Okay...so I'm stretching it a bit...like everyone else isn't...
Posted on 12/19/2002 5:04:03 PM PST by hoppity
Toying with maturity
By Jim Sollisch
http://www.jewishworldreview.com | I went shopping for a gift for my seven-year old niece. I was thinking about an art and craft kit or a book. You know, something wholesome.
The book section of the toy store is way in the back, which means that any kid who wants to find it has to pass through the seven circles of temptation in order to get there. I made it as far as the Barbie section.
It's been a long time since I looked at a Barbie. I have to admit I looked pretty hard at several Barbies. It was difficult to avoid those pouty lips, low-rise pants and exposed belly buttons. For a minute I considered putting a dollar bill in one of Lingerie Barbie's thigh-high stockings. Then I noticed a mother gently guiding her daughter away from me, and I quickly moved on to the Easy Bake Ovens.
Lingerie Barbie? Why not just call her Stripper Barbie? Who are these dolls for? Certainly not seven-year old girls.
These Barbies could be sold in adult sex shops. They could be used as marital aids for couples suffering from "problems." These are not dolls -- -they're plastic Victoria's Secret models. What kind of sickie wants his or her daughter or niece to play with lingerie? Lingerie is something you play with?
Well, you know, not when you're seven. It's bad enough that Abercrombie and Fitch is marketing thong underwear to 11-year old girls. But if you're actually considering buying Lingerie Barbie for your seven-year old, I think you have to ask yourself a question, "Am I out of my mind?"
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Barbie was introduced at the American Toy Fair in New York City in February of 1959 by Ruth and Elliot Handler, founders of Mattel Toys. Ruth originally thought of the idea while her daughter, Barbara, was playing with paper dolls. She realized that as her daughter grew older and began to imitate adult conversations and the world around her, she needed a three-dimensional representation of it as well. She shared her idea of a doll with a woman's figure with her husband and the all-male executive team at Mattel, but they refused saying that it would be too expensive to produce and the retail price would have to be higher than the consumer would pay. She again approached them with the idea after returning from a trip to Europe with a Lilli doll, a German doll produced in the mid- fifties. Lilli, however, was modeled after a sultry, almost pornographic caricature in a German comic strip; she was a far cry from the innocent, all-American image Ruth wanted to capture, and it was Mattel's job to change that. Several trips to and from Japan finally ended with a deal that changed the pursed lips, widow's peak, and heavy make-up of Lilli into an embodiment of the quintessential American teenager, created to "project every little girl's dream of the future"(Billy Boy 22).
Okay...so I'm stretching it a bit...like everyone else isn't...
Well, she's not wearing a thong, YET. LOL
Seems that this description was used by the promoters of the latest lingerie doll. Words do matter. Perhaps no one knows it today, but the "Merry Widow" was an early 1900s term for a slut.
The only difference between the Merry Widow and a prostitute was that the Widow gave it up for free.
Aunt Bea may have been a bitch, but there is no way that she was a slut.
(No, really, I quit.)
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