Sex Positivity vs. My Hatred of Sexy Halloween Costumes

How my niece’s self-image issues are making me reexamine my perspectives

Last week, my mother brought several wigs and costumes to my sister’s house for the kids to try on. Halloween is second only to Christmas in our family, so the costume rehearsal is just one of many seasonal events that take place at this time of year.

Brynn, my 5-year-old niece, was particularly excited. She is obsessed with a movie called The Descendants, which is about teenagers who are the descendants of famous fairy tale characters (the Disney versions). Brynn’s heroine on that show — and her costume’s inspiration — is powerful and charismatic Mal, who is the daughter of Hades and Maleficent.

This is unsurprising, considering Brynn’s tomboyish, audacious personality. I can’t tell you how many times I have opened my arms for a hug when she came running at me, only to have to her punch me in the gut and yell, “I’m as strong as Wonder Woman!” God, I love her.

I came over to help everyone get into their costumes and talk about people’s makeup plans (I’m in charge of painting the kids’ faces each year), and I spent some time with Brynn helping her get into her Mal dress and then squeezing her head into the very tight purple wig.

When she saw herself in the mirror, she squealed, then stood there smiling, petting the wig. Afterward, she came to stand between me, my mother, and my sister, and said, “I never want to take off this wig. I just want to be pretty like Mal.”

The three of us looked at one another in shock, over Brynn’s head. Finally, my mother started in on a speech she had given me and my sister so many times, about how beautiful we were just being ourselves, and…

Well, Brynn lost interest, but it made me pause. How many times had Halloween felt like a magic moment in time when I could — for once — feel beautiful and sexy? And only because I was pretending to be someone else…

The first time I remember a Halloween costume making me feel like a different person was when I was 5 (Brynn’s age, interestingly) and dressed as Cinderella. My mom looped a belt through my floaties and fastened it around my waist underneath my dress, making it look like I was wearing an actual bustle, just like Cinderella in the movie. I had never felt more beautiful in my entire life.

By the time I was 12 and had suddenly captured the attention of every male from age 11 to 55 that I encountered, thanks to my C cup breasts that developed overnight, I felt like it was a requirement to dress sexily for Halloween. I even welcomed the chance to show off my sexuality. (This was just before I started getting sexually harassed and assaulted almost every day at school.)

“I just want to be pretty like Mal.”

I dressed up as a vampire, wearing a skirt that was as short as my mother would allow, and a garter on my thigh, as was the style in the late ’80s. I honestly didn’t think about it at the time — it just felt like I was supposed to look sexy all the time, and I knew that on Halloween, there was an extra allowance to indulge because people would be less judgmental of how I dressed if it was just a costume.

After struggling with the sexual trauma that soon followed (having nothing to do with my sexy vampire costume), I went through the rest of my teens battling an eating disorder and the associated weight gain. Once I dropped the weight in my early twenties, thanks to a whole new eating disorder, I allowed myself the indulgence of using Halloween as a way to express my sexuality without shame. I dressed up as Poison Ivy and lapped up the compliments I received all throughout the night, while desperately trying to keep my skimpy costume from falling off.

Again, struggling with my weight in my late twenties, I slipped into different personas during Halloween and allowed myself to feel pretty or even sexy when I felt I wasn’t supposed to think of myself in that way during the rest of the year. There was something exciting and freeing about it. I knew no one would judge me so I could be as pretty — or as sexy — as I wanted. It was Halloween, so it seemed like a free pass.

Too bad I couldn’t allow myself to see beauty or sexiness in myself at any other time of the year.

I’ve struggled with the idea of the “Sexy ____” costumes in the past. Sexy Doctor. Sexy Librarian. Sexy Pilot. Sexy Policewoman.

Honestly, as sex-negative as this is, I bristle at the thought of it. Why does this culture insist on defining women by their sexiness? I actually already know the answer to that question, but it certainly bears repeating until we all see the sexist absurdity of it.

I realize how important it is not to judge anyone for wanting to be sexy. And god knows, I think we all deserve to feel sexy.

But I also don’t want Brynn or her little sister Keira, or their brand new cousin, Mabel, to grow up with the idea that they have to be “sexy” or even “pretty” to be worthy. How is it possible that little Brynn is already struggling with self-image issues at the age of 5? That’s not okay with me. I don’t want her feeling like she needs to wear a bullshit purple wig in order to be beautiful.

And as a professional woman with a master’s degree, I also don’t want my nieces to grow up with the idea that what they look like is more important than their talents, their knowledge, the workings of their minds, their education, their work in the world… I want them to respect the time, money, and effort that goes into becoming a professional and take pride in that without not-so-subtly playing into the hands of the patriarchy that requires women to downplay their intelligence and ambition and present themselves, instead, as sexual playthings.

Too bad I couldn’t allow myself to see beauty or sexiness in myself at any other time of the year.

On the other hand, the last thing I want to do is to shame them for wanting to be pretty or sexy. I don’t want to shame anyone, for that matter, even the women who will be dressed up as Sexy Senator or Sexy Paleontologist this Halloween. Go for it.

But I wonder how prevalent these “Sexy ____” costumes would be if we felt we were allowed to express our sexuality more conspicuously in everyday life. Maybe I should celebrate the fact that we have one “free day” — Halloween — on which to express ourselves without shame. That’s better than none.

(Check out Elle Beau’s great story on this subject here.)

Maybe that’s the answer for me, as I teeter between being a sex-positive example to my nieces, but also trying to protect them from feeling like their sexiness is all there is to them. Maybe I can encourage them to play with their looks — and one day, with their expressions of sexiness — without making that the center of the story.

Maybe we can talk openly about what so many of us actually want when we’re dressing up in sexy costumes. We want sexual authority. We want to be able to express ourselves and our sexuality without judgment or threat.

Maybe as my nieces learn how to not only ask for that authority but to expect it, the need to meet society’s standards of beauty and sexiness will no longer hold sway over them.

Maybe little Brynn will smile just as entranced into the mirror when looking at her own beautiful, brown hair.

© Yael Wolfe 2019

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