Good reason for the Media to see Dolls as a harmonising

[haremlover]

I would normally write in Dolls In General - but as that is for Members Only, it's not able to be seen by those for whom it's really valuable to be seen.

We often read about how dolls are prohibited in certain countries, mainly Muslim but I believe India also. Ans we read how badly women are treated, and rapes particularly in Delhi which come to mind from media coverage.

Males suffer the torture of sex. It's difficult to escape, and easier said by people considering themselves virtuous that those afflicted should control themselves. Sexual anger brings violence. Today there is an article in The Times alluding to themes of which we hear on this forum about fears about the other sex and claims of sexual harrassment leading to a lack of intimacy and sexual isolation, and linking them to violence and radicalisation. It makes the point that one the one hand this happens in Muslim states and on the other in places were gun crime is in issue. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comm ... -jmtwwnq69

Here's an extract and urge before anyone comments or takes offense that they read the full article:

The proportion of Americans aged between 18 and 30 who said that they had no sex in the past year has more than doubled, from 7 per cent in 2010-12 to 18 per cent in 2014-16, according to analysis of the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey. This suggests a level of sexlessness not seen since the early Sixties.

Does it matter? You can, of course, be happy without sex. Many Americans, not just social conservatives, would agree that some sex is best avoided, not just for teenagers. As the author Vanessa Grigoriadis writes in her book Blurred Lines, about sex on American university campuses, “more and more sexual acts that previous generations might have filed under ‘Terrible College Experience’ are being reclassified as offences that can earn banishment from the Ivory Tower.” This leads to caution among young men and pickiness among women. Neither is necessarily bad.

But this is more than pickiness. Jean Twenge, a psychologist who has examined the decline in sex among American adults, has written about teenage dating in the country: the actual business of going out with someone who says they fancy you, to the cinema or a cafe. In the old days — for the baby boomers and the Generation Xers — a full 85 per cent had done it. In 2015 the figure was 56 per cent. Stuck on their phones, fearful of taking the kind of risks associated with meeting anyone face to face, let alone getting naked with them, a generation seems to be alone, their faces lit by screens, hands unheld, glances across crowded rooms unmade.


This brings us back to guns and the outbursts of grotesque violence that scar the modern US and, more widely, to the remarkably consistent support for Donald Trump. For some teenagers and young men, particularly young white men with troubled lives and poor educations, these changes in sexual mores are difficult to cope with. And some of the personal crises that seem to arise — some of the beliefs and behaviour of these sexless but sex-obsessed men — are eerily similar to those of another more familiar radicalised group.

We're very aware of the ways in which the radicalised group in question bans anything that can be considered to be an effigy of a human.

This gives problems not only with the importatation of dolls into countries from the Middle East eastwards across to some regimes on the borders of China, but also to good people living lives even in England but under the heritage of such cultural influences.

It came to me unexpectedly when someone wrote to me asking me for a favour and asking me to do something for him. Essentially he had bought a doll which for one reason or another had lain in her box for some months and he wanted me to assist him to sell her by sending her to me for me to take photos of her for sale, or even as a gift to me until such time as I'd like to sell her. He said that he'd like her to go to a home where she'd been appreciated.

I recognised that whilst he lives in England his name derives from the Indian subcontinent, and for this reason I decided to tread on delicate and dodgy ground.

So I wrote to him:

Please forgive me for asking a personal question. You're being quite cagey about why you're selling her and I'm wondering if some sort of buyers' remorse is at play in some sort of guilt? If this comes through a feeling of some religious prohibition against imagery, please take courage my friend. We probably have common ideas about a Creator even from nominally different religious heritage and I have come to realise
(a) that the real Creator has no name, is not a person, and is a process - that process is "love" - working together and
(b) that the person we ascribe to creating all isn't a person and doesn't exist . . . but what is created by (a) gives cause and effect throughout the Universe and demonstrates an intelligence, a consciousness, which we embrace in the image of a person as that's all we can relate to. It's not external to the universe, it's internal, and we're part of it.

There is no prohibition by the cause of Creation of the Universe against dolls.

I hope this may give both courage and consolation and apologise if I'm in the wrong direction.

He responded to me:

It was such a relief to read your words about the lord and the universe. I didnt think there were others who thought like that. I particularly like your comment about how we relate to as a person, as thats pretty much all we can do. Its a clear example I think that the truth of the universe (love) transcends any religion or culture.

I had buyers guilt for my doll for all of 2 hours as I drove her back home after inital purchase. It was such a struggle to carry her up the stairs. But after getting her ready and seeing her in all her glory was an amazing feeling. Because the house lacks any real storage areas, she would be stored in the original box in a room. The wife would get annoyed as she was just taking up space. But it occured to me when 6-9 months passed and all she had done was stay in storage. Life was pulling in many different directions, with the pressure of work. I decided it would be best to let someone else have that experience, someone who wouldn't keep her in storage, but truly appreciate her.
. . . .

If I could please share with you an experience. A group of us a very long time ago were speaking with a religious teacher, who asked all of us what would you say to god if you were to see him right now. I thought of a very poetic response, but strangely in my ego I wondered what others had thought, and if their command of english allowed them to communicate well. But that was the huge slap in the face, surely the lord wouldnt need a good command of english or any other language for communication as he would know us all anyway, what was inside our hearts, our dreams aspirations failures good deeds. I asked well if command of language isnt a barrier with the lord, what else isnt. Try something easy, skin colour. Immediately the answer was no for obvious reasons, but as I started to ask myself more and more, I suddenly asked is religion a requirement. The answer has to be no, the lords love isnt dependent on any religion, but our deeds of kindness. From those questions naturally came "what is important?", ironically I had to go back to religion (not just one but all religion) for the answers honest living, sharing your earning with those less fortunate and meditation.

Reading your reply echoed that experience for me. Thank you

So a significant reality is that dolls are helping men of all walks of life, all parts of the world, all cultures and creeds and that in doing so they are bringing so many of us together in ways which transcend differences, transcend religions, prejudices and cause those who seek paths which tend towards those which radicalise and to separate to become marginal. A more holistic understanding is brought to us through dolls, through reflections of ourselves in which we can see each other more clearly.

Dolls are capable of bringing greater beauty to humanity.

Best wishes

Harem