Postcard from Freud (Larger Image)

The postcard reads:

Dear Sir

Thank you so much for your kind wishes. I am recovering slowly.

Yours sincerely

(Illegible). Freud

It was written in reply to a letter by my father soon after Freud moved to London in 1938. My father, then a just-resigned minister of the Baptist church, wrote to Freud to counter some press criticism and to welcome him to Britain. (One newspaper headline read His Influence is Dangerous.) My father’s letter, which is held by the Freud Museum in London, concludes with the hope that Freud’s health is continuing to improve. However, Freud died in September 1939.

What would Freud think of Realdolls? I am not a student of Freud, but the construction of mannequins, including those built for sexual purposes, has a long history. Freud was presumably aware of that.