their own sex doll. The Azumagata Ningyo (substitute wife/woman doll in Japanese) was written about in the 18th century but images or written records no longer exist. It may have been sold as early as the mid 17th century. It’s said that this doll made of tortoise shell; cloth and leather could be purchased in Ryogoku, a popular shopping district. I also found mentions of a sex doll referred to as a do-ningyo. This doll was in the shape of a young girl with a velvet vulva. Tahi-joro (traveling whores) was another term for these dolls. I’m somewhat unsure if the azumagata ningyo is shaped like a person or is just a pillow shape with an entry area that is lined with tortoise shell and velvet, silk or leather. Ningyo means doll in Japanese so I’m leaning towards a female shaped doll of some sort.

A fascinating thing that came up often in my research was that these dolls seemed to be reserved for those of higher rank in nearly every culture that used them. They were reserved only for those of a high rank, those higher up the chain of command or higher up the social ladder. These dolls sound extremely rudimentary so it’s hard for me to imagine a low ranking sailor or lower class citizen couldn’t enjoy the comforts of a rag doll with strategic openings. One wonders at the hygienics involved in something that may not ever get washed, or washed well, especially after a lengthy time of being repeatedly used. Did many share them or did you have an exclusive relationship with your raggedy love doll? If they were shared there is a certain “ew” factor when it comes to cleanliness and I don’t even want to think about the ease of transmitting STIs among your shipmates.

The French, Spanish, Dutch and Japanese probably weren’t the only ones to come up with this tool for fornication. It paved the way for more realistic looking dolls once rubber is improved with the invention of vulcanization. It’s a shame none of these earlier dolls survived. It would be amazing to see what level of detail, or not, was given to the cloth doll. Unfortunately, we will probably never know what they really looked like or how they were made. Sex with simulacra will continue to evolve along with technology. It will be interesting to see where this this technology takes us.

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