T O D A Y

What's it all about, Barbie?
Introducing Salon's special Barbie supplement

Banned in Vermont
Birkenstock moms savage the bodacious blonde

The Littlest Harlot
Tracy Quan explains why Barbie is a role model for hookers

My Barbie, Myself
Camille Paglia, Cintra Wilson and others recall intimate Barbie moments

The skinny on Barbie
Fun Facts about America's doll wonder!

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T A B L E++T A L K

What is the truth about giving birth? Does it hurt like hell? Share your pain in Table Talk.

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R E C E N T L Y

"Just because I'm HIV-positive, can't I bear children?
By Lori Leibovich
Should a 38-year-old, HIV-positive ex-drug addict have a baby? Patti Radigan thought so -- and a pioneering San Francisco clinic agreed to help her
(11/25/97)

Reluctant role model
By Susan McCarthy
My classmates wanted to hear how easy it is to combine kids and graduate school
(11/24/97)

Coyote dreams
By Cynthia Romanov
Peter Coyote rescued me from a miserable divorce
(11/21/97)

Cujo's bite is worse than his bark
By Anne Lamott
The main pleasure in owning a pit bull is in detonating a sense of fear in your neighbors
(11/20/97)

Escape from parenting
By Ariel Gore
New York City turns a responsible mama into a reckless adolescent
(11/19/97)

Toying with us
By Albert Mobilio
Dissecting kids' lust for loot
(11/18/97)

ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

BY CINTRA WILSON | Barbie is no unconscious sexual icon to children. We were totally hip to what a smut-primed rack she had. The first thing any of us would do around a GI Joe would be to peel his camo fatigues off and have Barbie stare at the mound of brown plastic where his command unit was supposed to be. Then we'd strip Barbie real slow, replete with dialogue like, "Take off your tu-tu, Barbie," in a lecherous baritone.

"Oh, no, I can't!" she would twitter, porn-thirstily.

Something violent would happen; Joe would have a 'Nam flashback, or something would make him pull a gun or compel him to rip the clothes off Barbie, who liked it, even though she fought back.

"Let's have it, Tiger," Joe would growl.

"Oh, Joe," she'd hiss.

Then we'd clack their plastic bodies together for a hot round of inanimate scrogging. This is the only thing you can do with a Barbie, besides dress her, and if you weren't rich, chances are she only had a couple of outfits anyway. We learned a lot from Barbie, in the vein of all that scurrilous man-woman drama as-seen-on-TV. Even at 7, we knew she was a wanton, submissive bimbo. After Joe left, she'd hang around naked for days, with her hair all mussed and one of her toeshoes floating in the dog dish. She had no self-respect.

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P O R N O G R A P H I C A L L Y__A N D R O I D__B A R B I E

BY CAMILLE PAGLIA | Barbie's arrival on the scene was well after my own childhood (when I loathed dolls and loved swords and other Amazonian regalia). However, I have followed her rise to power with interest, since her streamlined, pornographically android body type was so different from that of the pudgy, cuddly, Shirley Temple-like moppets that came before her. As someone who worked for a college summer in the toy department at Woolworth's, I definitely believe that toy sales are a key to the Zeitgeist. Barbie not only became a major sexual persona influencing celebrity style from Farrah Fawcett to Ivana Trump, but she ominously prefigured the destabilization of sexual identity that would lead, among other things, to an epidemic of anorexia and bulimia among white middle-class girls. She's no pushover: Barbie to me has the glittering, militant panache of Raquel Welch in her cavewoman bikini. Adored and reviled, Barbie is a fetish and an objet de culte, eerily reminiscent of the sleek, faceless Greek Cycladic idols that predate Christ by a millennium.

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N O - N A M E__B A R B I E__K N O C K - O F F

BY JOYCE MILLMAN | I don't have any happy Barbie Moments. In fact, I don't have any Barbie Moments, never having had a Barbie. Oh, I remember asking my mother for one, preferably with long blond hair and a fishtail evening gown. But instead, I received a succession of no-name Barbie knock-offs. My mother, you see, couldn't resist a bargain. Once, when I was 6, I asked her for a Beatles album. What I got was an album of Beatles songs as sung by those mop-topped sensations the Liverpools. As if a kid wouldn't know the difference! To spite her, I grew up to be a rock critic.

Anyway, back to my Barbie Moment, such as it is. One day, my mother told my younger sister and me that she was taking us to the beach. A happy bus ride ensued. However, she did not take us to the beach. She took us to the doctor, whose office was near the beach, for booster shots. Afterwards, apparently feeling guilty (as she damn well should have), my mother took us to a nearby odds and ends store to buy toys. She was feeling so guilty, in fact, that she magnanimously offered to buy me a Barbie. Of course, the only Barbies in the store had red hair and short bubble hairdos -- all the good Barbies got sent to real toy stores. Although this was far from the flowing-haired blond doll of my dreams, I accepted my mother's peace offering. Some time later, I learned that the doll she had bought me wasn't even a Barbie, it was a Midge. So there you have it, the Barbie Moment that made me the neurotic, suspicious, beach-phobic person I am today.

Is it any wonder I prefer Jane West?

N E X T+P A G E: "You're not a nice girl"