PATHOLOGY OF COLLECTING

Baudrillard's text certainly explores a lot of thought provoking ideas about this "cultures of collecting".
After seeing this quite disturbing video on youtube (link below) I can take a lot from Baudrillards text and apply it to this video.  The video shows a man's vast collection of female sex dolls.  It is clear from the number of dolls, that his obsession with the collection has been ongoing for some years.  What seems most disturbing for me about the collection is his profound care and dedication for these dolls.  Laid in beds and in human coffins, he seems to treat these dolls like real life humans.  Baudrillard's interestingly says that it is men in their forties that seem 'most prone to the passion' , although this man is older its very likely that he started around this time.

"The practice of collecting is not equivalent to a sexual practice, in so far as it does not seek to still a desire (as does fetishism)"

This quote from Baudrillard's text seems to have a direct correlation to that of the man in the video.  As he states in the video he does not have any sexual pleasure out of the dolls, they are purely an obsession of his to collect them.  However it is not to say that it could be fetishism, a secret desire, that he hides under the bravado of a collection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUQuunoudz