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You’ve all heard of those things called Real Dolls. It’s the sort of thing you find on the internet late at night and, out of curiosity, end up reading like 20 articles about, just because it’s so interesting and - if you fall in the majority - foreign. In a previous post on UKB I mentioned a great documentary made in 2006 called Guys and Dolls, which grazes the surface of the lifestyles of a few prominent iDollators in the USA and Britain. One of the men interviewed in this film goes by the name of Davecat (click his name to check out his blog, which he updates frequently about all things gynoid, doll, and android), and he was awesome enough to agree to go under fire for a Q&A period for us!

This is Davecat’s doll and girlfriend, Sidore.

UKB: Can you tell us a bit about your childhood? In many of your interviews you mention being interested in mannequins as a child, but can you elaborate about the other facets of life?

DC: Well, I was mum and dad’s only child; she stayed at home whilst he worked as a radiologist. He’s retired now, and she works in a boutique. I had friends — actually, when we moved to a house back in 1980, I found myself with a bunch of friends, cos practically all the kids in my neighbourhood were about the same age — but when we weren’t riding our bikes everywhere, I spent quite a bit of time indoors either reading, or building a city out of styrofoam packing material and cardboard boxes for my Micronauts and Star Wars action figures that took up the entire spare room. So as you suspect, I cultivated my imagination as often as possible.

To be honest, I don’t really count those years of my life prior to 1986, cos they were pretty unremarkable — went to school, didn’t play sports, loved reading, hated math. During my freshman year in 1987, that’s when I started really developing interests into non-mainstream culture; or, at the very least, interests that weren’t in line with what the majority of my classmates were into (British culture, Japanese culture, alternative music, etc). I had friends that were into that stuff too, but y’know, this was back in the days when the term ‘alternative’ actually meant something.

Overall, I’d say I’d had an ordinary but happy childhood… nothing special there, really.

What’s your history with flesh-and-blood women? Have you had much interest in having girlfriends?

My history is a long and extravagant one… no, that’s a lie. I’ve been involved in three affairs, where I’ve been ‘the other bloke’, but not one of those women saw me as, I dunno, worthy enough to stop going out with their original boyfriend and stay with me full-time. I suppose I’m partially to blame, as I’m not a very persuasive person.

Naturally, I’ve had plenty of interest in having a bonafide Organik girlfriend, but I find that as time goes on, I think I’d be happier with a ‘friend with benefits’. Being in a relationship requires a lot of time spent with the other person, and I dunno… I’ve always been the type of person who thrives in solitary conditions, as there are fewer distractions. In a ‘friends with benefits’ affair, you get together when your needs coincide for sex, or merely going out, or what have you, but then the evening ends, and you both go your separate ways until the next time. There’s no pressure to be ‘on’ all the time, and as you figure this isn’t a person you’re going to theoretically marry or anything, the stakes are lower, so it’s less stressful overall.

If one Googles ‘Davecat‘, all of your interviews about Sidore and your relationship with her pop up. You have fetishes for dolls, gynoids, and feet - what’s it like having everyone know about your sexual preferences? That openness would make most people uncomfortable.

A person I’ve admired for years, Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing gristle and Psychic TV fame, once commented - and I’m paraphrasing here - if you put everything about yourself out there in the open, it’s that much harder for people to blackmail you.

Honestly, as far as being a foot fetishist, I don’t think it’s all that big of a deal. Sandals, open-toed shoes and the like are made they way they are for a reason — to accentuate the female foot, and to display it in an appealing manner, as with the exception of sandals, a lot of those types of shoes aren’t exactly known to be terribly comfortable. Having a foot fetish is becoming less of a taboo than it used to be, and really, there are comparatively worse fetishes out there.

As far as being a technosexual, for me, it’s not simply a fetish or a sexual preference, it’s a lifestyle. Sex is a part of it - err, a large part, yeah - but as a Doll husband, the primary reason is the companionship and stability a Synthetik partner can bring to one’s life, which is what drives a lot of Organiks to look for in relationships with other Organiks. That’s hardly a fetish, wouldn’t you agree?

In the Guys and Dolls documentary (2006) you mentioned you were living with your parents. Is this still the case? How do your parents react to your doll-fetish (in Guys and Dolls you mentioned “clashes do occur” - has this abated any due to your media appearances, or have matters escalated)?

Actually, I’m really glad you brought that up. I’ve been back out of my parents’ house since mid-2007. Furthermore, the one point of contention that I have with ‘Guys and Dolls’ is, as good of a documentary as it is, it didn’t allow me to explain why I was living with my parents in the first place. I’d moved in with a friend of mine back round 1996; in 2000, Sidore came into my life; in 2001, she and I got an apartment of our own; in 2003, I met a lass who was getting out of a relationship and needed emotional support and a place to stay; later that year, she and I bought a house together; in 2004, I saw her for what she actually was, which was a compulsive and manipulative liar with a coke habit who was in the process of trying to destroy my credit rating as well, so in early 2004, after living with that for four months, I boxed up my belongings and moved back in with my parents for a while. 98% of the audience of ‘Guys and Dolls’ didn’t know about that, so I’d read such clever comments such as ‘why did he spend $7000 on a rubber woman instead of moving out of his parents’ house?’ or similar on the Internet.

