A pirate, a nurse, and a French maid walk into a bar. No, this is not the start of a bad joke; it is the start of Halloween night for three female students at MSU. As seen at many college campuses across the United States, numerous women celebrate Halloween by dressing up in risqué costumes with short skirts, exposed torsos and plunging necklines. But why do so many women participate in this trend? Can sexy costumes empower women, or just degrade them?
On an typical day, wearing a racy outfit might cause others to respond with rude looks and gossip. Halloween, however, allows exceptions to everyday standards of attire. Sexy costumes are accepted and even the norm at college. No preference sophomore Kristen Ciechanowski, who participates in the trend, explained, “It’s the only time a girl can wear provocative clothing without being judged.”
Women may be able to escape criticism for their costumes because Halloween is about being something that you are not. Engineering sophomore Joe Ray said, “It’s the same reason why I dress up like a superhero; it lets them be someone else for the night.” Halloween allows women to be whomever they want, from firefighters to movie stars. Marketing sophomore Sevil Cokdegerli wears sexy costumes and agrees that they do not exemplify a woman’s identity. “When I come out of the store [from shopping], I am being me. But on Halloween you are not being you,” Cokdegerli said.
[Ciechanowski]
Costumes may conceal the real woman underneath. Advertising sophomore Colleen Patterson, who does not partake in the trend, said women may feel comfortable showing more skin on Halloween because “there’s an anonymity that goes with costumes.” Unlike with everyday outfits, men cannot infer a woman’s sexual behavior by her Halloween costume. If a woman dressed provocatively on another day, many would assume that she is promiscuous. But on Halloween, a woman in a sexy costume could simply be following the crowd. A woman may feel comfortable dressing sexy on Halloween because she knows her costume does not necessarily reflect her sexuality.
Showing more skin than usual may help a woman discover her sexual power and its effects. Halloween can be a safe time for a woman to realize her sexiness because she can be free of scrutiny. “It can be a fun change if you’re conservative, as long as you don’t go too far,” Patterson said. Women can use this holiday as an opportunity to release their inhibitions and embrace their sexuality.
Cokdegerli wears sexy costumes because it makes her feel good about herself. “When people are feeding you complements, you feel good. If you feel like you look good, you feel confident.” She believes anyone who dresses sexy can feel empowered by “getting attention they don’t get every day.” Halloween can be a time for women to celebrate their beauty and boost their confidence.
What has caused sexy costumes to become so popular? The same forces that have put sexuality on center stage in most aspects of popular culture surely contributed to the growing popularity of the parade of saucy seductress costumes that decorate Grand River Avenue every October 31st. Many people point to the media as a driving force because images of sex that lace advertisements, movies, television shows and music targeted to the college-aged demographic fuels females’ fire. General management freshman Jessica Horstman pointed to fixtures of popular culture like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and Victoria Secret commercials as examples of how sexiness is dictated to American females. “Women [dress up] to get attention. In the media, women get attention for wearing provocative clothing,” Lapham said.
Peer pressure is another major factor that women cite as perpetuating the Halloween costume trend. “Girls dress up because everyone else is,” Lapham said. “It’s like a Catch-22. Nobody will go against the crowd and not dress provocatively, even if they wanted to.” Pre-nursing sophomore Charday Warren dresses up sexy because “everyone does it. If you don’t, you kinda feel like you look stupid.”
The effort put into sexing up any and every female’s Halloween costume suggests something bigger, and not better, for the state of American popular culture to Patterson. “I think our culture is dominated by sex. It has seeped into too many areas that used to be innocent and fun,” Patterson said. And for Ray, turning the fun and innocent into the sexy and seductive suggests that “our morals and values have greatly declined.”
Maria Bruno, a writing, rhetoric and American culture professor at MSU, has her own theory: “I think [this trend] shows a pornification of culture,” Bruno said. Bruno sees pornographic influences in imagery, fashion and what is expected of a woman’s behavior. “Women are relying on images and metaphors from porn to attract male attention,” she said. Women dressing up as sexy nurses or policewomen are embodying male fantasies and the handcuffs and whips that accessorize these costumes outrightly demonstrate bondage, a popular pornographic theme, Bruno said. As porn becomes increasingly popular, especially for the college-aged population, women feel pressured to compete with it for attention. “Women are trying to lure their men away from porn and trying to be attractive in ways they think men will find them attractive,” Bruno said. [Bruno]
The popularity of racy Halloween get-ups now means sexiness dominates the female costume industry this time of year. Much of the cleverness of Halloween costumes is lost for college women. According to the Halloween Costume Shopping Blog, the top women’s costumes for 2008 are all of the risqué variety: costumes called “Heaven Sent,” “Playboy Scandalous Pirate” and “Fairy Licious Vamp Fairy” are all in the top ten. Choices of costumes that may not be particularly sexy are limited, while other costumes put an erotic twist on characters that are rarely described as representing the essence of sexiness – take the “sexy mob boss” costume for example or the “naughty horse jockey.” Nothing has reiterated that sex sells more than the Halloween costume aisle. “That’s all they sell,” junior accounting major Shruti Agrawal said. So, she makes her own costume.
The difference between men’s and women’s Halloween costume choices shows the disproportionate emphasis on females putting their sexuality on display. Finding men in costumes that are modes to showing off their figures or attracting females is usually a difficult task. “I don’t think when men choose a costume, they’re choosing to attract women. Or else they would wear tuxes and carry around vacuums,” Bruno said. Lapham said boys do not wear racy costumes because “it has never been part of culture. Girls use their bodies to get attention, and the boy is supposed to approach the girl.” Charday Warren and Kristen Ciechanowski agreed that it would seem out of place and weird if men did.
The fact that men generally cannot be found in the same types of racy costumes that many females choose to wear can suggest certain levels of objectivity, Bruno said. Instead of becoming part of the trend and getting sexed up before hitting the streets on Halloween night, men often become spectators to trend. The measure of how great a female looks in her sexy French maid costume is bound to be scored by a few males throughout the course of an evening. Awareness of objectification is important because “women are choosing to be objects of the male gaze,” Bruno said. The male gaze is a feminist theory term that describes an unequal power relationship between men and women. The gaze occurs when men impose their gaze upon women by looking at them as objects of their desire.
The detrimental gendered dynamics that Bruno suggests this trend brings about become especially worrisome as sexy costumes become increasingly popular among girls much younger than college-aged. “There is some shift about sexualizing younger and younger,” Bruno said. Girls in middle school and even elementary school are starting to wear racy costumes that expose torsos or show more leg. Adding Halloween costumes to the pressure young girls are already feeling to conform to pervasive beauty and gender norms is not at all necessary, Patterson said. “I still want their costumes to be cute and clever and just more innocent. There is so much else that is corrupting [kids] already,” she said.
While the future of it is unknown, the trend of risqué costumes continues to boom. “I don’t know if it will shift back,” Bruno said. So she explains how we can deal with the trend: “We don’t want to condemn [those who dress up revealing costumes] because if you dress up for Halloween you are not a prostitute, but we need to analyze this cognitive shift in culture.”
This Halloween, women should think about their costume choice and the reasoning behind it. Are women embracing their sexuality and breaking free from societal standards? Or are they conforming to new standards created by a sexualized culture?