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of pornographic miniatures. Mascot Models, an English firm, currently markets six-inch replicas of naked women with detailed genitalia in the sort of hobby shops that sell model trains, boats, and airplanes. The "girls," which often come with boots or whips, can be assembled with "thick superglue or five-minute epoxy" and (oral fetishists beware!) are made of metal parts containing lead. Far safer to gnaw upon are the Japanese-made miniatures of Caucasian women in bondage that artist David Levinthal used in his 1991 series of photographs called Desire. Available by mail order only, they come in chains, ropes, and leather gags; their legs splayed or trussed up like a dead deer's. One even hangs on a cross. Like their English counterparts, the dolls must be glued together and painted.

There is even a historical interface between soft pornographic miniatures and the toy industry. When Louis Marx ran Marx Toys, he produced several limited editions of "American Beauties"—six-inch plastic nude or seminude female figures that he handed out as gag gifts to his friends. Only Ruth Handler dared blur the line between fetish and toy, taking an object familiar to readers of Krafft-Ebing and recasting it for readers of Mother Goose.

For subscribers to Dian Hanson's Leg Show, however, Barbie has lost none of the Lilli doll's fetishistic appeal. When Hanson invited her readers to comment on Barbie, many replied—the most eloquent of which was a rural New England foot fetishist who wished to be identified only as "Resident." Part Russ Meyer, part Jonathan Swift, his fantasy, if filmed, might be titled Barbie Does Brobdingnag.

"Barbie's legs are the most noteworthy feature of her whole body," his letter begins. "I've spent hours caressing them and examining them, kissing them and sucking them. I've found that their form and shape closely resemble real women's legs. They are warm to the touch and bend in much the same manner as the human leg does, with the curvature of the calf becoming more round when the knee is bent." Barbie, he feels "lacks only three human features: 1) leg and foot scent, 2) a rounded heel and 3) digits for toes.

"I have an incredibly strong sex drive and realized long ago that most women either don't understand or take seriously my love of their legs and feet," he explains. "I ended up being left out in the cold all the time— lonely, depressed and frustrated. Thus the Barbie doll is important to me. I can play out my sexual fantasies with the kind of woman I want in real life. I can dress her and undress her any way I want. Her elegant legs can be posed in a variety of positions. My favorite is with her back leaning against a pillow, legs bent slightly at the knee with her two hands holding onto her thigh, which may be raised up as if she were massaging it. . . .

"If they made a life-size, realistic, fully functional Barbie doll I would probably marry it," he goes on. "I have grown to love Barbie as if she were a real woman and I envy 'Ken' with a passion. Why Mattel hooked her up with such a John Doe is beyond me. Hooking sweet and beautiful Barbie up with a guy ruins the magic.

"I don't buy any of the bad press that's attributed to the Barbie doll and her image," he concludes. "Jealous people always make false accusations about things that they feel inferior to."

While I would not have expressed it in a sentence ending in a preposition, I can understand "Resident"'s indignation. It must be burdensome, when you have an intense emotional relationship to a thing, to endure the callous, uncomprehending remarks of people. Or to yearn, as Bly puts it, for a "Woman with the Golden Hair," and end up stuck with . . . a woman.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

OUR BARBIES, OUR SELVES

Midway through my interview with Jan, a thirty-three-year-old business writer who lives in New York City, she asked me not to use her real name. For her, to talk about Barbie was to talk about her mother. It was to recall her disquietude on the eve of puberty. Jan had learned firsthand how a young woman's feelings about her changing body and awakening