It’s October, and so the Halloween decorations have taken over. Actually, they started taking over right after Labor Day, but I refuse to indulge them by paying attention. And since I have had to acknowledge that the last time trick-or-treaters came to my door was about five years ago (or more), I can no longer make excuses for buying the jumbo bag of mini-Twizzlers (which I mostly devour by myself, often eating so many that I have had to run out the night before the big day and buy another bag — just in case.)
So I was admiring the windows in some of the stores downtown, the pumpkins and witches and scarecrows, when I walked by the lingerie shop. Along with the lacy La Perla bras and Hanky Panky panties were some manikins wearing costumes — a French maid, a Marie Antoinette-like French getup (but with a lacy miniskirt), etc.
That’s often how we women dress on Halloween — we flaunt our sexuality, whether as a French maid or a nurse or a sexy witch. I have lent the same nurse costume to a friend for several years now, and each year she tells me what a hit it is. I’m guessing she doesn’t wear it like Nurse Ratched did.
I’ve worn it myself, of course, but after a while it was boring being a nurse. So when I was invited to a Halloween party two years ago, I went as a dominatrix instead; for whatever reason (best not to ask) I had all the various parts of the costume at hand. Needless to say, it was a pretty popular costume.
Two years before, the man I was dating and I decided to play dress-up for our own private Halloween party. I told him I’d be a nurse, but then my friend wanted to borrow my costume and so I showed up as the dominatrix.
He was disappointed. Wrong fantasy!
But, why is it that we women tend to go for “sexy” on Halloween?
The trend for pushing the sexual costume edge has become so prevalent that comedian Carlos Mencia laughs that Halloween nowadays should be called Dress-Like-a-Whore Day.
Is it because we don’t feel that way day to day or if we show some skin we fear judgment by others as being sluts or, if you’re my age, cougars?
Deborah Tolman, the director of the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University and a professor of human sexuality studies there, told the New York Times a few years ago that some women may see Halloween as a safe time to play with sexuality.
I tend to think sexuality is a little bit more than a miniskirt, some lace and cleavage, but maybe that’s because I don’t have much cleavage; I’ve had to focus on other things, like pleasure.
And as much as we women may like “playing” with sexuality, we’re troubled when our daughters do it, although the trend is for sexy costumes for girls, too.
I was reminded of a chapter in Ayelet Waldman’s book “Bad Mommy,” in which she looks at the middle-aged girls who do everything to hide their budding bodies at the Halloween parade and those who dress as “sexy witches.” Sadly, she discovers her daughter, dressed in a flapper outfit, is destined (according to another mother watching the parade) to be a “whore.”
Even as we strut our sexuality, we're always aware that it may be taken the wrong way. And if we're viewing sexuality as a "costume," it seems that we aren't embracing what sexuality really means (as in feeling comfortable in our own skin).
Do you dress sexy on Halloween? Why/why not?
Do you allow your children to dress sexy on Halloween? Why/why not?
