The Great Play Doh Dildo Controversy

There’s something about the smell of Play Doh that just brings back wonderful childhood memories for me and I loved it when my own kids played with it too. Such a wholesome, creative toy… until now?

Apparently Play Doh has gotten themselves into some hot water this Christmas with the shape of one of their tools. The Sweet Shoppe Cake Mountain Playset comes with an “extruder” tool that kids can use to decorate their doughy creations. And it pretty much looks like a dildo.

Now while I personally find this absolutely hilarious, the makers of Play Doh are being accused of everything from ruining Christmas to perverting young minds. As somebody who grew up using this stuff and has bought it time and again for her own kids I have to chime in here.

People, calm the hell down. Seriously? First of all, I own a real cake decorating plunger thingy and yes, they can look like some kind of bizarre sex toy. So can turkey basters and some buildings and hot dogs and cucumbers and ice cream cones and … great. Now I’m hungry.

How many 5 year olds are going to open up their Play Doh kit and say “Hey mom, it looks just like a glass dildo??!” Nope. Not going to happen. So then what’s the big deal? Could it all come down to people not being comfortable with the human body and with sex in particular? Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.

So, to the makers of Play Doh I say bravo. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and think that the design of the toy was a completely naïve and innocent oversight and not some nudge nudge wink wink inside joke from your engineers.

Personally, my own kids are 12 and 9 and when I showed them the picture they said it looked like a Play Doh plunger or a big needle. And these are kids who have stumbled upon my cupboard of review products so they are far from innocent (emotionally scarred maybe, but not naïve. There are worse things in the world to see than the representation of a penis, so, why don’t we all take a deep breath and calm down.