Happy Whoreoween? Heteroween? Hitlerween?

Shea and I had physicals last week and while wandering through the mall where our doctor has his office, we popped into one of those “All Halloween All The Time” specialty stores that always appear just before the holidays and are gone soon after.

In other years, I had noticed that there were a lot of “Sexy [Insert Blank Here]” costumes around but going into this store, I got the impression there was nothing but “Sexy [Insert Blank Here]” costumes for women.  There were the usual suspects (Sexy Nurse, Sexy French Maid, Sexy Barmaid) but some other unexpected ones (I’m pretty sure I saw “Sexy BP Oil Worker”!)

(On a side note, I didn’t see “Sexy Librarian” but I suspect that costume was there somewhere!)

Anyhow, it wasn’t much of a coincidence to hit MetaFilter this weekend and see a long discussion about the rise of the “Sexy [Insert Blank Here]” trend in our culture – whether this was harmless fun, yet another example of objectification of women or something in between. (Although women are the main targets of the trend, there are some who would encourage men to embrace the sexy too.)

Sex columnist, Dan Savage, has a column with an interesting theory that this trend towards “sexy” costumes is just something heterosexuals have developed to display their sexuality in a campy way they can’t in their everyday lives – the hetero equivalent of a gay pride parade. Others have pointed out that this trend has tipped into something that’s ripe for satire.

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