hey, as a joke to all of our friends who were so not thrilled when my boyfriend and I decided we worked better as just friends (this truly was a mutual decision and both of us are completely happy being friends) decided to go as a 50's couple who killed each other. We figured it would get the point across once and for all that we really just want to be friends, because as a couple we just DON'T work, and it would make fun at the dichotomy of the happy fifties couple. And yes I am going to totally play up the whole fifties dress, apron, pearls, hair, make-up thing too.

I agree that Halloween costumes are getting ridiculous and that women are expected to be sexy all the time and that's no good. However, I don't like the equation of "revealing outfit" to "whore." It smacks of victim-blaming just a bit too much for my tastes.

and frog.

I went to a halloween store and heard a mother tell her daughter that she couldn't get the costume she wanted beacuase it was too ugly and she had to be pretty. Her mom would only buy her something like a princess or fairy costume and the girl was begging her for something else. That to me is equally disturbing.

Sadly, this is the norm. I dunno when Halloween turned into a competition reduced to who can have the most whorish costume.

Short dress/costume /= whore. That is too close to the idea that women who are sexually assaulted are "asking for it" by wearing revealing clothing. Please edit your post.

I do know what you mean about Halloween costumes, though. We go through it every year. But who says we have to buy the "sexy" costumes? Or that we already are? How about we talk about costumes we do enjoy, that don't objectify us, or what we're thinking of dressing up as this year?

Last year I made my own costume--I was Vegeta from Dragonball Z, complete with hair, eyebrows, and energy ball. I wore it to class all day, and got "kamehame'd" several times.

This year I'm going to be a Musketeer of the Dumas variety.

You can find great costumes, you just can't look at the run of the mill websites and stores.

I love Halloween and I remember a few years ago I wanted to be Hermione from Harry Potter. The only Hermione costume in adult sizes were ones that were called "Wizard Wanda." It isn't called Hermione for copyright reasons but it is obviously based on it. But it's extremely low-cut and the skirt is very short. Nothing Hermione would wear. I eventually changed to being Arwen from Lord of the Rings.

Here's the costume if anyone wants to see it:
http://www.buycostumes.com/Wizard-Wanda-Adult-Costume/20895/ProductDetail.aspx

This year I dared to reenter the world of Harry Potter costumes by making a Luna Lovegood. I put it together myself, by sewing a Ravenclaw patch on my graduation gown and by the everyday type clothing to put together the rest of her uniform. I'm already finished.

I'm big on cosplay with Halloween and the fact I attend several anime conventions a year. I'm currently working on one that might make me seem like a hypocrite here. I'm working on Lucy from Elfen Lied. In many promotional pictures she is featured wearing just bandages. I'm basing my costume on that. But mine is going to cover more skin that the original picture did and I'll be wearing stuff underneath. Still it will be kind of revealing.

I was leafing through a copy of seventeen magazine the other day in the children's section of the public library and I found an article all about which halloween costumes are "sexy" and how to pick a sexy costume. They then had interviews with boys and boys comments on pictures of real girls in costumes to say if they were sexy or not. The boys thought that a snow white costume was sexy (something about looking so innocent) and that cave women costumes consisting of leaf bras were sexy but would have been "slutty" except they were homemade. They gave a thumbs down to a girl in a robot costume because "why would I want to flirt with a girl if I can't even tell its a girl in there?". The whole article was really disturbing. Apparently girls are not cool unless they dress sexy for boys on Halloween. There was nothing in the article about original costumes or of merit for girls who want to express themselves instead of having the main focus be having a boy think they are sexy. The whole interview with boys to see what they think aspect reminded me of cosmopolitan because, you know, the whole point of being a female is to make boys find you sexy.

What if you redefined what constitutes "sexy"? Some of the sexiest women I know don't necessarily have to show skin to get the point across.

Even little girl's halloween costumes are "sexified". At Target the other day, and every single girl's costume I saw, whether it was 'spidergirl' or 'fairy princess' or 'pumpkin spice' or 'dorothy', incorporated a short skirt modeled by a painted kid.

I think I'm going to be a whore leopard this year.

Grrrrr.....

My school's paper had a comic on the topic once. In it, a parade of girls in bikinis announced "I'm a bee!" if they happened to be wearing little antennae, or "I'm a bunny!" if they happened to be wearing little bunny ears, and so on. That highlights my problem with "sexy" costumes even for adults: most are just so darn uncreative. Bikini and animal ears? *yawn* At least put some zombie make-up on or something.

Hear, hear. My sister went as a lumberjack one year and a girl in an uninspiring "sexy-whatever" costume approached her and said, dead serious, "Wow, you came as a lumberjack? You're like, really brave. I can't stand not to look sexy on Halloween!"

The male high school teachers I know hate Halloween for this reason.

This can be easily solved if more people would exercise creativity and make/design their own costumed instead of buying the packaged ones.

When I went as Beatrix Kiddo, did I go buy the packaged jumpsuit? No, I recreated the outfit she has on when she crawls out of the grave. Dirty jeans, plaid blouse, flip-flops (because I wasn't going into a bar barefoot), blond wig, ninja sword, fake blood.

Even when I was little my mom would make me my costumes - not always by sewing, sometimes by taking regular clothes and mixing in costume elements.

I'm plus-sized, so I can't buy many of the pre-packaged costumes because they do a "one-size" adult woman that's about a size 6. Maybe that's a GOOD thing, I've never had the option so I've never had to be bland or pre-packaged.

The last time I dressed up, I just bought a jester's hat and had fun painting my face, and I paired that with black pants and a sparkly black top. The two friends I went out with both wore midriff-baring, cleavage-baring, thigh-baring costumes (sexy flight attendant and sexy Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, natch), and I felt oddly overdressed.

I remember two years ago I wanted to go as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. They were all out of regular Dorothy and only had sexy Dorothy. I tried it on and the skirt was really short (which is worse for me because I'm really tall) and as I was only 15 at the time I didn't feel comfortable wearing something that revealing. My mom didn't think it looked that bad but she was understanding when I said I wasn't comfortable in it. It didn't look like the movie at all and I wanted to look like Dorothy from the movie. I never was able to find a normal "non-sexy" Dorothy as the only store that carried one was the first one and they were out. The other places only had it in kids sizes. I ended up getting a black witch dress and wand and going as Bellatrix from Harry Potter. It was cool, I guess, but I still wish I could've gone as Dorothy as with the braids it would've looked really cute.

Theres nothing wrong with having sexualized women's costumes. The problem is that they don't have any sexualized men's costumes.

I donno, maybe those costumes are so popular because most women can't dress like that any other day of the year without being called a whore.

Maybe they like their bodies and want to show some skin in a culturally sanctioned fashion that they can laugh off the next day and not have to "pay for" socially for the rest of the year.

There is an element of playing up to the male gaze, but I think another big part of it is backlash because of slut-shaming.

And this is why I don't buy premade costumes. Hell, I'm femme and most of the time I don't even go as a female.

I have mixed feelings about the "sexy" Halloween costumes that get trotted out year after year. In the very least though, most of them are pretty umimaginative.

I'm not sure how strong the leg I have to stand on is though, as for the past 3 (this year will make 4) years running I have gone as one train wreck of a party girl character. This way, when it's the end of the night and I look something like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/visitronix/1389445284/ I'm still basically in costume ha ha ha.