MODEL MOSESTY

I suffer from what can be classified as a specific phobia - a phobia of an object that is normally harmless to almost everyone else in the world.

Mannequins are, as I accept when I'm fully lucid, not dangerous. But as a pediophobe, rationality goes out the window when you are confronted by your fear.

When faced with a shop dummy, I sweat furiously and my heart races. I feel panicky and sick. While there's no chance of a Rise of the Machines-style uprising from the mannequins, it doesn't feel like that at the time.

Even thinking about them, and writing about them, sets me on edge.

I have a ranking of degrees of horror when it comes to mannequins. Headless mannequins are the worse - the most horrifying by far - along with mannequins that look metal (machine mannequins). These are followed by those with no faces, those with frightening faces and those with no lower bodies or no clothes on.