One of my favorite old posts on ginandtacos is Erik's take on the realdoll community, as it was presented to us by a salon.com article that started a whole Internet meme fest on what it means to spend over $5,000 on a masturbation toy. Realdolls, in case you don't know, are 'realistic' looking rubber dolls (see picture of 'davecat' below) that cost a large sum of money, that tend to get purchased by people who are acting out a relationship with them. Do read the ginandtacos post, it includes some great comments from the readers.
One thing that was linked to in the article was, from the Realdoll's webpage, was the Realdoll FAQ (not work safe). It is quite disturbing to read, as it quickly switches from (real examples) "Question: What sort of people buy REALDOLL? Answer: REALDOLL customers include …scientists, health professionals, housewives" to questions such as " Question: Tell me more about the doll's entries. Answer: The inside of the Vaginal and Anal entries use a different grade of silicone than the rest of REALDOLL's body…" – you don't want to go any further. It goes from normal to disturbing quickly. As Erik put it in his entry: "I honestly could not read any more than a fraction of it before I had to close the browser."
Eventually we all started daring each other to read it, and the entire FAQ was read, and though it was years ago, it still freaks me out to think about it. And now there is this:
"Guys and Dolls" (hat tip to feministing). Evidently someone wasn't satisfied by reading a salon article and making fun of these losers; they had to go even further and sponsor a British documentary crew to interview as many subjects as they could find and investigate the factory. The video is 46 minutes and it is virtually impossible to watch. It is like the Realdoll FAQ to the tenth power. It is probably the best accidental horror movie ever made.
So have any of you been dared, or dared someone to watch a horror movie? Junior-high sleepovers, "What are you, chicken?!?!?" For Politics-Free Friday, my dare to you audience, is to start watching and note what time and/or event freaks you out to the point where you had to stop watching. I tried, and I mean I tried to finish the thing (I am in fact daring you), but my on my first try I could only make it to minute 15 when a guy from Virginia starts showing off his collection of AK-47s and Mac-10s along with his realdolls ("that's three [automatic] guns and two realdolls I own…"). He waves a glock in the air above a Realdoll taking a "nap" in his bed, and talks about the Mac-10 he "would carry around". It is way too much. In the first couple of minutes you get to see Davecat (goth kid above) mention something like "the problem my dad has with her is that she's not alive" in my-dad-is-a-bigot-teenage-righteousness way.
The second try I made it to minute 20, where you get to see the factory where the dolls are made, and the endless torsos and pelvic areas hanging from chains or moving along assembly lines is like something out of a slaughterhouse. Forget Saw and J-Horror flicks, this is seriously the most disturbing horror movie I've ever seen.