KEN'S A ROYAL PAIN, SO IT'S OFF WITH HIS HEAD.

Byline: The world according to PEACHES

What happened to the alleged divorce proceedings between Ken and Barbie?

Some time ago, the toy gurus dished us the rumors. I felt glee, frankly. It was about time. What she was ever doing with him, I never knew. She was way out of his league, if you ask me; and I have the broken bodies to prove it.

When I heard about the separation months ago, I took out my old stash of Barbie dolls to reminisce. My Ken has a cracked neck and doesn't have a head. I popped it off one day after I'd decided he was too much of a pretty boy for my taste. I never felt much warmth for the guy; that smarmy smirk painted on his face all the time, the perfect hair,the perfect body and the injection molding that omitted all the interesting bodily features.

I've always been the kind of gal who goes for the Ringos of the world and not the Fabios, Ahnolds or David Hasselhoffs. Gag. Ken was all wrong, in my opinion.

But then again, my Barbies started out all wrong, too. So I fashioned them more to my liking. One has a Mohawk; one has dark eye makeup in permanent marker and another has pink and blue spikes on her head. I didn't grow up in Malibu with a pink mansion and a pool and a convertible. So it was more my taste to slum them down a little, make them a little more street smart and (I thought) more sexually liberated and ready to take on the world, one Ken doll at a time.

I was 11 and my attitude was hold on to your heads, men. I was pretty haughty about sex. I thought I knew all there was to know. Not that I had any field experience, but I was learning it in school. Sex education, euphemistically called ``Learning About Myself and Others,'' or ``LAMO,'' meant hours of sitting next to boys in class, giggling and blushing while anatomical blueprints were affixed to the chalkboard and a teacher pointed out fallopian tubes and urethras (snicker, snicker) with a long wooden pointer.

I would go home, plenty hot and bothered, and play out my version of ``reality and the art of procreation'' with Barbie and the headless Ken. This was my fifth-grade understanding of all things sexual. You put on a pretty dress, comb your Mohawk, go to the prom with a guy with one missing appendage or another, and then change into your wedding gown and get married. Somewhere down the line, fallopian tubes and seminal fluid came into play. It was just that simple.

I'm still reeling from the fact that my own real life doesn't resemble this at all. Such is the experience of most girls who play with Barbies. Barbies are a way to begin fantasizing about boys and sex and hormones where no actual genitalia are involved. It's a mess-free version of reality. There is no ``teenage pregnancy'' Barbie or ``welfare'' Barbie or ``prenup'' Barbie, or ``Run-around-Ken's gonna dump you with three kids and a mortgage to pay'' Barbie.

But reality, to some degree, must set in, even in Barbieland. Some feminist-executive type must've thought, ``Ken's been kicking around for 40- some years, smirking that insidious smirk and never holding down a steady job or even changing his underwear. Let's send out a press release. Ken's sorry butt is outta here. Let's bring in someone younger and more hip. How `bout a surfer?''

And so the story went, Barbie, who has gotta be 60-something if she's a day, is hanging out with a new young buff tan Aussie surfer named Blaine. Work it, mama.

So come on, Mattel, what's the dish now? It's been months. Is Barbie gonna visit divorce court one of these days? Has she filed? Who's representing her, Cochran? Tell us more, more, more. How is she going to vote in the presidential race? With all that old Malibu money of hers, are we to assume she's a Bushie? Or has the new Aussie surfers swayed her to vegetarianism and environmental concerns? Does she do Pilates, what with those stellar abs? Where does she stand on gay marriage, by the way?

We've been baited, I feel, with little tidbits about her romantic life with Ken. Give us all the Barbie goods. Somewhere out there is an 11-year- old girl creating an entire reality around the little world you've created. And somewhere, at this very second ... oops, there goes another Ken head.