My First Dildo
My First Dildo was a toy created by Hasbro in 2000 which was marketed primarily to girls. It started as a line of plastic sex-aids developed by Bonnie Tiler, Charles Munchminger and Steve D'Ahgonnit. The dildos featured colorful bodies, helmets and a unique symbol on one or both sides of their flanks. These are referred to by fans as 'cutie marks'.
History[edit | edit source]
In 1999, Tiler, Munchminger and D'Ahgonnit met at a swingers' party in Beverly Hills. The three had had, up until that point, anonymous if not disastrous careers in design and production. Tiler had been recently fired from her job at Mattel, where her greatest success was a bit part of the Barbie Beef project. Munchminger worked in the rather distinct field of developing novelty sex aids for Diddly Dildos, a now-defunct company based in Oregon. D'Ahgonnit worked in merchandising, and it was his speciality for 'synergizing' which led to the creation of My First Dildo. During a heated discussion at the party, the three realized there was a gap in the market for a 'young person's sex-toy' and after climaxing and cleaning off, they developed a business plan which was accepted by Hasbro.
Tiler submitted a design-patent in July 1999 for the incorporation of sexually-gratifying vibrating capabilities within a child's toy. The patent was granted in August 1999 but the patenting commission immediately made a complaint to the United Nations.
Nonetheless, the dildos went into production the following year, and by Christmas 2000, My First Dildo was widely regarded as a must-have present.
Designs[edit | edit source]
There are 2 My First Dildo designs. One is a baby-size penis, while the other is a boy-size penis; the idea being, as Tiler described it, that "as our little customers grew, so would their dildos." The baby-size penis was marketed to girls of up to four years of age, while the boy-size penis was said to be "fun for all children, from age 8 to 80."
The prototypes of the models were, in design jargon, 'dildo-oriented' but more and more infantile aspects were introduced after product-testing in children's homes. By the time a My First Dildo went on sale at Toys "R" Us its design featured a transparent testicle area whose contents could be revolved by the winding of a lever, a helter-skelter slide for bodily fluids and lubricant disposal, and a horn which made a funny noise when users bashed it.
By the summer of 2000, Hasbro had begun packaging the dildos with Play-Doh, although its suggested usage in conjunction with the dildo was never made clear.
In late 2000, Tiler adapted the ideas of another Hasbro brand, Super Soaker, to create My First Dildo: The Super Soaker. Tiler added an opening in the base sack which a child could fill with liquid, and then squeeze to make the liquid jet out. The design was championed by Michael Jackson, who cited it as one of his favorite toys.
Enormous controversy[edit | edit source]
Although the dildo enjoyed initial commercial success, the product was also dogged by scandal and controversy. From the very beginning, Hasbro had to fend off claims that they were explicitly seeking to sexualize children, and that almost every element of the product's design was sickening and repulsive.
Hilary Clinton, who was First Lady at the time, famously condemned the dildos at a Democrat convention. "A dildo is not a toy for a child. It's a source of consolation for a cuckolded wife of a head of state," she wept.
Concerned parents began to organize protest marches, and a brief boycott of Hasbro products took place. The company eventually took the decision to discontinue the product in January 2001, citing crystal meth's influence on the decision-making process.
'Dildonies'[edit | edit source]
Much like the phenomenon of Bronies - fully grown men who take a healthy sordid delight in My Little Pony - My First Dildos have enjoyed a continued level of fame among Dildonies, a terrifying sub-strata of society who regard the product as the ideal combination of cutesy and sexual. The innocent act of typing "child dildo" into Google opens up a whole world of wrong, in which the warped, inventive minds of a loss generations create animations, crude stop-gap videos, and computer games featuring diminutive dildos. One such unofficial cartoon series, My First Dildo Lost in Space, went viral after it emerged that the entire voice cast of Tiny Toon Adventures had been employed to voice the dildos.
Perhaps the most infamous Dildonie of all time is Eric Linshaw, one of the two US teenagers guilty of the Columbine massacre in 1999. A distant relative of Munchminger, he received early blueprints and prototypes of the dildos. Linshaw's diaries revealed an unhealthy obsession with sex aids, and in the notorious Hitmen For Hire the pair made for a school project shortly before committing the atrocity, Linshaw can be clearly seen to imitate beating a 'criminal' with a My First Dildo.
Cultural legacy[edit | edit source]
My First Dildo was the first and last attempt to integrate the manifestly disparate world's of children's toys and sex aids. While the product was ultimately a costly failure for Hasbro, the initial interest and cultural impact it had has led those in the design and entertainment industry to consider the possibility of introducing sex into children's toys and TV shows.
One proponent of the sexualizing of children's entertainment, Miley Cyrus was filmed for an episode of Cribs in 2011, and, tellingly, her master bedroom featured a shelf full of toys, including several My First Dildos in less than mint condition.
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