I miss the days of childhood Halloween. Dressing up in those adorable little costumes and trucking around my neighborhood with my daddy to collect candy and having my older brother yell at me for eating candy out of the bag because it was not properly inspected for razor blades. Yep, those were the days.I don't really remember how I celebrated Halloween in high school. I have a vague memory of going to a friends house but the memory is not clear. Anyways, I watched all of those movies that featured Halloween parties and I would chuckle at the extravagant representation of Halloween celebrations among young adults. Well surprise, surprise. It wasn't that extravagant.
I remember being in high school and watching "Mean Girls." You all know what I am talking about. If you don't, you should watch that movie pronto. Anyways in that movie all the girls are getting ready for Halloween, which really meant opening their lingerie drawer and throwing animal ears on their head. As Cady says in the movie "Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it."
Yep, that was hilarious then. Well, turns out it is reality. I live in Cox this year, and unfortunately I was sick and therefore opted to stay in for the night. I sat on my bed with my blinds open and watch all of the girls prance off to parties. I must say some of the outfits were clever. One of my favorites was the walk of shame outfit, which consisted of a man's dress shirt, boxers and high heels.
Most of the outfits, however, consisted of nothing more then some underwear and bunny ears. I find this an interesting phenomenon. What in society makes these girls think that walking out of your room dressed in minimal clothing is completely, socially acceptable. I turned to trusty yahoo answers to assist with this puzzling question.
A user by the name of mike_b_2 posted the question "Why do girls feel like it is necessary to dress like sluts on Halloween?" He went on to ask "Has our culture's ladies totally lost their self-respect and class? It seems to me that they are all chomping at the bit to out whore each other on Halloween."
Various users weighed in on this question, offering different sides of the argument. One user explained that with the selection of Halloween costumes available its near impossible to find a costume that is appropriate. Some shared that is a sign of lack of self respect. Some did nothing to attempt to hide their disgust with the situation. Others quickly came to the defense, explaining that since it was only one night of the year it did not matter and since it was just a costume it did not mean anything.
As one user by the name of miss figuring it out explained, "It's my body, it's my choice that's why! I do have self-respect, the costumes I wear are cute, show a little leg but classy. Whore wouldn't be a good choice of words, because I'm sure that these girls aren't having sex for money! We aren't going to have these bodies forever! What's the bad side to wearing something a little skimpy once a year? To be out of our element, be something we're not, and to maybe be a little more naughty than usual. I don't see what's so wrong"
She went on to explain that all of the girls who were bashing the fashion sense of those who wear scandalous Halloween costumes simply had no self confidence. Another user explained that these girls may feel the need to compete with other girls on Halloween. Some argue that it is the men that are adding to the problem. Textsfromlastnight.com is a web-site that allows people to post funny and/or inapposite texts. One of the texts that went up this weekend was " I hate when i ask a girl what she's being for Halloween and the first word isn't "slutty." Other similar comments referring to girls' costumes or overall lack of circulate during this particular holiday. I am also friends with some old teachers from high school on facebook and one posted that she was tired of seeing girls in slutty Halloween costumes on her news feed.
I am not condoning the girls who dress up like this. I am not calling them sluts, nor am I criticizing their choice of apparel. I just find it interesting that dressing like this in public, which was once considered to be in bad taste, has become a norm for our society.
