Unique Obsession: Still Bodies

I have to admit I have a unique obsession. No, nothing cheesie. I'm not obsessed with love, men, sexuality, dark chocolate, or even the willows on a rainy day. I have another, perhaps embarassing obsession: mannequins.

I can't say they turn my gears or get my forehead sweating, but something about their exotic poses, their simplistic blank faces, and their emphatic and angular poses makes me feel a kind of curiosity I can only be ashamed of.

White mannequins, tan mannequins, and black mannequins: each have their own unique gifts. If they are buxom broads, I want to sneak up behind them and slide my fingers up through their thin, silk undergarments. If they're chiseled men, I want to rasp the back of my fingernails against their washboard stomach.

And I thought I was the only one. I was wrong:

PONTIAC, Mich. Jan 25, 2007 (AP)— A man who acknowledged a sexual fetish for female-shaped mannequins was sentenced Thursday to more than a year in prison after repeatedly breaking into storefront windows.

Ronald Dotson, 39, of Detroit, was sentenced to 18 months to 30 years on charges of breaking and entering and being a habitual criminal.

He was arrested in October after police in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak spotted him near a smashed storefront window containing a mannequin wearing a French maid outfit.

The arrest came less than a week after he had been paroled for his sixth breaking-and-entering conviction in 13 years.

Some of the previous cases also involved mannequins. Police once found him in an alley behind a women's clothing store with three mannequins dressed in lingerie.

"I've never been able to take care of myself," Dotson told Judge Denise Langford Morris at sentencing.

Morris acknowledged that Dotson had never assaulted a person but said his behavior "strikes fear in the community."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Turth be told, I feel sorry for the boy. He was only guilty of one thing: not being able to control the same desire we all have, the desire to be able to openly endulge in our friends bodies. Do we not all, somewhere deep inside, want to touch those we choose to be around?

Have you never thought of touching your boss's legs, sleeping on the same couch as your best friend, giving that confidant a deep tissue, full body massage? I have. Everyday.

While I'm walking through the mall, I'll purposely step closer to the mannequins, trying to convince myself that this time I'll reach out and endulge. The thing is, I'm afraid of what people will think if they see my warm hand, grasping or pulsing on the mysteriously fake material.

What will they think when they see me feeling the statue and feeling the tingle of eros? I know exactly what to expect: they'll point their fingers, laugh, and yell. They'll scream and shout, cause havoc; hell, they'll do anything loud enough to stifle their own inner voices which whisper in their ease to join me in my fantasy.

They'd rather see the police dragging me away from their own fantasy, than suck it up and cop a feel of their own. You know they want to. You know you want to.