Valley Of The Dolls: Book Says Barbie Designer, Jack Ryan, Was A Sex Fiend

The Barbie-World of pink shoes and dream houses has been rocked by a new book that reveals the Barbie designer as a sex-crazed swinger. Jack Ryan, who died in 1991, is best known for his work at Mattel where he designed the iconic Barbie doll. But celebrity biographer Jerry Oppenheimer has written about Ryan in his new book Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel and we’re pleased to say that it includes many, many references to gratuitous sexual debauchery, like this account from a girlfriend of Ryan’s:

“He once said to me he loved me being tall so he could stick his nose in my boobs when he hugged me.”

Klassy with a capital K. Tellingly, his sexual appetite affected his creative vision:

Ryan’s friend, Stephen Gnass, confides to the author: “When Jack talked about creating Barbie…it was like listening to somebody talk about a sexual episode, almost like listening to a sexual pervert.”

Ryan was also notorious for throwing wild orgies at his mansion and seeing prostitutes, although one such affair ended in heartbreak and crotchrot:

Ryan took calls at Mattel from a madam and patronized “high-class call girls to streetwalkers,” including a “very thin and child-like” hooker. The book claims that Ryan “somehow rationalized that he was the only man in her life” until he was diagnosed with gonorrhea.

That the Barbie designer was obsessed with hyper-sexualized women and sex in general should come as no surprise. Though Ken and Barbie are both smoothly neutered, the rest of their bodies are designed after the kind of sexual ideal that was popular during Ryan’s time- hard, fat-free bodies with sharp but not-too-bulky muscle definition for males and an impossibly-tiny waist and gigantic breasts for women.

What’s funny is how no one questioned his design back in 1957, and how now that these details are out, the Huffington Post still says “Barbies just got creepier”…as if they hadn’t been bad enough this whole time.

Barbie Designer Jack Ryan Exposed: New Book Details Sex Obsession [HuffPo]
SEX SECRETS OF BARBIE & KEN [New York Post]