Claiming my Inner Bitch

Barbie Bitching

Through Creative Destruction today, I found Molly Saves the Day. Molly hasn't gotten much up there recently, life's been hectic, but what she has is of the highest feminist quality, as evidenced by her Barbie post.

Barbie's been on my mind a lot lately. Yesterday, I added an 'Barbie laying in bed' photo to my sidebar on No Ordinary Princess, as the "header" for my "fun" links list. I loved my Barbies when I was a kid. I played with them until I was (shhh...this is a secret) fourteen years old. Yes, 14. One short year before I read Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But were Afraid to Ask and I first touched myself intentionally and my life changed forever, for the better. At least I knew my recently-abandoned Barbie play didn't mean I was a nut case or a perv.

You see, my Barbie was a liberated woman...in some ways. Yes, she had a career. I couldn't tell you now what it was but it was lucrative and glamorous, though not lucrative enough to afford the pink Barbie convertible. She was not married as she didn't feel it was necessary. But she had a long-term, torrid relationship with Ken. You know, Ken...of the questionable genitalia? No wonder their sex games took a somewhat "violent" turn.

You see, my Barbie liked to be tied up. Tied up and ravished, to be exact. Ken, shriveled genitalia and all, was only too happy to oblige to the best of his stumpy ability. So Barbie and Ken drove (figuratively, if not literally...she was carless, remember?) off to exotic, remote locales (behind the sofa, under the bed) where Ken would (with Barbie's permission and Ken's solemn commitment to obey the "safe word") proceed to fulfill their bondage fantasies until they were both satiated. I did all this before reading Dr. Reuben's book. Imagine the twists and turns my imagination took after my 'sex education!'

I sometimes wonder how things might have been altered if I'd had the insight, cretivity or foresight to bring Midge into the mix. : )

As background, I should explain that there was tremendous, lasting psychological damage done me during the Christmas of my 6th year. I lament to this day the paths I might have taken in science, academia, politics, law if I'd only been given that damned science kit! Instead, I got the doll and cradle. Like I really wanted a doll and cradle. I wanted to build things. I wanted to take things apart and understand how they worked. I may not have been as interested in putting them back together, functioning. I was forever getting into trouble for creating "science experiments" in the bathroom sink.

This is the fallout, Mom and Dad. I coulda been a scientist. I coulda been somebody. ; ) <--please note large wink...I really already know I am somebody. When I was five, my parents created a magical Christmas. We had the platform set up with the trains and village. The tree was center stage, festooned in 9-watt lights, twirling ornaments and tinsel made from lead. (I used to love making things from the lead tinsel after Christmas was over and the tree was being dismantled...birds' nests with tiny, silver eggs, lead tinsel people, lead tinsel animals. This may explain a lot of my subsequent behavior.) We awoke at some ungodly hour Christmas morning and the world was transformed into heaven overnight. Dad must have had a good year, making union rate.

I really can't remember any of the other gifts from that Christmas. My family is notoriously overextravagant at the holidays. What sticks in my mind was getting a doll and a little cradle to keep her in...and my brother (three years older) getting a science kit! It was the most magical thing I'd ever seen. All those times I'd been forced to clean my baby powder/water/Vasoline concoctions from the bathroom sink would be worth it if I could just get one of them. Or if I could be able to play with this one. I lusted after that science kit in a way I would not lust after anything for over a decade to come.

Of course, the science kit was strictly verboden! It's tough, when you're five, to broker a deal with your 8 year-old brother when all you have to offer in trade is a doll and cradle. Not even a decent aggie. Not even a penknife.

I think that science kit still graces the dusty hallows of my parents' attic crawl space. I bet my brother never did more than one or two of the experiments. Meanwhile, I toiled over the sink on a regular basis, Ajax cleanser in hand, cleaning up the remains of my childish and amateur efforts.

I found other things to lust after...love, sex, knowledge, experience... but nothing has ever substituted for that science kit, my first, great loss. Is it any wonder I wanted my Barbie to be a sub? After all, isn't that what I was taught all my life. (Wow, where'd that come from?)

I don't play with Barbies anymore. Really, I don't. I still have them all, though, tucked away in a Rubbermaid (tm) container in my storage unit along with my Chatty Cathy. Now I prefer to play with real humans rather than plastic ones. I've never played, in real life, the games Babrie and Ken played under my sheets when I was a kid. I've sometimes wondered if I should or could or would ever dare. Mostly, I don't think I've ever come to trust anyone enough. And, frankly, I'm not sure I really want to put that much of myself in someone else's hands. But I do get a lot of enjoyment from soft porn bondage.


All this, from dolls and cradles and a lamented science kit.


Technorati tags: adolescence / bitchy / bondage / feminism / growing up / life / men / self-awareness / sex / sexism / sexuality / women

posted by Cheryl @ 3:50 PM