Monday, March 9, 2009

The Birds and the Bees - Part 2

Since today is Barbie’s birthday, revealing her role in my sex education seems appropriate.

When I was a kid, I loved playing with my Barbie doll. She was a star as I acted out, puppet fashion, every book or movie that caught my fancy. I couldn’t sew, but I’d cut out fabric to make the costumes she needed for a given role, then bind them together with scotch tape and staples. They weren’t very durable, but my attention span was as short then as it is now, so they didn’t need to be.

I often played with Vicky, who lived across the street. One day we were in the log cabin playhouse my dad had built for us kids in our backyard when she asked me if I knew where babies came from.

“From your mom’s belly,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Yeah, but how does it get in there?”

Since it was still four years before Reverend Puff would bring his magic record into school, I had to admit ignorance.

“I can show you,” she said, “but we’ll need some stuff.”

We set off down the alley behind my house, searching the neighbors’ trashcans until we found a discarded aerosol can of Lilt home permanent solution and one of Barbasol.

She hefted the almost empty can in her hand. “This should do it.”

Back at the cabin, we stripped off Barbie and Ken’s clothes. Vicky applied the Lilt to Barbie’s groin area and the Barbasol to Ken’s. Then she rubbed them together.

“And when the shaving cream mixes up with the Lilt,” she said, “that’s when you get pregnant.”

This is how screwed up things were at my house: my mom overheard this conversation, and did nothing to correct this misconception.

For the next few weeks, my Barbie sported a wad of cotton beneath her blouse.

Just as I was beginning to grow bored with the restrictions pregnancy was placing on my leading lady, I overheard my mom and one of my aunts talking about a woman who’d had a miscarriage.
I looked up from my blooming Barbie.

“What’s a miscarriage?” I asked, and got the standard response.

“Go look it up.”

A week later, after a trip to the library, my Barbie was once again svelte.

“I thought your Barbie was having a baby?” Mom said.

“She had an abortion.”

(There are a lot of morals you can construe from this, but the chief one is: Don’t put life-and-death decisions in the hands of fourth-graders.)

26 comments:

  1. My Ken and Barbie doll also got a lot action.

    Love the line "go look it up". I might have to use it, but maybe I'll supervise some of the research.

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  2. I loved Barbie!!! My grandmother made a box of clothes for her for Christmas one year and I still have them. I still have my Barbie and my Ken. They would be worth a lot of money if they weren't so used looking. And of course, I cut poor Barbie's hair and she now sports a "bubble cut" wig!!!

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  3. So all babies do not come from Barbie and Ken?

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  4. I never had the dolls, but eventually got Crissy and Velvet; which we will not even go there...so I never had the visual instruction until much later in married life, lol

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  5. Barbie- Checked out my sister's Barbie when I was about seven- no equipement, just a smooth plastic groin...

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  6. if shaving cream gets you pregnant then i'm having octuplets

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  7. My Barbie got a pre-brazilian application of black mascara to her crotch. Then things greally got hot!

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  8. Barbie figured in my formative years too. Shocked me when I found out Ken was not anatomically correct.

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  9. For Ella, Yes I wish they had the fine point sharpies back then too.

    From the guys point of view, when we were 11, My friend Robert and I lured my little sister and her friends out to the old garage for a surprise party for Barbie. Of course, the doll had been disrobed and was hanging from the rafter with a really cool noose around her neck. Love those legendary stories!

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  10. Ohhhhhh how I WISH you'd kept this post going for one more line of dialogue!! Or a reaction, from the parental units. I can only imagine.

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  11. That's hilarious.
    I played Barbies pretty much non-stop from about 7 to 12. It died an ugly and confusing death at 13 when I seemed to lose concentration...
    Pearl

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  12. My Barbie and Ken liked dry humping...a lot.

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  13. If I ever thought of telling Kate to "go look it up", you've thankfully diverted that bad decision ...

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  14. Did I dream it, or is it true that there is soon to be anew pregnant Barbie on the market?

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  15. oh sweet JESUS that was SO goddamn funny.


    ROFLMAO- and that is NO small feat.

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  16. okay, I am still laughing here.....

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  17. @Vodka - well why wouldn't you be? Your 2 comments both came in the same minute (1:59). People that are laughing, and then suddenly stoic seconds later are the kind you have to watch from the corner of your eye.

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  18. BTW, my "action figures" never had any sexual partners, only enemies that needed to be killed with firecrackers or a magnifying glass.

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  19. LOL..You had quite the sex education..being a Farm kid ..we got the main idea well before our city friends. My Mother just kept telling me I needed to be older to discuss sex..when I got older..she still was not able to say the words Penis or vagina out loud:)

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  20. HA! I LOVE it. I played with my Barbies in much the same way, except I usually didn't have much need for Ken. He usually sat at home to watch over the malibu mansion or drove the car while Barbie and Kelley went out on dates or did each other's hair in Barbie's beauty salon.
    ...And my parents were "shocked" to find out I was gay.

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  21. My mother told me NOTHING. Sometimes I still think babies come from belly buttons.

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  22. Have you seen the Barbie Cougar video? I may have to post it.

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  23. Yeah, "go look it up" had a whole different vibe when we were kids. There was only so much trouble we could find at the library.

    I was never allowed to have a Ken doll. Had to steal my bother's GI Joe. I don't think Barbie liked the whiskers much.

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  24. Loved this post... Better to have sex ed early on than leave it up to Barbie and Ken.

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  25. This series of postings has been such a hoot! Priceless!

    And I think your lookielikies are all gorgeous - You should have been in the movies!

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  26. I read this again and had another good chuckle!

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