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Last month, a federal judge ruled that Utah artist Tom Forsythe has the right to photograph Barbie dolls in suggestive poses. Mattel had sued Forsythe, but the judge ruled that Forsythe's free speech rights outweigh the company's trademarks and intellectual property rights to Barbie. We at Nerve found this lawsuit quite ironic — after all, Barbie's existential purpose is to pose suggestively. Below, some editors relate their childhood moments with Barbie that could get us all sued.
Barbies were a huge part of my childhood, being the youngest of three daughters. The Baumgardner Barbies led trashy, elaborate lives that rivaled any daytime soap opera: my sister Jennifer even performed abortions on hers with tiny pieces of wire.
But the real perversions didn't begin until I was in seventh or eighth grade. I know, I know — too old to be playing with dollies. My best friends, Kristi and Adrienne, and I harbored a Barbie addiction we kept secret from the rest of our friends — it was too embarrassing. Every day after school, we would go to Kristi's house, and half-heartedly pretend to watch Heathcliff or play "Hungry, Hungry Hippos" before one of us would cryptically whisper, "Do you wanna go play bananas?" (our code word for the goddess). Oh yes. We'd run to the Barbie room at the top of the stairs, lock the door, pull the curtains and begin our voodoo-like rituals. Being on the cusp of serious teenhood, we knew that these Barbies were capable of more than just high tea with Ken. My Barbie was always torn between megalomania and nymphomania — she'd obsess over her outfit for an hour, only to have Ken earnestly take it off in the first thirty seconds of their date. Kristi's Barbie wasn't into Ken at all — she only had eyes for her muscled stallion, a tan plastic horse that she would dreamily ride for hours. Adrienne, the most aggressive of our clan, would get straight to the fucking. She would send Barbie and Ken directly to the backseat of the little red Corvette, where Adrienne would slap their hard, awkward bodies together like mechanical pistons. We knew we were too old to be playing with dolls, but somehow this didn't really feel like child's play. — Jessica Baumgardner
I can't remember doing anything kinky with Barbie, but I was fascinated by her freaky younger sister, who I think was called Growing-Up Skipper. Skipper had an arm that when turned, transformed her from a skinny, flat-chested piece of smiling plastic into a taller, rigid piece of plastic with a waist and two terrifying pontoons sticking out of her chest. It didn't give me the best impression of adolescence; then again, it wasn't too far off the mark. — Emily Nussbaum
Barbie Fantasy #2, Circa 1983
[The scene: Barbie's abode, a.k.a. my bedroom] Barbie lays out her gown for that evening's benefit gala for the preservation of the jungles of Africa. It's a very elegant, body-conscious little number: classic black-and-maroon horizontal stripes, shimmering fabric, long tight sleeves, narrow hem to the floor, a rather saucy slit, a high respectable neck and a low scooping back. As Barbie begins to dress, she decides to defy convention and puts the gown on backwards — the tart! The bold move reveals a healthy portion of her even healthier bosom, as the new neckline strains toward her navel and perches precariously on the precipice of her imaginary nipples. Her make-up already permanent and perfect, she has only to give her long, flowing, soft, golden tresses a quick brush and she's ready to go.
But before she can make it off the steps of her private cabana [the bunk bed] on her way to the nearby mansion for the gala, a beastly savage, not unlike Tarzan, suddenly comes swinging by vine [white string] from out of the jungle's thick overhang of branches and leaves and snatches up our helpless Barbie in one fell swoop. In an instant, they are gone without a trace, save for the sexy high heel pumps still planted in the place she was last standing.
[Cut to Ken's lair, a.k.a. the bathroom] The beast-man carries his new bride's limp body to the two ponds [sinks] by the vast ocean [bathtub] he calls home. He lays her down gently on a bed of soft plants and moss [hand towel], and goes off to procure some fresh mangoes to rejuvenate her. During his absence, she awakens. Confused and scared, she decides the best course of action is to get naked and go for a dip in one of the pools — to relax, naturally. Soon, the primitive Ken returns, but stays hidden in the foliage so as to spy on his Barbie, drinking in her beauty as she bathes unaware. His mangoes hit the ground. She's taken aback, and quickly seeks refuge on the far side of the small pond. Her probity keeps her from leaving the water and attempting escape. The lustful yet sensitive monkeyman advances — slowly, oh so slowly. The sexual tension builds as he enters the warm water, getting deeper and deeper, closer and closer, until he is upon her. But somehow, during his torturously snail-paced approach, she has been assured by his sparkling blue eyes and his warm hint of a smile that he will not harm her, but love her forever.
