viewtopic.php?t=155317
This is where it started for me on my journey as a “dollor”. Please read the above link I cross posted as it was a general topic but reposted below to ask fellow Latex lovers their feelings on the subject and to see if they would agree if having the same experience such as mine.
Defining Moments Defining Terms:
My first, she was a French Latex Poupée I decided to purchase around 1994. I was an immediate fan and wanted to became a dollor right then and there. Alas, I would have to wait quite a while; between the emailing, translating of French to English and vice-versa by dictionary, to the snail mailing of an international money order across the sea, then her arrival to the US by boat, and the USPS delivery to my door. It's funny though enough, cause I imagine just around the time I finally get to mount mine for the first time [the most famous Dollor had it's last mounting, passed away, and then too summarily stuffed](https://truewestmagazine.com/article/th ... nd-dollor/); and apt was the case back then. If you no longer could breathe life in to a latex doll, you either were tossed or stuffed.
At the time, the term "dollor" didn't exist, nor does it really even today; still in 2022 there isn't a term I think accurately depicts or distinguishes exactly the collection of members like myself of this forum. The best or closest one I've heard is "Doll Enthusiasts". But even this wouldn't be the greatest definition and so easily can be confused to include people who are collectors of children's porcelain toy dolls (something "we" are definitely not!).
I thought maybe I could aim to rectify this or to make some claim in a case to a word that portrays without injustice the exact type of "Doll Enthusiast" fellow members portray themselves to be.
Besides having the proper etymology, the word should carry some of the history in it's meaning starting maybe at a point of record for when the phenomenon started to when it took off and became a concept followed by the mainstream. It took some time and some research, going back through the forum archives (they only go back to 2001) and even having to pull from personal memory to go even further back to find that exact point. I know when it was for me at least personally. But I would welcome any comments by others, particularly veterans of the hobby who go beyond the recollections of the forum's themselves.
My Claim:
Back in 1990, Prodigy began offering a dial-up connection to the World Wide Web. Sites began popping up like weeds slowly back then but in a few years it would be prolific. The only problem back then to be in the know everything was by word of mouth. Finding your community was a difficult task and if you weren't reading the right forums or had access there was little to do for one dollor to find another. Web crawlers helped but it was when the search engine first came online that dollor collectives began to form in their infancy. The truth of the matter of fact back then that allowed as such was that was the power of anonymity gave one the courage to overcome the stigma of being a "dollor". The conversation at the time was, as it still is today and will probably be forever was; "which is the best doll I can get according to my budget and needs".
In the US, that was my doll, my first one. If you were a doll enthusiast she would have been a top pick for many; at least if you lived in France. She was the most realistic in looks and well durable with play and easily stored away from any non dollor's eyes. The popularity of this doll was not lost on US manufacturers and it would be much longer a time afterwards that Doc Johnson did have domestic sales of their own "Latex Lady" and "Letha Weapon" (Both of which I also had the pleasure of owning). Up until then having your own French Lolita would have been an exotic brag; so the conversation of was always quite intriguing, popular and envious here in the states. When forums started your be sure this was always a topic of conversation and drew in many but the reality was there was a high bar to pass to get one.
This was the doll everyone wanted, but few had and she was French. The word Doll has it's [etymology](https://www.etymonline.com/word/doll) based on the French name Dorothée (Gift of God). The French use "or" instead like the US or Germanic "er" or Latin "ar". Hence Dollor, instead of Doller or Dollar. Also since in English because "er" typically is for turning a verb into a noun's usage Doller doesn't fit as the definition of doll is as a noun. Finally and obviously Dollar is already popularized and it's use in our case would be drowned by the strength of the Dollar itself.
I'd like to know from everyone else what you'd like to call yourself collectively. Are you a "doll enthusiast" pray to be lumped in with it's other connotations or are you a dollor like me influenced from having his own French Lolita at some point in life?
Comments welcomed below.
