We’ve all, at one time in our lives, played with dolls. We may not like to admit it, but we were curious, and it was a very confusing time in our lives, and we only did it once, and it’s not like it meant anything, anyway.

I’d be willing to bet that some of you are playing with dolls right now.

Put that down.

When I was a kid, just barely into double-digits, I briefly played with dolls. Not by myself, mind you. These were not my dolls. I repeat; they were not my dolls. Honest.

Let me explain…

I was 10 or 11 and sex, or the idea that grown-up people had something called sex, was starting to creep into my little world. I was gifted with a father who was pretty liberal about letting me watch “R” rated movies with him and my mom from the time I was eight, so I had heard and probably seen a few instances of on-screen sex, but what was really going on usually evaded me. These were simpler times.

By the time I was 10, I was hanging out with older kids, listening to older kid music like Snoop Dogg, Dr.Dre and Public Enemy and a whole slew of shitty gangster rappers like Easy E and so on. My vocabulary was expanding, and words that had no previous meaning to me were starting to become more clear. I was curious.

So, it was natural that I eventually put two and two together and figured out that this whole sex thing had something to do with a man and a woman (or, according to one of my older friends, a man and two women - he had a vivid imagination) had to get naked and rub against one another.

That, as far as I was concerned, was about it.

So, one night, my folks took me over to have dinner with some friends up the road. After dinner, the adults retired to the living room to B.S. and whatnot and I was left to kill time with the couple’s prissy daughter. She and I had never really gotten along, even though we’d gone to school together since we were in Kindergarden. She was one of those people who thought that it was fun to correct other people’s spelling and diction, especially if you happened to mix up the “my friends and I” with the ever-present “me and my friends.” She wasn’t very popular.

After taking in an episode of Double Dare and realizing that the folks were going to be awhile, we realized that something had to be done to occupy the time. She didn’t have any board games, didn’t have any Legos and didn’t have any Micro Machines, so I was all out of options. As a last resort, she held up her Barbie dolls.

At first, I balked. I’ll play with Transformers, I’ll play with GI Joes, heck, I’d even picked up my little sister’s JEM doll once, just so the dog wouldn’t tear it to shreds, but Barbie dolls? I don’t think so. She held up a Ken doll and started cajoling me, the jist of which was “you don’t have anything else to do, and I’m not budging on this, so take the damn doll.”

So, I did.

I could not imagine how utter stupid this would turn out to be. She immediately bombarded me with a litany of complicated backstories and soap-opera plots that surrounded the dolls and their cars, clothes, houses, what have you. My head was spinning. Every thing that I did with this Ken doll turned out to require a complex understanding of his psychological makeup and each outfit that he had (and there were many) dictated a different personality. I was starting to regret this, already.

Then, apropos of nothing, she, through her Barbie, said, “Now, we have sex.” Like it’s on a checklist that you hang on your fridge. Get milk, check. Pick up kids from soccer practice, check. Take out trash, check. Have sex, check. I remember bluntly staring at her for a second, unsure where to go from there. Like I said, I’d heard of this “sex,” but had little to no idea as to what it entailed. Never mind that these were anatomically incorrect dolls.

Irregardless, we started disrobing our respective dolls. Somewhere along the line, she pulled out a miniature doll bed  and placed it in-between us. Then came the awkward part. She laid her Barbie down on the bed and I laid my Ken down on the bed. Unsure of what to do next, I attempted foreplay, which mostly consisted of me awkwardly asking (in my best Ken impersonation) if Barbie wanted to have sex. It was definitely getting hot and heavy.

Once we actually started making the dolls have sex, which consisted of us pushing them against each other, the running commentary was predictably weird. There were exclaimations of “THIS IS GREAT SEX!” and “OH MAN, WE’RE HAVING SEX!” and my personal favorite, “YOU’RE GREAT AT SEX, KEN!”

This far outstrips anything I’ve ever uttered during actual intimate moments since. If you think I haven’t been extremely tempted to blurt out phrases like that in the heat of passion, you’re sorely mistaken. Thankfully, my desire not to get punched in the stomach while having sex far outweighs my penchant for smart-assery.

In the end, it was a thoroughly awkward affair and, thanks to school closings and consolidation, we didn’t have to interact with each other in the fall. I’m not sure that I would have been able to go through high school with this gal and keep a straight face. This still stands as the first and only time I ever succumbed to playing with dolls. Hopefully, if the wife and I ever have a child, it’ll be a boy, because I’m not sure I’d be able to play with a little girl and her dolls without reliving this scarring moment in my head.

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