God am I glad I grew up having no concept of the sexxxy Halloween costume. For at least three years in middle/high school my friends and I were GI Joes – bought camo gear at the Army Surplus Store and called it a day. I wore my dad’s actual referee jersey one year – NOT tied up under my non-existent 11-year-old breasts. I know I wore more traditionally “girly” costumes as a small child – I was Rainbow Brite a couple years, a princess, a witch – but never was I ever in anything remotely sexy. So sad that little girls don’t have the luxury of not knowing they’ll be expected to be HAWT on Halloween in the very near future.

I did sexy/slutty a couple times in my early 20s, but these days if I wear anything at all to dress up, it’s usually my old college cheerleading uniform. Which certainly poses its own concerning gender implications, but it’s not midriff-baring or super short like a cheerleader Halloween costume. Hell, the liner that goes underneath the shell is a damn turtleneck. “Slutoween” is a thing of my past, at least until I have to deal with its encroachment on my hypothetical children.

A friend of mine actually went as sexy Abraham Lincoln last year, to be ironic and mock the Sexy Costume Industry. The scary thing was how many people thought she was completely serious.

The lion costume featured above for little girls is manufactured by a company that makes lingerie the rest of the year. This company was responsible for the creation of virtually all of the women’s, teen’s, and tween costumes on display.

Out of the costumes for little girls, only 3 featured a model of color in the display. One was a sexualized Devil costume with an assumed African American model, one was called Dragon Ninja (also in a short skirt) with an Asian model, and the last was an Asian Princess costume with an actually long kimono in pink also featuring an Asian model looking down at her feet. Ironically, the cover model for the Geisha costume (and yes, it was called Geisha) was a white girl with heavy eyeliner on her eyes to give them a more slanted appearance.

Other costumes I saw that were rather breathtaking for me: Enchantress (supposed to be some sort of witch?), Hot Stuff (pink one-piece jumpsuit with pink sequin horns supposed to be a cute/sexy devil – I was surprised they didn’t call it “Hawt Stuff” personally), ALL of the pirate costumes for girls had skirts and ran on similar themes of “Cutey” or “Beauty” or “Pretty” (except for one labeled Punk Pirate – if by “punk” you think of Avril Lavigne), the ONLY costume I saw for girls with pants featured a pinstripe suit and hat called “Gangster Girl” – I actually liked the costume until I looked closer and realized that the stripes were pink, and Purrty Kitty – just as bad, if not worst, as the lion costume above except with pink fur.

There was a small section of Tween costumes available and these looked the same as the Teen costumes which were virtually identical to the offerings for women which were all the same “sexy” lingerie costume, just in different colors or with slightly different themes. Tween’s could choose Goldilocks – extremely short yellow checked dress with small apron featuring a teddy bear on it and a gold ribbon choker, Dorothy – same costume but in blue checked fabric and extraordinarily short skirt, Pirate Cutey – same costume but in red and black, AND the worst I saw – French Maid – short black and white dress, lacey head piece, and GARTERS (which, for some reason, they didn’t put the garters on the model).

Tweens are typically anywhere from 8 to 12 years old.

I still have those pictures on my facebook profile if you guys want to see them. Let me know.

…I’m going back to bed.

When my son was five, I took him to Hancock Fabrics and we looked through the Halloween costume pattern books. He decided he wanted to wear a cape that was black on the outside and red on the inside and a witch’s hat. So, I bought him the hat and made him the cape and off we went. The neighbors were very confused. I just said “He’s a wizard” with a “well, duh” tone of voice. But if he said he wanted to be a witch, I would have called him a witch.

Seriously, why are people looking for reasons to tell their kids that they can’t be who they want to be? It’s worse for girls than boys, in ways that really make me sad.

Coming from a big family, there really weren’t gendered clothes or costumes. For book week, I remember dressing up and helping my younger brothers and sisters dress up from created costumes at home using what we had. At no stage was there “skimpy” tiger..

And then I need to go punch someone because it shouldn’t be that hard.

Thanks, Party City, I really needed *another* reason to be terrified of having kids.