I’m Not Your Barbie Doll!

You don’t get to dress me up

“You need to do your eyebrows.”

“You really should get some white sunglasses.”

“I want you to wear black lace because I think that’s really hot”

I recently read traceybyfire’s story about body hair and it got me thinking about all of the times that a man I was seeing expressed a lot of opinion around what I needed to change about my appearance to better suit him. I always hated that but never had the self-confidence to speak up and say so when I was younger. Now that I’m both married and (polyamorously) dating, I mostly don’t encounter that anymore, but when I do, I’m no longer shy about making it clear that that’s not cool.

I’m quite sure that there are women who do this sometimes too, try to tell their lover how to dress and what to do with their hair, but I’ve only ever had it happen to me with men. It seemed like the guy thought because we were together that I was his own personal Barbie doll that he could dress up to his specifications, and there’s something about that I just find creepy and completely off-putting.

Of course, I always want to be appealing to the person I’m with, and I’m willing to take suggestions or requests, but the way that it’s conveyed has a lot to do with how I feel in the face of them. My husband James has often expressed opinions about my hair, clothing, and other personal choices through the years. The difference is, it’s never said with entitlement like he gets to make that choice for me. He’s just giving an opinion but doesn’t necessarily expect me to adhere to it. I guess that’s one of the reasons I married him and not one of those other guys.

I didn’t have my first boyfriend until after high school so I was in college before I started hearing these kinds of remarks. The worst one I remember from that time was from the guy whose brother was involved with one of my best friends. I was pretty sure my boyfriend had a big crush on her and was mostly dating me because she was taken.

My friend always had very thin, tweezed eyebrows where mine were a lot more natural. One day he told me, “You need to do your eyebrows. They’re getting kind of bushy.” I have never had anything close to bushy eyebrows and I was really pissed when he said that, particularly since he was holding my friend up as the beauty standard in a really obvious way.

In response, I told him that I’d given up tweezing and was going for a strictly natural look. And that’s what I did — just purely out of spite. I stopped grooming my eyebrows at all until we broke up a short time later. It was a pretty passive-aggressive reaction, but hey… what the hell?

The guy I was dating in my early 20s when I first met James was the one who told me that I should get some white sunglasses. It wasn’t just, “I’ll bet you’d look awesome in white sunglasses.” It was most definitely said as a way to improve my appearance to better suit him. This was the same guy who when I asked him to help me make the bed after he’d stayed over one time, told me that he didn’t make beds.

He wouldn’t have lasted much longer with that attitude anyway, but when James came along, it really wasn’t much of a dilemma. On the one hand, a guy who treats me like a geisha, there to serve and please him and on the other, a guy who treats me like a person that he’s really into — it wasn’t a very difficult choice.

James and I were monogamously married for over 20 years when we opened up our relationship. We decided to only see other people together, and although that does sometimes present issues, in that we both have to like a prospective date and they have to like both of us, for the most part, it’s worked out fine. At this point, we’re in a couple of steady relationships and aren’t particularly looking to meet anyone else, but a while back we had a date planned with a new guy who seemed like he might be a good fit for us.

The night before the date, this guy and I were chatting on WhatsApp. He told me that he wanted me to wear black lace because that’s something that really turns him on. That landed a little off for me, but OK, maybe it was just a request. I frequently have pink streaks in my blonde hair but hadn’t gotten around to refreshing them. He’d seen a picture with the pink and asked me to put those in for our date.

Perhaps if he were someone I’d been seeing for a while and we had something special planned, this would have all landed better for me, but for a first date, it just started to feel excessive. I was looking forward to the date, so I brushed it off that evening, but by the next morning, I’d decided that I just couldn’t go through with it. Instead of being excited, I just felt a bit ill.

I tried to explain to the guy that all of his requests made me feel like he was ordering a cake, rather than trying to get to know me. He didn’t really understand what I was saying but at least was nice about canceling and going separate ways. When I talked to friends about it later, I got mixed responses. Most people got why I felt uncomfortable, but one male friend didn’t think there was anything wrong with these kinds of requests.

And maybe it would have been alright under the correct circumstances and asked for in the correct way, but with all of these guys it felt to me like they were speaking from a sense of ownership, a feeling of entitlement — and that was not OK. In fact, it really put a damper on my interest in each of these guys.

I like nothing more than to please a lover and make them happy. I love to be good to the people in my life, but not because they demand it. And what is really sexy is when they find who I already am pleasing and enjoyable. In order to truly let down and be uninhibited, a woman needs to feel safe, both physically and emotionally. Being treated like a Barbie doll does not accomplish that.

© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.