Sex and the Single Feminist

I stopped going to Halloween parties a few years ago. This year I was trying to figure out why I’d become such a humbug about a holiday that used to bring me so much joy as a kid. And I realized it’s because I got tired of the “sexy costume” phenomenon.

The last time I attended a Halloween party, I was not in a costume that revealed much cleavage or leg. It was not an unflattering outfit, but it was clearly not intended to be sexy. I spent most of the party drifting around, orbiting the outer edges of conversations while the men at the party chatted up the sexy nurse, the Charlie’s Angel, and the woman who wasn’t anything in particular but had on fishnet tights and not much else. And it was not just the men who seemed to think I had failed in my Halloween costume duties. The women at the party looked at me like I was some kind of weirdo. The lesson I took from that evening was this: If I want to have fun at a Halloween party, it doesn’t matter how clever or original my costume might be. No one will give me the time of day if I don’t go slutty.

Men often talk about Halloween as though it’s Christmas morning: the one day of the year when women feel they have permission to dress sexy. I have two problems with this conception of the holiday. First, why don’t we have permission every other day of the year? I am hardly prudish about these things. Modesty has never been one of my hang ups. I would walk around naked if society (and the weather) allowed. And I do enjoy getting dressed up in a way that flatters my body. But why should I only have “permission” to do that once a year? Why should I be judged harshly for embracing my sexy side on the other 364 days?

My second frustration with this framing of the holiday is the reality that this special “permission” becomes an expectation. The only thing I resent more than being told I shouldn’t look too sexy is being told that I OUGHT to look sexy. It’s my body. When the decision to exhibit it is no longer mine, that implies it is somehow public property. And I would rather be thought an uptight prude than public property. Though I would like to think those are not my only two options since, to those who know me, I am obviously neither.

So here’s to candy and staying out late and letting our imaginations run away with us. I will save my fishnets and four-inch heels for next week.

~ by Soul of the University on October 31, 2011.

Posted in Appropriate for most audiences, Ok to read at work