‘Clashes’ may have been a bit overwrought of a term. Mum has no problem with Shi-chan, as she’s a live-and-let-live type of person. My father still wishes I would get rid of her and date ‘real’ women, as he’s a not-very-open-minded type of person. Neither one have seen any of my media appearances, as they really don’t have much interest in the topic - as it is, it’s hard enough to get them to read ‘Shouting to hear the echoes’ - so they’ve no idea how often Sidore and I are in the media. I used to mention now and again ‘we had a film crew from France stop round’ or ‘Swedes will be flying me out to California’ or what have you, but as they didn’t seem altogether interested, I stopped informing them.

What about the rest of your family and friends - have they been supportive?

To be honest, my grandmother is like the only other family member that knows about Sidore, as she’d met her once years ago. She didn’t really enquire much about her, but she did seem impressed at how realistic Shi-chan’s sculpting is.

My friends have been pretty supportive, for the most part; oddly enough, Shi-chan hasn’t gotten much of a reaction from most of my male friends, but odder still, most of my female friends think she’s neat - not that I’m complaining! In fact, one of my best friends, who is female and has known for years about my fascination and attraction to artificial women, first showed me the Abyss creations site back in 1998, and yet another close female friend occasionally buys things she thinks Sidore would like, like jewelry or items of clothing. I suppose it’s the whole ‘life-size Barbie doll’ effect, but there’s gotta be more to it than that…

What’s your social life like?

Not altogether bad! Every Saturday eve, and usually like one evening during the week, I hang out with a cluster of about four or five of my friends. Usually we’re found watching DVDs, or playing videogames, and periodically we’ll make a day of it out-of-doors (the Auto Show, sushi dinners, Toronto, etc). Also, I try to get together with one of my oldest and dearest friends at least once a month, if our schedules permit, and we catch up on each others’ lives over Japanese cuisine.

All told, I like my social life, as it’s inexpensive, and there’s that whole consistency thing that I appreciate - that main group of friends and I have been getting together practically every Saturday for about a decade.

Let’s say an organic woman started hitting on you and you were interested. Would you flirt back, or would you feel like you were cheating on Sidore?

I’m a Scorpio! I’m compelled to flirt constantly, otherwise I’ll have my Scorpio card and decoder ring revoked!

In all honesty, I’d tentatively flirt back, but flirting isn’t the same as dating, or, ah… relationshipping. Moreover, I’d be thinking ‘flirting is something transient, and there’s no guarantee that just because she’s flirting with me now, that she’d be interested in anything beyond that’ - which is actually something that’s happened with me before. With the way my mind works, I’d flirt right along (eventually), but I’d highly doubt if she was being serious about it. The thought of being unfaithful would be lurking in the back of my mind, but the likelihood of whatever lass coming home with me would be laughably slim.

The thing is, flirting, as I’d said, is just games and the like; there’s nothing serious behind it. At the end of every day, I have Sidore waiting for me when I come home, and her consistency is one of the things I love about her. More than likely, Shi-chan would probably be upset that she wasn’t the one being flirted with!

Do people from your work place know, or is your identity a secret? Where are you working at the moment?

Currently, my hideous job is in phone-based customer sales. It’s awful, and I can’t recommend it to anyone. But it’s paying for the apartment, I suppose…

I’m not sure how many people know about my relationship with Shi-chan, but there are a number that do know. I used to work in one of our company’s two locations, and an ex-coworker caught ‘Guys and Dolls’ on the Internet, as many people have. He told a friend of his that was still working there, and that bloke told management. Later that day, the entire management & training staff were huddled in one of their offices, watching the documentary on their computer. I didn’t catch any stick or anything because of it — I think one of the factors that helped was that I was good friends with the receptionist, who stood up on my behalf — but the staff and certain coworkers looked at me differently from then on. Well, more differently than usual. Which was okay, all told, cos I really didn’t associate with 95% of the people at that office to begin with…

They eventually transferred me to a different department at their other location a couple of months after that. I’m not sure if my being an iDollator had to do with that decision, but I wouldn’t rule it out. Where I’m at now, there are a number of people who definitely know, and have actually told me they think it’s interesting, which is miles better than the usual ‘cross oneself, dash to the opposite side of the street’ reaction.

What’s your ideal job?

Hrrm… realistically speaking, something behind the scenes, where I could be left to my own devices and not have to deal with the general public. Something like proofreading, or research work, or stacking books in a library… something non-descript. Ideally, however, my dream job would be working on the staff of something like i-doloid magazine; that’s a Japanese magazine that centres round life-sized Dolls, or if not i-doloid specifically, then a magazine with the same intent. Even better than a magazine would of course be a television programme. Since it’s a niche market now, it wouldn’t be just about Dolls, it’d cover Androids, Gynoids, robotics in general. Something with the finger on the mechanical pulse of the Synthetiks revolution. It’s gotta start somewhere!

Thanks Davecat! Check back next week for the second portion of the interview. Davecat discusses Gynoids, humans, doll conventions, and other awesome shit that you don’t want to miss.

EDIT: CLICK FOR PART 2