The Sex Doll: A History by Anthony Ferguson

Author:Anthony Ferguson [Ferguson, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Psychology, Antiques & Collectibles, Sex Dolls - History, Sex Dolls, General, Dolls, Human Sexuality, Social History, History, Social Science
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2010-07-25T23:00:00+00:00

TEN. Do Androids Dream of Electric Orgasm?

The engraved frontispiece for the revised 1831 edition of Mary Shelley’s novel

Frankenstein shows the horror encompassed by the concept.

143

T H E S E X D O L L

Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The second is in Aeschylus’s Prometheus. Shelley is vague as to how, exactly, her creature comes to life. There are, however, hints at familiar nineteenth century motifs such as grave-robbing and animal vivisection: “Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay? ... I collected bones from charnel-houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame.”1

Shelley was heavily influenced by the contemporary scientific fascination with the possibility of regeneration.2 She was also keen to raise the spectre of the separation of biology from the scientific creation of life. This is evinced in the text by Victor Frankenstein’s total abandonment of nurturing and responsibility for his unfortunate creation. This point is emphasized by Dr. Siv Jannsen in his introduction to the Wordsworth Classic version of the text. “The novel articulates a confrontation between a scientific pursuit seen as masculine and a feminine ‘nature’ which is perverted or destroyed by masculinity.”3

Benign selfishness and ignorance about nurturing his creation is what brings Victor Frankenstein and his immediate circle of family and friends to ruin at the hands of the misunderstood monster.

This notion of a lack of empathetic nurturing of the delicate female psyche is prevalent throughout literature in terms of male/female relationships. Women with their wild, illogical passions drive men to distraction, unwittingly causing them to commit acts of violence in their attempts to control and constrain female desire. The great nineteenth century English poet Robert Browning produced two works which illustrate this conflict succinctly. “Porphyria’s Lover” or “Porphyria,” first published in the Monthly Repository in January 1836, is voiced by an unnamed protagonist who recounts how he killed his illicit lover Porphyria by strangling her with her own hair, just so that he can keep her forever. The excerpt at the head of Chapter 9 is taken from this poem. Tormented by his free-spirited lover, the protagonist concludes that the only way to dominate her is to overpower her with violence, thus bringing her completely under his control.

In a similar vein is Browning’s later poem “My Last Duchess,” first published in 1842 in his Dramatic Lyrics. The protagonist, based on a real historical figure, Alfonso, the duke of Ferrara from 1559–1597, entertains 144

TEN. Do Androids Dream of Electric Orgasm?

an emissary come to negotiate his marriage to the daughter of another powerful family. He shows the visitor around, lingering at a painting of his former wife, also a young girl. As the duke’s reminiscing becomes more detailed, the reader gradually realizes that the duke had the former duchess killed for what he perceived to be her feminine wiles. The duke regarded his wife as nothing more than a chattel, one of his possessions. He

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