Informationen zum Autor Bo Ruberg is Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of The Queer Games Avant-Garde and Video Games Have Always Been Queer . Klappentext Investigating and reimagining the origin story of the sex doll through the tale of the sailor's dames de voyage . The sex doll and its high-tech counterpart the sex robot have gone mainstream, as both the object of consumer desire and the subject of academic study. But sex dolls, and sexual technology in general, are nothing new. Sex dolls have been around for centuries. In Sex Dolls at Sea , Bo Ruberg explores the origin story of the sex doll, investigating its cultural implications and considering who has been marginalized and who has been privileged in the narrative. Ruberg examines the generally accepted story that the first sex dolls were dames de voyage , rudimentary figures made of cloth and leather scraps by European sailors on long, lonely ocean voyages in centuries past. In search of supporting evidence for the lonesome sailor sex doll theory, Ruberg uncovers the real history of the sex doll. The earliest commercial sex dolls were not the dames de voyage but the femmes en caoutchouc : women made of inflatable vulcanized rubber, beginning in the late nineteenth century. Interrogating the sailor sex doll origin story, Ruberg finds beneath the surface a web of issues relating to gender, sexuality, race, and colonialism. What has been lost in the history of the sex doll and other sex tech, Ruberg tells us, are the stories of the sex workers, women, queer people, and people of color whose lives have been bound up with these technologies. Zusammenfassung Investigating and reimagining the origin story of the sex doll through the tale of the sailor's dames de voyage . The sex doll and its high-tech counterpart the sex robot have gone mainstream, as both the object of consumer desire and the subject of academic study. But sex dolls, and sexual technology in general, are nothing new. Sex dolls have been around for centuries. In Sex Dolls at Sea , Bo Ruberg explores the origin story of the sex doll, investigating its cultural implications and considering who has been marginalized and who has been privileged in the narrative. Ruberg examines the generally accepted story that the first sex dolls were dames de voyage , rudimentary figures made of cloth and leather scraps by European sailors on long, lonely ocean voyages in centuries past. In search of supporting evidence for the lonesome sailor sex doll theory, Ruberg uncovers the real history of the sex doll. The earliest commercial sex dolls were not the dames de voyage but the femmes en caoutchouc : women made of inflatable vulcanized rubber, beginning in the late nineteenth century. Interrogating the sailor sex doll origin story, Ruberg finds beneath the surface a web of issues relating to gender, sexuality, race, and colonialism. What has been lost in the history of the sex doll and other sex tech, Ruberg tells us, are the stories of the sex workers, women, queer people, and people of color whose lives have been bound up with these technologies. Inhaltsverzeichnis Series Foreword ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: "The Beginning of the Modern Sex Doll"--Imagining the History of Sex Tech 1 I Searching for the Very First Sex Doll 29 1 Contemporary Tales of the Dames de Voyage : The History of an Imagined History 31 2 How Fantasy Became History: The Dames de Voyage in Pseudoscience, Erotica, and Advertising 59 3 The Birth of the Dames de Voyage: From Sex Workers to the Sexual Technologies of Sailors 89 4 "All Is Rubber!": The Femmes en Caoutchouc and the Actual Origins of the Commercial Sex Doll 115 II Interr...

Klappentext

Investigating and reimagining the origin story of the sex doll through the tale of the sailor’s dames de voyage.

The sex doll and its high-tech counterpart the sex robot have gone mainstream, as both the object of consumer desire and the subject of academic study. But sex dolls, and sexual technology in general, are nothing new. Sex dolls have been around for centuries. In Sex Dolls at Sea, Bo Ruberg explores the origin story of the sex doll, investigating its cultural implications and considering who has been marginalized and who has been privileged in the narrative.

Ruberg examines the generally accepted story that the first sex dolls were dames de voyage, rudimentary figures made of cloth and leather scraps by European sailors on long, lonely ocean voyages in centuries past. In search of supporting evidence for the lonesome sailor sex doll theory, Ruberg uncovers the real history of the sex doll. The earliest commercial sex dolls were not the dames de voyage but the femmes en caoutchouc: “women” made of inflatable vulcanized rubber, beginning in the late nineteenth century.

Interrogating the sailor sex doll origin story, Ruberg finds beneath the surface a web of issues relating to gender, sexuality, race, and colonialism. What has been lost in the history of the sex doll and other sex tech, Ruberg tells us, are the stories of the sex workers, women, queer people, and people of color whose lives have been bound up with these technologies.

Inhalt
Series Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: "The Beginning of the Modern Sex Doll"--Imagining the History of Sex Tech 1
I Searching for the Very First Sex Doll 29
1 Contemporary Tales of the Dames de Voyage: The History of an Imagined History 31
2 How Fantasy Became History: The Dames de Voyage in Pseudoscience, Erotica, and Advertising 59
3 The Birth of the Dames de Voyage: From Sex Workers to the Sexual Technologies of Sailors 89
4 "All Is Rubber!": The Femmes en Caoutchouc and the Actual Origins of the Commercial Sex Doll 115
II Interrogating the Story of the Very First Sex Doll 147
5 Making Sex Tech Masculine, Making Sex Tech Straight: The Disavowal and Return of Femininity and Queerness 149
6 From Bamboo Lovers to Undersea Kingdoms: Colonialism and Race in Stories of Sailors' Sex Dolls 171
7 Legitimizing Sex with Technology: Prisoners, Nazis, Misogynists, and the Origin Stories that Go Untold 193
Conclusion: Reclaiming the Dames de Voyage--The Feminist Potential of a Fictional Past 213
Notes 227
Index 275 **