Dollification

What is dollification?

Dollification (also called doll play) is roleplay in which someone is turned into a doll: made up, dressed, posed and treated as an object instead of a person. A doll decides nothing, does not speak on its own and gets moved around. It is a form of objectification, with agreements set in advance.

What dollification looks like in practice

Dollification starts with the dressing, and that part takes longer than people expect.

A common scene goes like this. There is half an hour in which someone is made up, brushed and dressed, without a word asked about how it feels or how it looks. Then comes a pose: upright on a chair, hands on the knees, gaze forward. From that point the doll no longer speaks and only moves when someone else shifts an arm or the head. Whoever is watching comments out loud on what there is to see, as if no one in the room is listening in.

That last part is exactly what the encyclopedic description of erotic humiliation calls objectification: the submissive is used as an object, right down to human furniture. In dollification that object stays beautiful. That is where it differs from most other forms.

Where the idea comes from

The urge to turn someone into an object is older than the scene that has a word for it.

The encyclopedia describes agalmatophilia as sexual attraction to a statue, doll, mannequin or similar figure. In its list of what that attraction can include is the line that fits dollification best: sexual pleasure that comes from the thought of turning yourself into the desired object, or turning another into it. The same entry mentions Pygmalionism, the love for an object of your own making, after the myth in which Pygmalion falls in love with the statue he carved himself.

The term doller comes from a very different corner. It stems from animegao kigurumi, a form of masked cosplay from Japanese anime performances, where people wear a cast or printed mask over a skin-colored zentai suit. Cosplay, then, not BDSM, though both worlds borrow each other’s material.

Why people find dollification appealing

The pull is in the way every expectation falls away. A doll does not have to perform anything, hold an opinion or say anything back. For anyone who spends all day managing how they come across, that is a strange sort of vacation.

For the one who is the doll, it gives two things: an hour in which nobody asks your opinion, and being looked at without having to do anything for it. For the one who makes the doll, the reward is in the making itself. You decide the pose, the hair, the color of the lips, and the result stays as you set it down.

That objectification can also turn out well has been studied. In The Journal of Sex Research, Katherine Martinez surveyed 121 people who describe themselves as consensual sadomasochists, of whom 67 also identified as women. Their experiences with sexual objectification varied widely along gender, sexual orientation and role. Her conclusion: consensual sadomasochistic space partly offers participants an environment free of the negative effects of Western beauty ideals.

For people who already feel like a thing in daily life, this play usually lands wrong. Objectification works when you step into it, not when you are already stuck in it.

How people do it

There are roughly three forms, and they differ mostly in how far the appearance goes.

1. The soft form. Makeup, a dress, a wig, a pose and the agreement not to talk. Nothing more. This is where almost everyone starts.
2. The latex form. A second skin of latex or a mask, which makes the face disappear and changes the shape of the body. Heavier, warmer, and held for a much shorter time.
3. The mannequin form. Standing or sitting still in a fixed pose, sometimes with the gaze fixed upward, where the moving itself becomes the transgression.

What separates the careful version from the sloppy one is the ending. There should be a signal that turns the doll back into a person, and afterward there should be talking.

What dollification is not

“It is about sex with a doll.” No. Agalmatophilia also covers attraction to actual dolls and statues, but dollification is about a human who plays the role.

“It is the same as crossdressing.” Crossdressing is about wearing clothing associated with another gender. Dollification is about becoming an object; the appearance is the means, not the goal.

“Being still is passive, so it is easy.” Twenty minutes without moving is harder than it sounds. The neck and shoulders protest first.

What I see of it myself

Dollification is the form where the preparation does the most. The makeup, the brushing, the straightening of a shoulder: that is where it tips, well before anything exciting happens.

It comes down to who asks for it. Often women who make decisions all week and who are looking for the quiet of an hour where they do not have to. Saying it is about submission is only half right. It is about silence.

Giving it back matters more here than in any other form. I always say out loud when the play is over, name and all. If you want to explore this kind of roleplay with me, it belongs with a BDSM date, and that giving-back is a standard part of it for me.

What you can do yourself

• Agree on a word or gesture that turns the doll back into a person, and agree that the one being the doll can use it too.
• Keep the first time short. Twenty minutes in a pose is already a lot for a beginner.
• Set out something to drink and agree how the doll signals that she needs it without breaking the role.
• Talk afterward in the first person. Use each other’s names, ask how it was, and do it before the makeup comes off.
• Be careful with latex over the whole face. Heat and breathing are the limiting factor here, not the fantasy.

More on dollification

On this site, the article about being treated as an object of lust lays out the broader category that dollification falls under, and the art of ignore play is about being ignored, which happens to a doll by default.

Beyond this site, the research by Katherine Martinez is the most interesting work there is on how consensual objectification turns out differently from the everyday kind.

Sources

• Somebody’s Fetish: Self-Objectification and Body Satisfaction Among Consensual Sadomasochists. Katherine Martinez, The Journal of Sex Research 53(1), 35–44, 2016. Provides the 121 respondents of whom 67 women, the spread of objectification experiences along gender, orientation and role, and the conclusion about an environment partly free of Western beauty ideals.
• Agalmatophilia. Wikipedia. Provides the description as attraction to a statue, doll or mannequin, the pleasure that comes from the thought of turning yourself or another into the desired object, and Pygmalionism.
• Erotic humiliation. Wikipedia. Provides objectification as a form in which the submissive is used as an object or as human furniture.
• Animegao kigurumi. Wikipedia. Provides the origin of the term doller, the cast or printed mask and the skin-colored zentai suit.

Related terms

• Degradation. The same family, but with putting down as the engine instead of making beautiful.
• Corset. The garment that most often shapes the form in dollification.
• Animal play. The other transformation role, with movement and sound instead of silence.
• Discipline. The rules in which “no talking” and “no moving” get set down.
• Forced feminization. The other transformation role, aimed at gender instead of at becoming an object.
• Sissification. That same reshaping, but stretched over weeks instead of over an evening.
• Forniphilia. The same objectification, but with a function: footstool, table or coat rack.
• Humiliation. The umbrella under which objectification is classified in the literature.
• Objectification. The overarching concept that dollification is the doll form of.
• Shaving. The smoothing that precedes the doll form, with the skin side to it.