They touch. They kiss. And so begins a lifetime [afternoon] of ambiguous sexual fumblings. They swing from vines naked. They swim in the deep ocean naked. They lay on the moss naked. They lie on top of each other naked. And not much else. For in this world of elementary fantasy, nakedness is
naughty enough. — Lorelei Sharkey
Being a child of the '70s and the daughter of university professors, I was raised under strict feminist edicts banning dolls of any kind from the house, Barbie being at the top of the hit list. My bedroom was filled with "gender neutral" model horses and fuzzy stuffed animals. While my cuddly harp seal, Nudgie, and my stiff and noble thoroughbred, Storm, were fun up to a point, they did little to satiate my desire to mix and match tennis skirts with a bridal veil and bandeau bikini top. To get my fix, I remember sneaking over to my friend Rochelle's house. Her parents were divorced and her dad always bought her the latest Barbie accessories. Each afternoon, we would trot innocently past Rochelle's mom who would wave vaguely at us from the chair where she sat in her silk bathrobe, sipping "water" out of a rocks glass and watching The Young and the Restless. Rochelle always wanted Barbie and Ken to get naked and have rough sex, which always seemed so misguided to me. Why would you ever want to undress Barbie when she had all those great outfits? — Isabella Robertson
I grew up in England, where Barbie had a competitor — Sindy, a doll with a serious expression, a thicker waist, smaller boobs and flat feet. (They call that competition?) Ken, too, had a rival: Action Man, an action figure who sports a fuzzy buzz-cut and wears only camo (he'll pass on the white tux, thank you very much).
On weekdays, when my sisters and I were not blessed with male company, our Barbies and Sindys occupied themselves with girly pursuits — redecorating the house, getting their hair done, trading bras and giggling at the way Barbie busted all the clasps on Sindy's B-cup affair. Sindy didn't have an official male counterpart and we owned Ken, but no Action Men, so only Barbie got laid on a regular basis. Sindy's husband was always "away on business" or, more mysteriously, simply "Chinese." On weekends, however, they all got to visit the Action Men, who resided with our boy cousins in Watford, just north of London. There was always a war being waged in Watford, and the Sindys rubbed dirt on their faces and fought valiantly alongside their Action Men. Barbie, meanwhile, was banned from the war due to her perma-grin ("not appropriate for war," according to the Action Men) and her arched feet (built for stilettos, not shit-kickers). Ken was tied up in his plastic underwear and strung from the bunk beds — he was also considered "not appropriate for war." At night, when the fighting died down, the Sindys and Action Men shared one massive double bed, while Barbie and Ken were forced to sleep in separate rooms. If my cousins were in a magnanimous mood, Barbie was permitted to "take notes." All this was heartening because it taught me that not every man would trade in his best girl buddy for a big-titted bimbo after a hard day in the killing fields. — Emma Taylor
I have no doubt that Barbie made me gay, but I take no responsibility: my stepsister made me do it. Ann was a rowdy girl, and her bossiness lessened the taboo of playing with dolls. Visiting my father and my new stepfamily every other weekend on their farm became an escape for me — from home, from my mother's rules and from the stigma of playing with girl toys.
When Ann and I played Barbie, we enacted the requisite this-is-how-Barbie-and-Ken-make-babies scene, but it didn't thrill me. And though I took good notice of Ken's flesh-colored briefs (which, in being attached to his skin, were somehow both practical and superfluous), I don't recall being titillated by them, either. What sticks with me are the clothes. Without them, Barbie and Ken were pretty boring, just bumpy pieces of plastic. But the clothes provided instant transformation: Malibu Barbie became Princess Barbie became Eskimo Barbie became Indian Barbie. My favorite incarnation was Disco Barbie, with her magenta boa, shiny off-the-shoulder blouse and lavender hip-huggers like Olivia Newton-John wore on the cover of her Greatest Hits, Part II album. I was also fascinated with Barbie's tiny pink high heels; plastic and pliable, they couldn't quite support the fierceness of her outfit (time for Manolos, Barb).
Later, back in my own bedroom, I reenacted the glamourfest with what materials were at hand. Using my Princess Leia doll as a model (more socially acceptable, but smaller and less gratifying in phallic terms), I created ball gowns out of tissue paper and yarn that were worthy of Charles James. One moment, Princess Leia was a Cloud City prisoner in a utilitarian mauve pantsuit; the next, a vision as regal as Audrey Hepburn on the box of War & Peace.
Though I didn't become a fashion designer (my numerous requests to learn to sew were always rebuffed), my fascination with the style machine only grew. Later, as a teenage foreign exchange student living in Japan, an obsession with Linda Evangelista gripped me hard, and embarrassingly, and still hasn't let go (stacks of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar still litter my floor). What Barbie (and Princess Leia and Linda) taught a gay boy growing up in the Midwest with no outlets for sexual expression was that glamour and beauty and the escape that they implied were as much the products of resourcefulness and inspiration as they were the result of physical attributes. If an inert plastic doll could become a globe-trotting Glamazon with a trophy boy on her arm and a Malibu Dream House to call her own, couldn't I? — Chris Schmidt
Barbie's tits were big, gravity-resistant and slippery. It seemed that no dress in my friend Susie's Barbie closet could hold itself up, and that meant a lot of embarrassment for Barbie when she went out on the town. Susie and I decided that if Ken saw Barbie's nippleless chest, they would be driven to make sweet love immediately, no matter where they were. On the way to the movies in the Barbiemobile, on the doorstep of Barbie's Dream House, horseback riding together on the romantic beach of Susie's bedroom floor — it didn't matter, they just had to do it. And if they had sex, we felt they'd have to get married, so we always staged a wedding shortly thereafter. During which the wedding dress would always slip off Barbie's shoulders and the circle of life would begin again. — Debbie Grossman
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© 2001 Nerve.com, Inc.
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