ok this is “earring magic ken” who was introduced in 1992 (and discontinued shortly thereafter)
basically mattel had done a survey and discovered that girls didn’t think ken was “cool” enough
SO someone had the bright idea to research coolness by sending people to raves which, at the time, were mostly hosted & attended by gay men. so they went to these raves and took notes on what the fashions were and finally landed on this outfit, mesh shirt & all
this doll became the best selling ken doll in history, mostly because gay men bought it in droves. (many of them said his necklace was supposed to be a cockring) but mattel and a number of parents weren’t very amused and discontinued the doll
OH MY GOD YOU’RE LEAVING OUT THE BEST PART
SO
MAGIC EARRING KEN. This bitch gay as HELL. supposedly the aforementioned rings on him are for “magic earrings” and clip on charms. These charms are advertised as totally COMPLETELY heterosexual, not gay at ALL, see there’s a Barbie that also has Magic Earring Action with clip on charms! Ken wears them to match, because he’s STRAIGHT
Here’s the issue: THERE IS NO MATCHING BARBIE. Magic Earring Ken is out here straight up wearing cock rings on his jacket with a thinly devised advertising ploy to make it SEEM not-gay. But it’s DEFINITELY GAY. (And if you’re thinking, why cock rings? Well way back in 1992 gay culture was HUGE on wearing cock rings, it was the in-style. Everyone who was gay wore one, even women; you sewed them to your leather jacket, and the placement indicated some of your sexual preference. In case you were wondering, Ken is a Bottom.)
AND IT GETS BETTER. Magic Earring Ken was on the shelves for six weeks before they pulled him. In that short amount of time? Magic Earring Ken became the BEST SELLING Barbie Doll Mattel has EVER SOLD. LET THAT SINK IN. SIX WEEKS. And now every time these wheezy old hetero windbag execs go to look at their sales board, they’re forever haunted by Magic Earring Ken at the top of their charts.
Gay as hell, Cock Ring Bottom Ken, the Best Selling Mattel Doll. Pride.
please take the time out of your day to read about Magic Earring Ken™
its so wild to me that like back in fantroll days you could draw up a giant detailed info graphic on each of your OCs genitals and have it labeled and put out on your blog before god jesus and everyone and that was just like. normal
i fucking wish i was but the generally accepted headcanon about HS trolls (i think? i was never in the fandom i was just spectating) was that they had highly variable tentacle things for crotches and it was totally acceptable to painstakingly illustrate this for your fan characters and then just post it
they were called tentabulges and i made money drawing them for people. not normal online commissions, i mean they’d pay me irl and i’d draw actual physical homesmut and give it to them right there in the real world in the college student lounge.
“braver than any US marine” doesn’t even begin to cover it
the past tense used throughout this post is awful presumptuous
y’all on the west coast know that nobody else calls them that right
that’s a freeze pop you uncultured swine. are you eating an otter? is that it? ur eating a fucking otter? no ur eating frozen miracle juice, get the hell outta my house
i don’t want to achieve equality by sinking to men’s level, i want them to get on ours! why should i have to unlearn the conversational art of waiting my turn, unlearn sexual self-restraint, unlearn trust in others’ good intentions, unlearn the impulse to cater to others’ needs, just to have a chance at success among savages? why can’t the men learn some fucking manners so we can all conduct our affairs in a civilized manner? i shouldn’t have to stop saying sorry, you say sorry!
In the 80s when I was in my freshman year in college, they still had entirely separate mens and women’s dorms. I was in class waiting for a final to start and one of the guys was telling someone about how he had had to go into a women’s dorm to drop something off, and he was startled to see posters on the walls, flowers, curtains, etc. He said his men’s dorm had holes in the walls, things on fire, fights, guys walking around with open wounds and he just didn’t understand why they had to live like this. He said, “I want to live with the women, in civilization.”
Am reading Sisterhood of Spies, about women working for the OSS during WWII. One of the stories mentions that the women in London had a male visitor who would eat in their mess hall once a month. He was married and wasn’t interested in hitting on any of the women; he just wanted to eat in an atmosphere where people said “Please pass the butter,” instead of “PASS THE GODDAMNED GREASE”
I dated a guy who brought me along on group activities (movies, video game night, etc.) with four or five other male friends. Once I mentioned to one of the other guys that I hoped I wasn’t intruding on their “guy time” or some such. He got this sort of rueful look and said, “The truth is, I really like it when you’re here because it gives us a reason to act better. When it’s just guys, we all have to try to outdo each other with how vile we are.”
So the moral of these stories are men don’t even treat each other like human beings.
Me to my 6-year-old son: “You seem to like playing with the girls at school more than the boys. Why do you think that is?”
6-year-old son: “Sometimes I just don’t want to be pushed. It hurts and is mean. And the girls always pretend to be princesses or fun animals and stuff when they have tea parties. The boys just dump the tea all over the place. That’s just stupid and I don’t like wasting all that tea. It takes forever to make.”
Me: “Wow, I can understand why you’d rather play with the girls. The boys seem like they’re kind of rough.”
6-year-old son: “And when I play with the girls they make me the king because none of the other boys want to play tea party.”
Me: “Do you like being the king?”
6-year-old son: “Not really – I’d rather be a wizard, but it makes Georgia and Vivian happy.”
Real talk: I had to deal with boys punching each other, making crude sexual remarks, and being disrespectful to girls and female staff all summer long.
backup 