Autumn is my favorite season. The leaves, the air, the apples and the sex. Or, rather, the blatant expression of sexuality that accompanies my favorite holiday: Halloween.
On 364 days of the year, we must be subtle. That's 364 long, hard days of reflecting our self-respect in the way we dress, 364 days of tearing my napkin into strips, chewing ice and peeling the label from my water bottle until it is as naked as I imagine others to be. But on Oct. 31, we can wear our sexual frustration, our promiscuous ways and the fruits of our workouts, all in lieu of a sleeve.
Halloween, to quote classic dramedy "Mean Girls," "is the one night of a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it." Genius. And while some people may look down on the girl in the pink bra and panties dressed as "sexy breast cancer awareness raiser" this Wednesday, I will salute her. She is simply carrying out a proud and long-standing tradition.
Though the origins of the sexy Halloween costume are unknown, a glance at historical events that have taken place in late October is quite illuminating. Harvard University was founded on Oct. 28, 1636. On the same day in 1793, Eli Whitney applied for a patent on the cotton gin. On Halloween itself - Oct. 31, 1864 - Nevada, aka the Cleavage Bearing Costume State, was named the 36th state in the union. Clearly, the sexy Halloween costume was a long time coming.
Now it's ingrained in our culture. Maybe you were exposed to it at a young age, as I was when a group of my sixth-grade classmates came to school dressed up as whores. The strange part of that was that I went to an all-girls school. Others of you may not have encountered the phenomenon until college. I know one Harvard student who attended a Halloween party wearing the same bumblebee costume he'd worn for years only to find everyone else topless. Arguably he should have known better given Harvard's probably deep-seeded and infamous founding/Halloween soiree.
Most of you likely have an opinion on what level of attractiveness is appropriate in a Halloween costume. I see three categories of reaction: embracers, deniers and joy killers.
The embracers go all out. They enter costume contests wearing nothing but underwear and exit costume contests wearing nothing at all. They rally their friends to adopt a group theme under the infallible logic that if a bunch of girls all go as the same scantily clad version of something, it's the amount of clothes the group wears in total on which others can judge them. These people may attempt to shield themselves from criticism by giving their exhibitionist outfit a creative spin. Is that girl wearing clothes? Nope, not any real clothes, she's just dressed up as Saran Wrap! That guy's not only shirtless, he's donning a Matthew McConaughey costume to boot! Embracers will astutely point out that a see-through leotard is a precaution against dehydration, a real issue at some of these crowded Halloween parties. Plus, it's cold outside. My see-through leotard attracts a lot more people willing to huddle close for warmth.
Deniers hold a broad range of opinions. Some deniers believe that Halloween is a stupid excuse to dress sexy. They show their cleavage all the time, so it doesn't really matter if they're wearing devil horns in addition to that staple American Apparel mini dress that makes their nipples look so cute. Other deniers will just wear an outfit they normally wouldn't have the confidence to wear and agree with whatever other people guess they're dressed up as. It hurts when someone guesses fifth grade teacher when you were going for five star hooker, but since every weekend people ask me if I'm going to an 80s party, I don't have too much sympathy. Others will come up with really creative costumes that just happen to be attractive. Oh my God, you're a Greek God/aerobics instructor/hot celebrity/ironic imitation of a friend who is better-looking than you! No, you're just in slutty Halloween costume denial.
Finally, we have the joy killers. They scoff at sexy costumes, which objectify bodies and sully the good name of cheerleaders and nurses nationwide. They instead prefer to dress up as witches (totally ignoring how offensive that is to ancestors of those persecuted during the Salem witch trials) and pumpkins (never acknowledging how pumpkin farming has led to deforestation and defamation of the Dutch national color by associating orange with the sinister jack-o'-lantern figure). Joy killers are probably right. Halloween has become an opportune time for self-degradation. But so many people want to be wrong.
No matter where you fit in, we can all agree that we've departed from the days during which trick-or-treating didn't involve condoms or Jell-O shots. When we have children of our own, we'll feel just a little gross making their costumes. We'll remember that guy dressed as a ghost who had cut the holes in the sheet in slightly different places. That girl who dressed as sexy Sleeping Beauty and the ironic rape jokes that followed her passing out on the couch post-vomit. Grinding with a nun.
Gone are the innocent pagan getups of yore. We have entered a new realm of creativity, one in which sexual expression takes the form of sexual objectification. We have the opportunity, the duty, to hook up with someone who actually wants to resemble Al Gore on some level, even if that level is reached via a bikini she can wear in October due to global warming. How lucky we are, as a sexually liberated generation! The new millennium offers so many new freedoms!
Which is why I'm going to dress up as slutty Y2K.
Alison Schouten '08 thinks you are what you wear. Especially you, boy dressed as a sexy Goldfish snack cracker. Yeah you are.
