The Luv Doc: Hard No

Dear Luv Doc,

I didn't know this until a few weeks ago, but my girlfriend is really into Barbies. Like really into Barbies. She wants me to go see the Barbie movie with her. I told her that's not really my thing but she's welcome to go with her friends whenever she wants. Then she tells me that not only does she want me to go see the Barbie movie with her, she wants to dress me up as Ken so she can dress as Barbie. So I said, "Hard no." A few days later she shows me a Ken outfit with pink satin shorts that she apparently ALREADY bought before she asked me to go. She keeps bugging me about it every time a Barbie commercial comes on TV so last night I snapped and said, "It's never going to happen," and she said, "You're such an a**hole," and then didn't speak to me for the rest of the night. I don't think I'm being unreasonable. I like deer hunting but I don't ask her to put on camo and Day-Glo and sit in a blind with me all day. That's my thing. She can have her thing but I don't have to be part of it, right?

– No Ken Do

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First of all, don't beat yourself up over this. Dressing up as Ken and rocking some pink shorts – especially those Seventies-style satin nut huggers – is a pretty huge alpha male dick swing that some guys just can't pull off. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you're not allowed to be extra sensitive about being seen as unmasculine. It's OK that you're not into Barbies. That's totally cool. When you were a kid you probably played with super butch dolls like G.I. Joe … or maybe those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Italian renaissance names. Anyway, the point is, not everyone plays with the same type of dolls. Just because the dolls you played with were different than the dolls your girlfriend played with doesn't mean you can share each other's love for dolls.

Look, I can understand your trepidation about wearing the pink Barbie shorts. You're afraid they might undermine all the patriarchal legitimacy you've amassed hanging out in deer blinds decked out in camo and Day-Glo all these years. I mean, after all, no one became a Supreme Court justice by sashaying around in pink satin Ken dolls' short shorts, did they? Of course not. That's exactly why you should, because fuck patriarchal legitimacy and the slave ship it sailed in on. Most of the men on the Supreme Court are just deplorables in black robes anyway – deplorable not just because they liked to boof with their frat buddies in college, make jokes about pubic hairs on their Cokes in front of disgusted younger female interns, or have Nazi paraphernalia-collecting billionaires pay their mom's rent and take them on expensive vacations, but because they overturned Roe v. Wade like the punkassed conservative toadie suck-ups we've always known them to be.

Robes have pretty much always been the signature fashion statement of the patriarchy. That makes sense. There's a lot of room to hide shit in robes: secret weapons, huge bribes, small penises. Not so with tight pink satin short shorts. Only a man completely comfortable with his parents' circumcision choice can walk around confidently in tight pink satin short shorts. A man in tight pink satin short shorts has literally nothing to hide. He is absolutely willing to meet and hold your gaze because he knows how desperately you are trying not to look at his exquisitely defined trouser trout. That's a man you can trust even if he has a really weak, moist handshake.

Anyway, you gotta do you, and you should probably get used to that if your girlfriend can't count on you to roll like a huge, dick-swingin' alpha male baller every now and then – and let me be specific: I mean if she can't count on you to suck it up and wear the Ken doll getup to help her live out her weird childhood fantasy every now and then. What are you worried about? That you'll feel like an accessory doll? That you'll have to ride shotgun in the Barbie Jeep? Wow. I know you can't imagine what that feels like but I am absolutely certain you can find countless women who can. Ask one to explain it to you. Maybe start with your girlfriend … when you're riding shotgun on the way the Barbie movie in your tight pink satin short shorts.