What if I don’t want to be a ‘sexy pizza’?

It’s the end of October. Do you know what that means? No, not pumpkin spice lattes; it’s time for the regular round of articles discussing whether women should wear “sexy” or “normal” costumes.

What women wear on Halloween consistently captures pop culture’s imagination — think the epic Halloween party scene in Mean Girls where Lindsay Lohan’s character misses the “dress like a slut” memo sent to all Americans in advance of 10/31 and shows up in full vampire bride regalia. So what options do we have available to us this year?

• Sexy corn, because, duh.

• Sexy pizza which, as Buzzfeed so neatly pointed out, is one of the stranger costumes to sex-up I’ve seen lately.

Newsflash: We live in a culture that sexualizes almost everything when it comes to women. Even pizza — a food so great it deserves its own section on the food pyramid — isn’t immune to the sexy curse. Let me be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to feel sexy when you dress up in a costume. But what if I don’t want to be sexy pizza? What if I just want to be regular pizza, without my nipples highlighted lopsidedly by pieces of felt pepperoni? If you look up and down the aisles of your local Halloween depot, you’ll see that’s really the only option. Men can be a scary vampire, but if a woman wants to be a scary vampire, she had better do so in about 4 square feet of black latex. The only thing similar between the costumes are the fangs.

There are two blatant  trends in the way these companies make costumes. One is that the male version reflects the “normal” perception of the role – say, a cop costume for a man is basically a knock off police uniform. The second the female version is always sexual – a police uniform with a whole lot of a holes. The message is clear: if you want to dress up for Halloween, you have to be sexy. As a woman, this is the space you are allowed to inhabit. Of course, women everywhere make their own costumes, and nobody is forcing you to buy one of these pre-sexualized costumes. But image and media representation matter, even in a holiday like Halloween. The sexualization inherent in these mass marketed costumes contributes to an unhealthy and exploitative standard for women.

If we’re going to have sexy costumes, why limit them to just women? Why shouldn’t a male version of the sexy fireman costume exist, complete with the booty shorts and suspenders? Perhaps the best solution is that sexy is an entire category of its own. So rather than limiting it females only (why should girls have all the fun?), I say sexy Halloween costumes for everyone! Let’s see how long companies keep churning out those sexy pizza costumes then.

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