Filmmaker Learns Joys of Life-Size Love Dolls as Alternative Soul Mates
All Eelgrass wanted to do was make a documentary about people in the adult doll community. He never thought he'd become a part of it.
If you don't know about the lifelike dolls like the one featured in the 2007 Ryan Gosling movie "Lars and the Real Girl," you'd better sit down. This is a story about men who not only have sex with anatomically correct action figures, they take them to dinner ... and on vacations.
"I get obsessive," he admitted to AOL News.
Now the 57-year-old Eureka, Ca.-based filmmaker has 12 dolls, including "Bianca," one of four dolls used in "Lars and the Real Girl."
Some of these dolls cost upward of $4,000 so it's good he has something that might help finance the purchase of more: an upcoming new documentary, "All Dolled Up," that he says is the first to explore the adult doll community from the inside.
Eel started toying around with the idea in the spring of 2007.
"I was doing industrial and educational films when I stumbled onto these," he said. "After a while, I realized that no one had done an in-depth, first-person perspective of the adult doll community.
"I really think the dolls need a new name. They're not sex dolls, not love dolls. Calling them one is like calling a Harley-Davidson a moped."
Eel says the stereotypical person who buys a life-size doll is a socially awkward male unable to have a real relationship with a woman.
"Actually, it's not like that at all," he said. "My research suggests that about 34 percent of the people who buy them are married. I'd compare buying one of these to buying a car or a boat.
"People say, 'How can you get companionship from something that's not real?' but I say, if you want companionship, a dog is better."
Still, he says that the dolls can fill a void in people's lives.
Besides hunting has been on a downturn lately.
To be continued...
All Eelgrass wanted to do was make a documentary about people in the adult doll community. He never thought he'd become a part of it.
If you don't know about the lifelike dolls like the one featured in the 2007 Ryan Gosling movie "Lars and the Real Girl," you'd better sit down. This is a story about men who not only have sex with anatomically correct action figures, they take them to dinner ... and on vacations.
"I get obsessive," he admitted to AOL News.
Now the 57-year-old Eureka, Ca.-based filmmaker has 12 dolls, including "Bianca," one of four dolls used in "Lars and the Real Girl."
Some of these dolls cost upward of $4,000 so it's good he has something that might help finance the purchase of more: an upcoming new documentary, "All Dolled Up," that he says is the first to explore the adult doll community from the inside.
Eel started toying around with the idea in the spring of 2007.
"I was doing industrial and educational films when I stumbled onto these," he said. "After a while, I realized that no one had done an in-depth, first-person perspective of the adult doll community.
"I really think the dolls need a new name. They're not sex dolls, not love dolls. Calling them one is like calling a Harley-Davidson a moped."
Eel says the stereotypical person who buys a life-size doll is a socially awkward male unable to have a real relationship with a woman.
"Actually, it's not like that at all," he said. "My research suggests that about 34 percent of the people who buy them are married. I'd compare buying one of these to buying a car or a boat.
"People say, 'How can you get companionship from something that's not real?' but I say, if you want companionship, a dog is better."
Still, he says that the dolls can fill a void in people's lives.
Besides hunting has been on a downturn lately.
To be continued...
