I played with Barbie and her friends for way too long. I'll just come right out there and admit that. At the end of our Barbie careers, my partner in crime and I would spend hours just putting together these elaborate Barbie houses based on bandanas as carpets, beds, and furniture - carefully placed across our bedroom floors. We had tons of bandanas in all colors and patterns.
The older we got, the more time we spent just making their houses and the less time we took to actually play with them, but we still put in a lot of Barbie play time in through our childhood and early adolescents. I used to want a shit ton of kids back in the day, and so my Barbies always had 7 kids (like the Von Trapp family) or 8 (like Just the Ten of Us). My kids would be a mix of Skipper dolls, She-Ra dolls, and those little plastic Cabbage Patch figurines. My BFF didn't really want kids back then - or wanted to adopt (1 boy and 1 girl of course), and that's what her Barbies did.
So, my point is we did all the things with Barbies that everyone supposes little girls do...dating, marriages, pregnancies, babies, divorces, interior decorating, dressing them up, and doing their hair...But, they also had a whole lot of sex. They had to have sex if they wanted to get pregnant and have 7 kids, right?
I bring this up because a woman I know recently admitted with some embarrassment that she had a "wild imagination" while playing Barbies as a kid. She thought it was really weird. I guess I have no shame or something, but I never thought making your barbies do it seemed that weird, and I figured most gals played that way. I know everyone I played with did.
It's hard for me to remember exactly how they had sex, and I'm not sure what I completely understood at those times in my life. I know that it was a fun part of the Barbie playing experience, and it was as standard a part of the play as having babies and going on dates. I know they got naked and rubbed against each other. Probably "sex" sounds were made. I believe there were times they got a little more creative with some kissing all over the body and such, but I don't have a lot of specific memories anymore.
I think it's interesting. I don't have any particular deep important insights from this, but I think this kind of play for girls is probably quite common, and has to both reflect to some degree how we, as little girls, came to understand sex and also must influence our future feelings about sex - at least a little.
So, that said, what, pray tell, did your nasty little Barbies (and Kens) do?
My friend and I did this. We would watch soft core porn and then reenact it with the barbies. I have to admit, I wasn't as into it as she was. I remember her correcting my play so that it was more like what she saw in porn. I guess I didn't quite get it. That would have been age 11-12.
ReplyDeleteHa, nice! Was that soft core porn your Barbies reenacted the kind caught late, late at night on Skinemax?
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