barbie doll

Confessions of Childhood: My Barbie Was a Floozy

Published on by Kelly Suellentrop

Saturday mornings were strictly reserved for three things at my house when I was growing up. Cereal. Cartoons. And Barbies. In that order. After stuffing our bellies with Rice Krispies and catching up with the “Muppet Babies” and “The Snorks,” my sister and I would retreat to our room for hours of play with America’s beloved doll.

But there is something I feel the need to confess after so many years: my Barbie was a floozy.

barbie doll
All I’m sayin’ is she ain’t dressed for bingo.

That’s right. What is considered by most as an innocent playful pastime for little girls everywhere, I twisted into my own soap opera, complete with torrid love scenes. Or in other words, my Barbie was gettin’ it on. Bow-wichi-wow-wow.

My Barbie had a pink canopy bed. And she put it to good use. Especially since I had scored a hottie Malibu Ken, who had appropriately placed tan lines. I kid you not. My sister, however, couldn’t be as “authentic” when her Barbie and Ken gave way to the throws of passion, as her Ken, of the short-lived Heart Family series, had permanent plastic underwear. She openly lamented that fact many a time.

In order to add a new dimension to our play, Barbie and Ken were never “Barbie and Ken.” We always pretended they were either real life people or characters from shows we liked. For instance, I went through a phase where my Barbie and Ken were “Eden and Cruz” from the old soap opera “Santa Barbara,” while my sister often pretended her Ken was Ricky Schroder or Joey McIntyre. But more often than not, my Barbie was cast as the role of myself, and Ken was whomever I was crushing hard on at the moment. Which brings up another thing I’m not proud to admit: my Barbie was a two-timer.

I get it boys. You both want a piece of me. But you don't have to be so dramatic about it. And understated love song will do just fine.
I get it boys. You both want a piece of me. But you don’t have to be so dramatic about it. An understated love song will do just fine.

At the birth of my Monkees fandom around the age of nine, I went through some seriously conflicted feelings about which Monkee would be my boyfriend. Initially, I declared my heart belonged to Davy Jones, because that’s who I thought I was supposed to like. He was the official heart throb after all, and I dug his accent. But it felt forced from the get-go. Especially since my eyes would inevitably fall longingly upon Micky Dolenz. But Micky was supposed to be the funny one, not the one you married. My head was telling me one thing; my heart was telling me another. I was a pre-pubescent in a fictional love triangle, and it was every bit as emotionally exhausting as Joey Potter made it out to be when she had to choose between Dawson and Pacey on “Dawson’s Creek.”

Enter Barbie relationship therapy. I *may* have used my Barbie to act out these feelings of loving two men at the same time. Thankfully, someone gave my sister Rodeo Ken one year, whom we rarely cast as any leading man because of his unfortunate ball-and-sockett midsection that caused his top half to flail back and forth (a la bull riding), making him look like one of the Night at the Roxbury guys.
So I had the resources to pull this off: two Kens. And more than once, Barbie was officially dating Davy, but was mysteriously drawn to Micky. Inappropriate things *may* have transpired. I’m not proud of it. I finally did the right thing and just declared my undying love for Micky, and I’m happy to say that I (and my Barbie) were faithful from that moment on. I think Davy took it pretty hard. But, hey, he was always singing about wanting to be free like the bluebirds flying by him, like the waves out on the blue sea. My love was tying him. I didn’t want to try him. So I said goodbye.

Now before you start faulting my parents for my make-believe sexual indiscretions, I want you to leave them out of this. It wasn’t their fault. Well, okay. Maybe is was a little bit my mom’s fault for letting us watch her soap operas from the time we were pretty much born. But mom and dad did an a-okay job of raising us. Because while my Barbie was a bit of a promiscuous jezebel, I was anything but. I was practically a nun in real life…except for the whole making Barbie and Ken have sex thing. And having Barbie cheat on Davy Jones. I’m pretty sure nuns don’t do that kind of stuff. While I was obviously curious about sex, which was natural, I was also raised to know that I didn’t have to act on every animal desire I had.

