Happy birthday, Barbie

Warning: contains full frontal doll nudity.

Yeah, so Barbie turned 50. Whoop-de-fricking-do. She gives new meaning to the term ‘plastic surgery.’ Because if it is possible to inflate it, enhance it, nip it, or tuck it? Yeah, she's done it all.

The truth is, Barbie is one unhappy doll. It's glaringly obvious to even the most amateur of armchair psychologists (of which I am not one, thank you very much. I have professional training). Her identity issues are painfully apparent: constantly changing hair and eye colors; enormous and varying wardrobe; career-hopping; relationship cut-offs; and lately the ever-changable tattoos.

There's no stability. She can't settle. She's desperately trying to fill that empty void within. And you know why, don't you? Because girlfriend thinks she needs a man to be complete, and that's not going to happen.

"Oh, but AJ! Barbie has Ken!"

Yeah, right. Aside from that faulty codependent logic which is governing her every move (and apparently yours), have you ever taken a good look at Ken?



No. I mean, a really good look.



Because there's nothing there.

Nothing. Zip. Nada. Just a hint of a bulge and some flesh-toned briefs.

And that's no way to live. Because let's face it, as sad and desperate as Barbie obviously is, it's Ken who has had to bear the brunt of this shameful condition (inflicted upon him by none other than the sadists at Mattel, I might add).

At first, it wasn't so bad. The earliest Kens were pathetic, but pathetic in a Charles Atlas Skinny Guy-who-always-got-sand-kicked-in-his-face way.



You could almost believe there was hope for him, until you focused in on that haunted look in his eyes.



He knew.

He's always known.

Over the years he's grown out his hair and put a little meat on his bones.



But something was always missing. And he was clearly starting to get pissed about it (so to speak).



Sure, yeah, despite that initial haunted awareness Ken was content to let things hang. But with Barbie absent so often on the cruise ship, Ken began commiserating with his friend GI Joe. And GI Joe clearly recognized the horror of their mutual agony:



So that's when things started to change for Ken (just like they changed for Adam in the Garden of Eden. Except there was no snake involved this time).

Ken became ashamed. Modesty became an obsession. First came the flesh-tone briefs. Occasionally, he donned plastic tighty-whiteys. Anything, anything to hide the lack.



Sadly, pathology set in and he went to extreme measures.



And then there were the times when he gave up completely and explored other dimensions.





So whither Ken?

In this new era of the audacity of hope, when Dora the Explorer can emerge from puberty looking hot-to-trot and reinvigorate her sales, well, it is not outside the realm of possiblity to imagine that anatomical correctness can happen for Ken. It would mean a little happiness for Barbie (and perhaps when the glow wears off and her angst remains it will force insight, self-awareness, and personal growth).

Certainly it would mean the relief of a lifetime of shame for Ken.

So write to Mattel. Write to them today. Let them know you support The Campaign for Anatomical Correctness. Because vinyl gonads are a terrible thing to waste.

And yeah, happy birthday Barbie.

No, these photos are not from my personal Ken collection. Most are from eBay auctions, used for illustrative purposes. And then there is this one, from the journal Healthhabits, which really ought to strike fear into my male readers'...whatever.

This entry is dedicated to that one mod who is at the top of my List.