Of Baby Dolls and Victoria's Secret Models

A couple of days ago, on a Facebook page, there was a picture of an anatomically correct male baby doll, and, as Facebook is for, a discussion on it.

I happened to be sitting in a hotel room with my son on a little weekend getaway to Sea World, and he was sitting next to me as I was browsing on my tablet.  I was kind of fascinated with this discussion, as I was surprised how many people thought an anatomically correct baby doll was not only bad, not only something they didn’t want their children to have, but something that was one of the reasons for bad things in our society and ultimately something that a reader requested be removed from the Facebook page as they were offended.  My son, 12 years old, saw the picture and did a double take.  I told him it was a baby doll.  “Oh, cool, why are you talking about a baby doll?”

I am not a parent that just answers “Don’t worry about it.”  I keep things age appropriate, but I believe being open about and honest about the world and things in it, and why I am talking about a baby doll is something I will give a real answer to.  “We’re talking about the baby doll looking real.  A lot of people think that is a bad thing.”

“Why?”

“Honestly, that is hard for me to answer, I don’t understand it.  Body parts are body parts. Having a penis is no different than having an arm.”

“You can’t pee from your arm.”  Of course it took me a minute to figure out what he said, as he was laughing outrageously at his own potty humor.

We had a pretty interesting discussion about body parts, and how we don’t let anyone but family and our doctor see them, and, well, good thing I had a glass of wine before this came up!

I’ve never made nakedness or body parts a shameful thing in our house.  When he was a toddler, he was allowed to take a shower with me or his dad.  He knows what bodies look like, and as a result he’s never had a fascination with them, they are what they are.  Men and women look different under their underwear, women wear a bra to hold the breasts that babies are fed from, and men can pee standing behind a tree.  As he’s gotten older, I’ve taught that we need to respect people’s privacy when changing clothes or taking a shower, but yet he still has urgent questions that must be answered while he’s wearing only socks and a baseball heart guard and I have to tell him to go put pants on before talking to me.  If he accidentally walks in on me changing, I’ve never even gasped much less made a big deal of it because, well, then that makes it a big deal.

These things have not made him fascinated with sex, much less turned him into some kind of deviant.  An anatomically correct doll is just that, an anatomically correct doll.  That is what babies look like, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the fact that we have the body parts that we do.  For goodness sakes, if your 2 year old asks what a penis is, you say that is how a male pees, you don’t have to go into sexual detail!

Ironically, while my son and I were having this conversation, a Victoria’s Secret commercial came on TV, women in skimpy underwear acting as nothing but sex objects.  THAT won’t give our children inappropriate and inaccurate messages, but a male baby doll will.


That's why they have wine!