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Real Dolls: Love in the Age of Silicone Meghan Laslocky -- 10/17/2005  [ 1 ][ 2 ][ 3 ]And McMullen Created Woman Real Dolls are like cars were in the early 20th century, when the ancient wheeled cart suddenly sprung a giant leap forward. Matt McMullen, the man perhaps best thought of as love dolls’ Dr. Frankenstein and Henry Ford rolled into one, regards his creation as a logical progression in the history of love dolls. He took technology – in this case silicone – that magical one step further to rocket an age-old concept past where it had stagnated for decades. “I took something that was really laughable before, you know, you’d think of a love doll before, 100 bucks, fits in a shoe box, fill it up with air, and they’re funny looking. They look like a joke. Our dolls are a whole different level. If blow-up doll is Level One, we’re at Level 99.” McMullen is in his mid-thirties, dresses like a skateboarder, and has multiple piercings. He’s pretty like Kurt Cobain and handsome like Uma Thurman, and a tiny photo of his young children jangles on his key ring. Ten years ago, McMullen worked in a Halloween mask factory and in his spare time sculpted female forms in his garage – mostly small, 12” figures made of resin that he sold as models for extra cash. He called his company “Abyss Creations” not because of its implications – a plummet to hell – but simply because he knew any ‘A’ word would be listed at the top of model kit directories. “I’m fairly verbose at times, and I just liked that word,” he says. Over time, McMullen’s sculptures grew in stature, and like Pygmalion, he welcomed the challenge of crafting bodies that were softer and more inviting to the touch. To make them movable, he designed an internal skeleton not unlike that of a mannequin. He liked sculpting women’s heads: “I’d be doing one, and I’d think, gee, she’s really pretty.” He discovered that his sculptures posed well and photographed well, so he posted them on the Internet. “So far as the nude pictures go, it wasn’t like erotic photography, just a body that I sculpted, more of an appreciation of a body. But what happened was, a lot of people found my little web site and started to write me emails.” Those who emailed weren’t other artists. “People were saying, ‘Hey, is this a sex doll, can I buy one, how much?’ I was answering these people saying, ‘No, it’s not a sex doll, it’s not made for that.’ And they were really pushy and wanted to know if they could pay me to convert it into a sex doll.” Soon ten men insisted that they would pay McMullen $3,000 each for converted sculptures, and $30,000 was more than he would make in a year at the mask company. He quit his job and channeled deposits from his early adopters toward materials. “I went back to the drawing board and figured out how to make things work, putting sexual parts in the doll, making the breasts softer, looking at it really more from the angle of having a love doll.” He spent several months playing with different silicone concoctions to arrive at the best feel and durability. His earlier sculptures had vague genitalia, but now he had to make parts that were detailed, soft, and penetrable. “I had to make it feel good. As good as rubber can feel,” he says. end of page 4 [ 4 ] read more ... [ 5 ][ 6 ][ 7 ][ 8 ][ 9 ][ 10 ][ 11 ][ 12 ][ 13 ][ 14 ][ 15 ][ 16 ][ 17 ][ 18 ][ 19 ][ 20 ][ 21 ][ 22 ][ 23 ] |
