Sex on Campus: Halloween Dilemma

When it comes to Halloween costumes for women, there's a thin line between sexy and slutty.

For everyone over the age of 15, Halloween may no longer mean trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving, but it certainly still involves costumes.  In fact, while dressing up for Halloween persists throughout high school, it is not until college that things really start to get exciting. For college students, it's not so much Halloween, but Halloweek: a week of make-up-wearing boys and scantily clad girls running from one party to the next.

Obviously, every party involves drinking and dressing up, however, putting together a makeshift witch’s costume isn’t exactly what partygoers have in mind (unless of course the witch were wearing a short leather dress rather than a large black cloak to accompany her pointy hat).  While boys try to outdo each other in all imaginable levels of ridiculousness, with costumes ranging from skintight fairy ensembles to adult-size Teletubby outfits, girls are only concerned with one costume criteria: sexy.

But there are unspoken guidelines and a distinction between sexy and “slutty”. Upperclass girls claim to have mastered the distinction: “You can always pick out who the freshman girls are because they’re wearing your standard slutty costumes… you know… maid, nurse, police woman,” claims a 20-year-old junior.

“There’s a difference between dressing up as a slut, and dressing up as a sexy whatever,” claims a senior girl, who insists that wearing a mainstream, scandalous costume is no different than dressing up as a prostitute.

Previously acceptable costumes have involved a “Circus Troop,” where the clowns wore short skirts, high heels, and rainbow wigs; the circus master wore a cropped vest, fishnet tights, and carried a whip; and the acrobatic performer wore nothing more than a sparkly leotard and heels.  Another involved a group of “Disney Princesses” – that is, the miniskirt, high-heeled version of Snow White, Cinderella, and Pocahontas.

To avoid the shameful “slut” category during Halloweek, the key is to be creative and unique when attempting to wear as little as possible.   “Clearly, you didn’t think, ‘let’s get creative,’ if you’re wearing a maid’s costume you ordered off the internet.”

Most self-respecting girls on campus seem to share the above sentiments, electing to spice up otherwise not-so-sexy costumes with higher heels and shorter skirts.  That being said, there seems to be fine, barely visible line between the acceptable "unique," sexy costumes and the standard, slutty costumes.