So poor Barbie had to act on them all for me. Or lucky Barbie. Depending on how you look at it.rubiks cube

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55 thoughts on “Confessions of Childhood: My Barbie Was a Floozy”

  1. Love! I really wasn’t sure where you were going with this: because of his unfortunate ball-and-sockett midsection. 😉 But I was still giggling from this: My Barbie had a pink canopy bed. And she put it to good use. …. so it’s all good. And I don’t sense that you’re looking for a partner in crime, but the few times I played with Barbie and Ken, they were abominably oversexed heathens.

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    1. But it’s good to know I could have counted on you to play the fun way. And apparently from where you thought I was going with that ball-and-sockett thing, your Barbie could have taught mine a thing or two.

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  2. OH MY GOSH. This is hilarious! I did the same thing with my stuffed animals. A lot of them were married and some were even dog-vorced (I hate myself for saying that, too).

    Me and my best friend both had Basset Hound stuffed animals, and mine was a boy and hers was a girl (we checked). One time she came over and we tried to fix them up. So we set up this little love den in my bathroom where our laundry basket usually lives, and we hung a blanket from the drawer above that space, and we left them in there to get it on.

    Then we were watching TV and we’d keep making excuses to leave the room and rearrange their positions, and then we’d be like, “LOOK AT THIS!” as if the stuffed animals did it on their own.

    There may have been something wrong with us.

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  3. I am dying…that is so funny! My Barbie may or may not have been a floozy as well…I mean how couldn’t she with those mile high heels, skimpy outfits and curvaceous body? I don’t recall her ever wearing a bra or panties (just sayin’).

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      1. Now I’M blushing. I hold onto my childhood belief that they were innocents adrift in the craziness of California (this despite Michael’s wife and child, and the parties with the Beatles and Frank Zappa, and having Jimi Hendrix open for them on tour…). Don’t shatter my illusions! LOL

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  5. So glad you had caring, (and watchful), parents that could keep you off the streets! 🙂 This was a funny post – enjoyed it. I thought I’d try to give you a little something in return. Hopefully you don’t know about this already. Here’s some Monkee trivia. Guess who invented ‘white out’ (liquid paper)? Answer – a Monkee’s mom!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bette_Nesmith_Graham

    Later Kel……best to stay away from Transformers if you know what’s good for you

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    1. I did know that! It’s a great piece of trivia. To be fair, there probably isn’t much you could tell me about the Monkees that I don’t already know. I’m a bonafide super-fan geek who has 27 years of research behind her. And Transformers…ouch!!!

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      1. Nothing? I can give you nothing? Oh, I do love a challenge Miss Kelly. OK, so as a Monkees fan then you certainly know that Boyce & Hart wrote a lot of their songs, that one’s easy. Did you know that Tommy Boyce committed suicide (at my current age, gulp)? How about he did it while wearing a “Days of our Lives” tee shirt? He was very good friends with Davy Jones but Davy, nor any of the other Monkees attended his service. Davy did send flowers it’s been rumored.

        Did you know all of that?

        When I was a kid watching them on TV, there was a rumor for a time that Peter overdosed on drugs and died (probably by the same guy who rumored Paul McCartney was dead).

        As a true geek, then have you ever watched “Head”? it was a feature film made in ’68…a real doggie, but I liked that it had all kinds of cool folks in it like Frank Zappa, Teri Garr and Anette Funicello. There were also a number of uncredited stars in the film you really have to watch for – Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Toni Basil (oh Mickey you’re so fine….makes you wonder if maybe she was thinking about a Monkee when she sang this…I like to think so)

        Anyway…..try to find Head if you’ve never seen it. If you’re a true Monkee geek, you have to watch that a few times!

        Robbie

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        1. So, you wanna bring the thunder do you? I OWN Head. I can quote it profusely. Jack Nicholson not only appeared in it, but he wrote it after he, Bob Rafelson, and the Monkees spent a weekend in Ojai getting high and recording all the weird psychadelic crap they talked about. Frank Zappa also appeared at the end of one of the Monkees episodes where he dressed as Mike Nesmith, and Nez as him. He also asked Micky to be the drummer for Mothers of Invention, but Micky couldn’t because he was still under contract with The Monkees at the time.

