Have Yourself a Sexy Halloween...Apparently

Browsing my local Party City for sporks, I came across what can only be described as the most whorish Halloween costume I had ever seen. Sold under the seemingly innocuous name of “Sweetheart Bat” the costume featured a lovely thigh-high skirt (cut just shy of the buttocks), a pair of black pleather fingerless gloves, sexy see-through wings that protrude from each shoulder, Red glitter devil horns, and of course hooker boots.

Why is this whorish you might ask?

It was geared toward a four-year-old.

That’s right: 4 years old. We are now dressing up pre-schoolers in stripper shoes and sending them out into neighborhoods asking strangers for candy.

I don’t see how that could end badly.



Going through my own Halloween costume memories, not one ever included a push-up bra. Sure there were a few that were controversial; the ghost costume made out of a bed sheet that looked way too similar to a KKK robe, the time I showed up to a Junior High Dance as a used tampon drenched in corn syrup and red food coloring and got kicked out, or the unfortunate forced costume for work that included a lycra bodysuit and the head of TMNT Michelangelo which ended with a severe case of camel toe and several children crying.

Perhaps I am a bit old-fashioned in my costume choices but when I was growing up the whole point of dressing up was to either gross out or freak out the neighbors. Weeks were lost to designing the perfect costume; make-up styles were created and then consulted on with friends, there were trial runs, tantrums and finally, the night of, we would unveil creations that were so awesome that siblings would weep in appreciation. This was what made Halloween so special. Creating a costume that rocked the universe and then stuffing our face with candy until we vomited.

Not dressing up like a “sexy” wolf with thigh-high boots and an STD.

As a lonely geek who spent far too much time in my bedroom watching horror movies and reading comic books, Halloween was the one night that I could suspend realty and embrace the cosmic darkness inside of myself. Sure, it might have been easier to simply go to the costume shop and pick up the “sexy” Bo Peep outfit, but I would’ve lost my soul in the process as well as my imagination. Being able to create something from scratch led to some of the funniest costumes of my youth, like the time I dressed up as Ronald Regan and apologized to my neighbors for Panama, or the Halloween I went as myself, but cleaner (I was covered in glycerin so I looked all shiny). The costumes I wore were and are a badge of honor. They started conversations, made people laugh, and once got me laid simply because the guy thought I was super cool for dressing up like Tom Selleck (which brings up a whole other line of questions).

Halloween was also the only time in the year when my brother and I would suspend plans for killing each other and instead focus on making him look as gross as possible. One year he would be a burn victim complete with eye ball protrusions, puss-filled sores and latex skin falling from his face and the next year he would be covered in Vaseline and blue-white make-up so he looked like he was drowned. We created back stories for every costume so that he was always the poor unassuming victim and I was the cold-blooded murder. One year, while drenching him in my very own blood recipe, my mom overheard me tell my brother, “I wouldn’t slash your throat Bud, I would kill you by stabbing you in the face.” Years later she would later tell me that it was the first time she questioned our sanity. (Imagine if she ever found out about the knife fights we had while she was at work.) But I have a feeling that her fear that one of us would become a serial killer would be far overshadowed if she had ever walked in on us dressing up like “Sexy” garbage collectors.

Which brings me back to the skanky toddler costume.

There is never a good reason to Ho-up a kid in the name of Halloween. Frankly, it’s far more disturbing for me to see a Kindergartener in a mesh half-shirt, than it would be to see a six year old in a Jason mask carrying a machete covered in brain matter.

Of course a “Sexy” Jason Voorhees would be kind of awesome.