Salon, you got our attention with the redesign but this is the most utterly riveting trainwreck of an article I have ever seen: a feature on "Real Dolls" and the men who love them. For a mere $6,500, these men can find the partner of their dreams, who as the article points out "don't talk back" because they don't talk at all.

With shades of "it rubs the lotion on its skin" and definitely the creepiest thing I've seen online since Coincidence Design, Meghan Laslocky's article is seriously riveting, just because it gets more and more unbelievable as you go on. A sampling:

When Davecat was a child in a department store, his mother emerged from a dressing room to find him talking to a mannequin who was wearing a short tennis skirt. "I was trying to chat her up," he says. "I remember the beauty of her stillness." With Sidore, he's gotten past just chatting: "I like having her in bed beside me, holding her, cuddling her," he tells me. "I like to sleep with my doll. I'll be blunt: She's a girlfriend."

When asked how many times each week he has sex with his dolls, Kelly is quick to correct: He doesn't have sex with them, he masturbates with them. Twice a week. (Ed. - This guy has three dolls. You're telling me that for $19,500 he's not getting laid?)

"If I were to go to a bar and try some pick-up lines, the chances of coming home with someone like her are highly unlikely," he says. "No real woman seems to think I'm good enough for them."*

If you don't have time to read the article, why not check out the photo gallery? Because THAT will creep you out just as much. I don't know if there is anything creepier than the pic of the guy in his backyard with his RealDoll, lounging beside him dreamily as he types away on his laptop. An idyllic picture until you think about the fact that he had to dress her up and haul her out before she'd submit to his little fantasy. I'm glad I'm not his neighbor. Oh yes, and with respect to this article, he also had to get to a place where he was cool with being PHOTOGRAPHED so doing. Just pause for a moment and think about all the mental steps necessary in order to get to a place where that's okay.

My favorite** part of the article (although the word "favorite" implies the fact that the entire article did not make me feel vaguely ill): "Davecat and his doll, Sidore, do everything together, including playing video games." Here's a tip for you, buddy: you're probably gonna win.

Update: Aaaaall riiiiight, ladies - apparently there's a boy version, too! Someone told me about it, there's no way in hell you'd catch me on that creepy website.

Just Like A Woman [Salon]

*The scariest paragraph in the article begins: "Another time, an Asian undergraduate student at a university in California dropped his 1-year-old doll off for repairs. Fiero says the young man told him that his parents bought him the doll so that he would stay at home and study rather than go out chasing women." It then goes on to describe the state of 'disrepair' which is horrifying.
** The article does give a showtune shout-out: Laslocky pseudonames the doll-lover's community website "Hello Dolly."