Beginning at 2 this afternoon,* TLC runs an all-day block of My Strange Addiction, the reality show about people with disturbingly weird habits. And so, viewers learn about folks who eat deodorant, smell mothballs or bathe in bleach, among many strange addictions featured today. But the hour-long Season 6 premiere episode at 7 p.m.* has a local twist, as “Men in Doll Suits” follows “Robert,” a Newport Beach land developer who spends his off hours slipping into a rubber suit and mask to become his alter-ego, “Sherry.”
*Pacific Time per TLC; my TV grid has the marathon beginning at 11 a.m. and “Men in Doll Suits” at 4 p.m. Check your system's listings.
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“She's all mine,” Robert/Sherry tells his/her jealous interviewer as his/her rubber mask stares into the mirror.
“Men who get dolled up in secret are stepping out in public for the first time at rubber doll rendezvous,” reads the “Men in Doll Suits” teaser. “This is an insider's look into the world of female maskers: men who dress in rubber suits and masks to look like life-sized, shapely female dolls.”
Speaking of teasers, here is the trailer:
Robert (not his real name) recently told The Daily Beast he is 71, lives with his 19-year-old daughter and began cross-dressing when he was 16. But he hated the way he looked until seven years ago, when he plopped down $1,800 for “FemSkin,” a rubber suit of skin that a family business in Florida (where else?) ships around the world.
It was a “life-changing” event wearing the skin for the first time, reports Robert, who does note his daughter has taken a don't ask/don't tell approach to her transparent's hobby. Sherry likes to take selfies in her courtyard and float topless in her macaroni-shaped pool. “Men in Doll Suits” builds up to her first trip out of her mansion and into Robert's familiar Newport Beach haunts, where at least one observer remarks, “She's beautiful.”
Let the guessing game begin as to which BIA OC member this is.
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.