Given the fact that most children’s first experience oggling the fascinating mystery of the opposing gender’s genitalia comes from pulling down a Barbie or Ken doll’s genitalia and examining the amorphous mass of plastic at the crotch, it probably shouldn’t be surprising that there’s a lot of busy-body parental groups who are willing to launch consumerist campaigns any time Barbie exhibits a glimmer of sexuality.

Such a campaign was recently initiated in response to Hasbro’s planned line of “Pussycat” Barbie dolls: a campaign so full of prudish self-righteousness that it caused Hasbro to cancel the line of dolls two days later. With bare midriffs and sultry plastic gazes, the dolls were modeled after the Pussycat music groups, a band that once sang the immortal words “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?” Hey, who doesn’t?

In response to Hasbro’s decision, a co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (eyeroll) explained: “[The Pussycat Dolls] was a ratcheting up of the kind of precocious irresponsible sexuality that is being marketed to little girls.” We here at the Consumerist are against the precocious irresponsible sexuality of little girls, just as much as we’re for the precocious irresponsible sexuality of big, preferably busty girls. So we win, we guess.

Have the heirs of Barbie hit limit for risque dolls? [Christian Science Monitor]

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