The views expressed in this piece are that of the individual writer and not necessarily that of Her Campus.
Ah, Halloween: the one night a year when a girl can’t dress like a sl*t without everyone having something to say about it.
Wait… didn’t the quotable Mean Girls adage actually dub Halloween as a time of year when a girl can dress however she wants and no one can say anything about it?
So how come people are getting so confused?
People toss the classic quote around like it’s the gospel truth, but in real life, it seems to be the opposite. Come Halloween, the floodgates open for the popular ritual also known as The Shaming of the Sexy Costumes, a festive variation of sl*t shaming. For the uninitiated, sl*t shaming basically boils down to the act of degrading a woman for how she expresses her sexuality. This definition in mind, it seems the most accurate play on Cady Heron’s observation would be to describe Halloween as the one time a year where everyone can sl*t shame and no one can say anything about it.
What’s the deal? Can’t a girl want to show off her bodacious rack or those legs her mama gave her in a sexy costume without having to deal with a barrage of criticism and commentary? Or equally as grating: advice from guys on how to hold on to her “class” to make herself more desirable in guys’ eyes. As girls, we know that our choices are far from made only for the male gaze. Sure, on Halloween we can pick a costume to attract the hottie in the Superman costume, but we also dress for ourselves: to feel sexy or confident or cute or fun.
We know that, but that doesn’t stop guys from trying to tell us the exact formula of how to impress them. How to walk the line between sexy and classy, how to be the virgin and the wh*re simultaneously – all the boy-approved rules for “respecting ourselves.”
Don’t get me wrong – there’s no denying that the costume market is oversaturated with over-sexualized costumes that can leave some women feeling objectified or without other options. But somehow, the conversation about how these costumes might be problematic on a societal level has moved far away from being productive, instead shaming the women who choose to enjoy these costumes. Spoiler alert: you’re totally allowed to enjoy them! Sexy Nurse, Sexy Flight Attendant, Sexy Big Bird, Sexy Banana, Sexy Wrecking Ball, Sexy Government Shutdown – the world is your Sexy Costume Mad Lib.
Here’s the deal: if someone rattles off reasons why you shouldn’t show some skin other than because you don’t want to or you’re not comfortable with it (or okay, maybe because you might get cold trekking from party to party), then they’re the bad apples, not you.
So how do you block out the noise?
Simple: do what you want. Choosing your Halloween costume should be all about what you want and what makes you feel good. Figure out what you want to wear without worrying about what image it allegedly projects to the jury of your peers. You dig it? You should wear it and feel empowered to wear it!
Of course, we all know it’s harder than that. You can’t separate logic from the world we live in, so it’s true that some guys are going to offer their advice: they’ll try to tell us that classy and sexy are mutually exclusive, that what we wear determines what level of a “challenge” we pose in their imagined quest to hook up with us or that how much respect we deserve is dependent on how much clothing is on our bodies.
But we don’t have time for those kinds of guys anyway, do we? So let’s not let them rain on our Halloween parade, either. And remember – support your fellow collegiettes and their right to wear whatever they want as well, because as a few other Mean Girls’ words of wisdom says:
Halloween is a time to be whatever we want, so work whichever costume is calling out to you this year, sexy or otherwise!