Lingerie is not a Halloween costume, honey

“In the real world, Halloween is a night when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In “Girl World,” Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.”  - Mean Girls

One year for Halloween when I was still in college, I decided to go all out. I got a tiara and borrowed an old wedding dress from a friend’s mom. I splashed fake blood all over my face and throat and teased my hair up into a big bouffant. It was awesome. Or at least I thought so.

When I went out that night to the local bars, I received mixed reviews. The boys, who actually had put some effort into their costumes, loved my get-up. Most of the girls, dressed as either sexy nurses or sexy witches or sexy cats, scoffed. One girl even asked me, “Why did you dress up so ugly?”

It’s been a trend for the last five or six years now for college-aged and twenty-something women to throw on lingerie and a set of animal ears and call it a Halloween costume. It seems that if you’re a female between the ages of 18 and 25, the less you wear on Halloween, the better.

I have no idea why this trend started happening or where it originates from. Granted, women were always encouraged to show up a bit scantily clad on this holiday to impress their boyfriends or husbands, but I think it’s gotten a bit ridiculous. When you are the only girl dressed like a zombie on October 31st amongst a sea of mostly naked women, you begin to wonder.

So I propose that this Halloween girls should wear clothing as their costume. Nothing too extreme, I’m not suggesting you go out and purchase a burka. But lingerie is not a costume, unless you’re going as what my mother calls “a lady of the night.” At least wear pants.