Beware, Barbie! Kids Find Torturing Fun- Study shows girls mutilate Barbie

[Ian David]

Beware, Barbie! Kids Find Torturing Fun
Study Shows Girls Mutilate the Dolls
BY ADRIAN HIEATT

LONDON, Dec. 20, 2005 — - As kids grow older, it's a rite of passage for them to take the toys they once treasured and cast them aside, or, apparently, to decapitate or even microwave them.

According to new research, young girls in England often use particularly gruesome methods as they pass through this phase of childhood.

Torture, decapitation and even microwaving of Barbie dolls were among the "varied and creative" methods of mutilation children used, researchers at the University of Bath said in a report released Monday.

The study's authors cautioned against drawing hasty conclusions about the mental health of British children, however. "The children are not a pile of psychotics in the making," said Dr. Agnes Nairn. "They see torture as a legitimate play activity."

"Whilst for an adult, the delight the child felt in breaking, mutilating and torturing their dolls is deeply disturbing," Nairn said. "From the child's point of view they were simply being imaginative in disposing of an excessive commodity in the same way as one might crush cans for recycling."


More:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=1425715

[TygrBright]

1. Well, I used indelible Sharpie magic marker....

...to make my Barbie anatomically accurate...

Does that count as "torture?"


evilly,
Bright

[wildeyed]

4. Apparently, I pulled down Ken's pants

in the store and asked in a loud voice why he didn't have a penis. I don't recall cooking Barbie, though.

[iamjoy]

18. Girls Taking Out Their Frustration

At society's unrealistic idea of what the perfect woman should look like.

[Cleita]

2. Before Barbie there was Teddy, who usually was lucky to still

have one eye and most of his stuffing after a few weeks.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

3. I remember doing this

and my daughter shaved all their heads and gave them camo tattoos. Very disturbing.

[Rich Hunt]

9. I cut all of Barbie's hair off

....because I was sick of blonde Barbies.

I took their faces off with nail polish remover, too.

[KoKo]

5. Well...that just shows we need to be worried about the "coming " Bush

Bot's Generation. The kids who are "coming of age" while the "Criminal Emperor" is out there pushing torture, retribution, and kill, kill, kill!

I think all of us have had to come to terms with "Childhood Ending" but this report seems to say that "mutilation and killing" is the way young folks today are dealing with it.

Can I move out of here. :scared: It seems we have a new breed of kids who are as cruel as the Chimp!!!!

[Tsiyu]

17. Umm...well...

I destroyed and mutilated all the barbies that my brothers didn't get to first when I was younger (we also did some horrible things to GI Joe and little green army men, too), and I'm about the most peace-loving humanitarian you'll find. The authors of this study really shouldn't use the words "torture" and "mutilation" when talking about dolls...they aren't real people, they don't have feelings; they're just pieces of plastic molded to resemble us. I may have removed my barbies' heads, arms, and legs as a kid, but I would never ever do that to a person. There's a huge distinction between a firecracker strapped to a plastic doll and electrodes strapped to an actual person, and the vast majority of children understand that...even if Bush doesn't.

Oh crap...this is antigone382 accidentally posting under my mom's username again, by the way...mom probably wouldn't want to take responsibility for the acts I just described, lol.

[NC_Nurse]

6. My brother used to pull their arms off..

and break their legs off at the knee.

I never got the chance to mess them up myself.

[SmokingJacket]

7. It happens when you realize a doll is not a person.

It's a piece of plastic, and as such, perfectly suited to scientific experiments!

I was a little girl who was far more interested in science than in clothes. Makes perfect sense to me.

Torturers similarly dehumanize their victims. The difference is that dolls aren't people, and Iraqi are.

[ComerPerro]

21. That's a huge part of it.

I would say that melting a piece of plastic in the microwave, for example, is interesting and a fun experiment.

[enki23]

8. our dogs tear up their toys after a while too

the more they like the toy, the longer it takes for them to destroy it. but they always destroy it.

not much difference, really.

[Deb]

10. I peeled the skin of her knees with an exacto knife

just to see how her knees worked. :-) That discovery was the best time Barbie offered.

[A Simple Game]

12. I remember reading somewhere that they use the Barbie

knee joints, or at least used them as a model, to make artificial joints for human fingers.

[Deb]

16. cool, I've never heard that before n/t

[FreedomAngel82]

11. Weird

I just leave my Barbie's in a box with other toys. :shrug:

[targetpractice]

13. My friend made Barbie steaks and hamburgers...

...out of scabs that she had picked and saved. Ingenious! :9

[walldude]

14. That's just wrong....

on so many levels. :puke:

[Talismom]

15. A friend of mine told me that when his sister, who's still a bit

eccentric, was younger, she decided that she was sick of her Barbies and was going to try them for treason in the back yard. She found them all guilty and burned them at the stake!

[Ian David]

19. My next-door neighbor had a collection of barbie doll heads

No bodies, just heads.

And he didn't have any sisters.

I don't remember if he ever told me where he got the heads.

But he liked to put the heads in his ass and then smell them.

[Talismom]

22. Oh, gross! n/t

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

20. Barbie Death Camp!

[madeline_con]

23. On a "Roseanne" rerun yesterday....

Darlene and Becky went out to the laundry room to go through some boxes of stuff. They found Darlene's pink oven. Darlene opened it and took out Becky's Barbie she'd cooked in it.
:)