In Japan, sex dolls are sometimes being referred to as Dutch Wives, which goes back to the 17th century, when Dutch sailors traded leather sex dolls with the Japanese. Nowadays, sex dolls almost have a kind of a cult status in Japan. But now, things seem to have come to a complete circle, since Japanese photographer LEiyA is transforming Japanese women into sex dolls (love dolls) at their request.
LEiyA started at the end of 2017 with the Osaka based Human Love Doll Factory. There, someone can be transformed into a living sex doll. In the Japanese version of the Huffington Post, the Love Doll Factory claims to be the first in the world to offer this service. Photographer LEiyA and her make up artist IMA come to the client’s house to give the client the appearance of a love doll. Then they record the result in a photoshoot. Both men and women can use this special service.
“A love doll is made from silicone,” says LEiyA. “To bring out the sense of those materials, it’s important to remove the ‘human-like’ qualities [of a model]. We use natural lighting to make the skin seem softer or sometimes use software to remove wrinkles after the shoot is over. A doll cannot adopt flexible poses like a human, so we take care in the way we pose the angle of joints and the center of gravity in a model in order to bring out a doll-like quality.”
Extreme Cosplay
A while ago, there was a story about Lulu Hashimoto. This is a living fashion doll, that performs cosplay to the extreme. The project of LEiyA does have some resemblance with that. In the photo’s below, you can see how a photo shoot takes place. In the pictures, you’ll see a 30 year old model being transformed into a love doll. The Huffington Post asked that model why she liked to be a love doll. “I always liked dolls from my childhood and used to play a lot with Licca-chan dolls. I then got interested in ball-jointed dolls when I became a high school student. I particularly liked the dolls from the manga Rozen Maiden. I think this is what lies at the foundation of why I like making dolls. To be honest, though, I kind of don’t like being human! In contrast, a doll exists as something that is only pretty, cute, and beautiful.”
