It’s Halloween, and I want to go trick-or-treating.
I remember the days when Halloween used to signify heaping pumpkin-shaped bags of candy and dressing up as a Ninja Turtle. It meant going door-to-door with my siblings, excitedly seeking the best of goodies, before returning home and trading our favorite pieces of candy—Reese’s, Twix, and Snickers—like the most talented of bargainers.
Now, in college, innocence has vanished and has been replaced with Playboy bunnies, cleavage-baring nurses, and sexy Peter Pans. An array of costume characters, that otherwise would never be regarded as “sexy,”—Big Bird, a guitar, and Nemo, to name few—are handed tight dresses and knee-high heels, magically transforming into sexy Big Bird, sexy guitar, and sexy Nemo. (Okay, when we start taking some of our favorite childhood characters and turning them in to sex toys… that’s when we have a problem. Oh, and a guitar? Come on. What’s next? Sexy toilet?)
I’m not saying I haven’t bought in to the sexy Halloween trend at all. I was a “sexy devil” once and wore a tight dress, heels, and horns, but that was the furthest I’ve gone. What started this “sexy” trend? When did Halloween become an excuse to dress very provocatively without the risk of someone calling you a slut the following morning?
Maybe it’s the movie industry that changed Halloween. Maybe it’s just America’s culture in general, a culture notorious for pushing the envelope always a little bit more, seeing how far we can take it. I don’t know, but what I do know, is that I wish I could go trick-or-treating tonight, swap Reese’s candy with my roommate, and dress up as a Ninja Turtle.
A non-sexy Ninja Turtle, that is.