Here’s a poem I wrote today:

Halloween is almost here, the wind is high, the nights are cool.

And people all are ready to dress up and play the fool.

But even though it’s Halloween and time for treats and pranks,

please, please don’t let your daughters dress like little Hallow-skanks!

What is it about Halloween?  Every costume online, or in stores, seems to have a ‘naughty’ version.  Naughty nun, naughty prisoner, naughty cop, naughty firefighter, naughty cowgirl, naughty cow.

What’s next, naughty groundhog?  Naughty tree…complete with thigh-high bark?

Of course, these are almost completely directed at women.  Most guys can’t pull off naughty anything; so the equivalent is usually something even more crass, with some nasty anatomical parody.  Junior high never ends, it seems.

But why are we asking our daughters, as early as grade-school, and especially in high-school and college, to use Halloween to dress in promiscuous clothes?

Why does every costume require platform heels, stockings and garters?  Is that really how we see the lady cop?  Is that really how we see or want to see (heaven forbid) the sweet sister from the local parish?

Worse, is that how we really want our daughters, our wives and sisters to appear?

I hope not.  And please, I’m not being a prude.  I love to see a beautiful woman, my wife, dressed in something alluring.  But it doesn’t have to be slutty.  And it doesn’t have to be forward or suggestive.

What with date-rape, abusive relationships (married and dating); what with wide-spread pornography addiction and incredible amounts of drug and alcohol abuse, I would like to see young women dressed in a way that made them look like something other than potential victims, or like sexual objects.  How about something that made them look lovely?  Or interesting?  Intelligent or funny?  How about anything not-so-naughty?

Could we accomplish that?  Could we encourage that?  Or are we, in the name of sexual liberation, in the name of avoiding ‘prudishness and Puritanism’ simply going to throw open the door to any kind of costume, any kind of exhibitionism just for girls and women to be accepted?  Just so that someone will pay attention?

I fear that the trend to ‘naughty’ in costumes may be attracting the wrong kind of attention after all.

Edwin

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