          I did know about Peter being rumored to have overdosed and Tommy Boyce’s unfortunate suicide. So sad. That duo was mad talented. The Monkees had so many great songwriters. Micky payed tribute to Carol King a few years ago by released a cover CD of her music called King for a Day. But if you REALLY want to hear amazing current work by him, check out his CD called “Remember.” It’s phenomenal.

          So you are welcome to keep trying. You may find something to stump me. But I will warn you, I’ve read every book on them, own all the albums and just about all the compilation cds, own the movie and both seasons of the episodes and their horrific television special 33 and 1/3 Revolutions, have seen them in concert six times (which I have blogged about), attended an actual Monkees convention (which I blogged about), and met all four of them. I really wasnt’ lying about the geek stuff. I’m in deep. Way deep. 🙂 Anytime you want to Monkee chat, I am TOTALLY game!

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        2. I thought I would get you on Head…..so I will admit defeat! Sulking away now……tail tucked between my legs (note to self – don’t mess with Kelly’s Monkees)

          I am loving blogging and chatting with bloggers! Thank you! 🙂

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  6. Most of us probably have a similar dirty little Barbie secret! I remember making mine smoke. And like you, I was a saint–we must have got all that angst out with the help of our plastic dolls. Ick. That doesn’t sound so good.

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  7. THE HEART FAMILY. I *completely* forgot about them and now all the memories are flooding back. I am so glad to hear that I wasn’t the only eight-year-old who was making her Barbies get it on. I was a little pervert too.

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      1. Hi….I’m Kelly’s sister that was her Barbie partner in crime! So we had the WHOLE Heart Family! Mom, dad and babies! We had envious friends because of it! 😉

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  8. We were BIG perverts when it came to Barbies! OMG…I hated that darn rodeo Ken so much! He was always the “lame” guy that was trying to win my Barbie (AKA…me) over and she never wanted him. Of course Heart family Ken always won Barbie over (Heart family Ken changed names on a daily basis ranging from Ricky Schroeder, Joey McIntyre and many more). Don’t forget our Barbie and the Rockers too! I had Barbie the rocker herself and you has the quitar player (I think she was Asian wasn’t she??) Those girls had thier fair share of flooze too!. I can even remember bringing Skipper into the triangles too which in wrong on so many levels!! I also remember getting caught by mom one day…she walked in on my Babie and Ken naked in bed together! Talk about AWKWARD!! BUT….we were both pretty much Angels in real life when it came to all that stuff, so I guess a little perverted Barbie playing is all that bad right?? Kelly, I’m sure we could talk for days about all of our Barbie adventures as kids! Loved this!

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    1. See, folks. I do not lie. My sister just backed the whole thing up. And Barbie and the Rockers…they’re so cool their totally in the groove (in the groove!). Man, you really did hate Rodeo Ken. He was always the lame-o guy trying to pick all the girls up. And the “mean girls” were always the Barbies whose heads had come off and we stuck them back on, but they never looked quite right again. They were short-necked.

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  12. I think my Barbies were drunken floozies, because they always ended up in precarious positions, and then stayed that way for hours. Like she just fell asleep on top of him. The perfect position for my parents to see when they stumbled upon our toys. And LOL to your Dawson’s Creek analogy:):)

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  13. I’m sitting at my kid’s swim practice, looking like an idiot ’cause I’m laughing out loud! This was hilarious! I didn’t really play with Barbies but I did take great pleasure in cutting all the hair off of my sister’s Barbies…. I may have had some issues as a child…. I’ve been enjoying your blog, my favorite was when you thought you had conceived by immaculate conception….

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  15. I think Mickey Dolenz was my first crush. Back in 1956/57 he was the main character in a show called “Circus Boy” playing Corky. He was the cutest blonde boy.

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      1. I don’t know…but it makes me want to get rid of my 7 year old’s barbies!! hahaha! She isn’t that interested in them yet though. If there is a sudden interest in a couple of years, I might get worried!

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  19. One of my cousins (who’s in her late 20s now) had all of the New Kids on the Block Dolls. She would have wedding ceremonies where they married her Barbies. At the time, she thought that pregnancy happened when you got married and the priest said it was OK. And then ta-dah!

    So a certain amount of soap opera watching might’ve helped.

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