Baring All on October 31

I had catch-up dinners with two different friends this week. Once we'd covered job, friends and love life, we got into what really matters: Halloween. Fodder for conversation. Costume decisions and bar-hopping routes are the just the tip of the Halloween iceberg, entry points into a more philosophical discussion. For twentysomethings still riding high on the coattails of college, Halloween is an institution—everyone’s favorite or least favorite holiday—rife with story, connotation and debate.  

Yesterday, I got an email from a college friend—subject line “Halloween”— saying only: “I’ve figured out a way to my wear my nude bodysuit again this year!”  Like your favorite black cardigan, a nude body suit is a useful transition piece—from Lady Godiva to the Coppertone Girl to a Never Nude to a streaker.  When you shell out for such an item at the Claremont, California sex shop, you expect it to deliver until it gets too snug.  For those who have made similar investments, rest easy: Slutty Halloween is here to stay.  Your tight-fitting nude bodysuit will always be en vogue on October 31. 

For whatever reason, the holiday formerly marked by Reeses Cups and friendly ghosts has become a nationwide slutfest starting around age 18. From unknown origins, Halloween has burgeoned into a yearly excuse to bare all under infinite guises. 

The first dinner was Brooklyn Thai with a friend who also experienced life as a women’s college undergraduate. As such, we share a similar set of jumbled feminist values that we can conveniently pull out or obscure at will. She expressed a general distaste for slutty Halloween, a tradition she forcefully defies every year.   Intellectually, I totally agree.  There’s a feminist disconnect inherent in Slutty Halloween that doesn’t sit well when I stop to think about it. How is it that empowered women spout gender theory in co-ed classes, best their male counterparts on exams and hold their own in every professional field, yet still relish the autumn opportunity to dress like a costumed slut and let booze drip down their insides for the benefit of barely-costumed men? More personally: How is it that I studied feminist literature with professors I admire and still dressed up as a slutty Pikachu one year? And, embarrassingly generic, a slutty firefighter the next?  Couldn’t I have just been Jane Austen?

The feminist in me objects to the objectification, the explicit provocation for men who spend little time on their own costumes.  But a new strand of feminism insists that we’re past all that—that the choice to dress provocatively is empowering in its own right. The stereotyped posterchild for this way of thinking is Samantha from “Sex and the City.”  As powerful women, we can do what we want with our bodies and our wardrobe. It shouldn’t affect who we are or where we stand.  In some ways, Halloween embodies this power of choice, but I do think the costumes would make Betty Friedan and co. blush for more than one reason.   It doesn’t quite add up, but the question is: Does the apparent disconnect really matter? Of all the feminist battles to fight, is Slutty Halloween really worth our time?

The second dinner was Manhattan Italian with a close male friend from college, someone whom I’d probably drunkenly encountered on four separate Halloweens.  Sipping red wine, we rehashed our college costumes.  When I got to “cowgirl,” he repeated twice, “oh yeah. I remember that one.”  While my friend is mostly an upstanding gentleman, I had a feeling his memory was more exposed pushup bra and denim mini skirt than the  historical accuracy of my Annie Oakley—handstiched boots and bolo tie imported directly from the Lone Star State.  But he can’t be blamed. I dressed up as a sexy cowgirl of my own free will, implicitly for the benefit of the men I was sure to encounter.

Southern California was the perfect backdrop for slutty Halloween.  Still warm well into October, we had little choice but to masquerade as glorified prostitutes once a year (one year, a group ironically dressed up as actual prostitutes, because why not?) Anything can be turned slutty—the hoochier the better.   At the time, I don’t think dressing up as a non-slutty nurse, lobster, cadaver, Pokemon, Sarah Palin, Steve Jobs even crossed my mind. Why bother going out? Slutty Halloween is institutionalized. Well into our twenties, we can’t shake the connotation, nor do most seem to want to.  The conservative among us get a chance to cut loose and the already loose among us are vindicated.  The formerly-wholesome holiday has officially been degraded, but only the slimmest minority seems to want to reverse the trend: http://takebackhalloween.org/.  

I asked a coworker for her thoughts on Slutty Halloween. “Well, it works,” she responded, and explained that she met a long-term boyfriend at a Halloween party.  I was reminded of my college roommate, who is now engaged to a man she started dating on Halloween.  I doubt either of these respectable women was fully clothed. These tales of Halloween love are definitely coincidence, right?

Frankly, Slutty Halloween is fun and harmless.  This year, I’m dressing up as Amelia Earhart.  My choice to dress up as an overly-clothed, independent woman is not meant to be a feminist statement.  At all. I just wanted to buy some aviator goggles and a cap.  When a male friend asked if I was going to be Amelia EarWHORE, I laughed. Because it’s funny.  And if Amelia does ends up wearing a push-up bra and shorts instead of pants: sue me.