By Joanne Richard
Toronto Sun
October 20, 2007
The traditional Halloween scare fare
is taking a back seat to the ever burgeoning array of
ultra-sexy styles -- and not for adults only. Teens and
even younger girls are buying into sexy, from
belly-baring pirates, cheerleaders and divas, to sultry
angels, flirty devils and racy witches. There's even a
naughty Hermione, Harry Potter's sidekick.
The costume trend has gone from scary to "skanky," says
Halloween guru Kurt Perron, and it's definitely creeped
down to the tween and teen set.
"The young girls are getting skankier and skankier -- I
can't believe what parents are letting their
13-year-olds buy. They're dressing up like total
tramps," says Perron, who runs the Amazing Costume and
Party Store in Toronto.
"Sex sells no matter what the age," adds Perron, who
says the store's sexy category is its most popular as
Halloween has evolved into more of an adult holiday.
Women's costumes are pervasively provocative -- every
classic fairytale character is sexed up -- and Perron's
seeing more and more teens gravitating to the
thigh-high, X-rated adult outfits in X-small adult
sizes. Even some of the seductive adult styles are being
mini-sized and marketed to young girls, complete with
bare midriffs and skimpy skirts, under brand names like
Wicked Innocence and Drama-Licious.
According to Perron, female partygoers seek ever-sexier
Halloween identities and use Halloween as a fantasy
night to "shed their inhibitions and get slutty -- 75%
of women coming in are going for the sexy costumes." The
problem is so are a lot of younger girls, too.
That's frightening, say experts. Sexing up our children
is a pervasive trend and Halloween is no exception to
the commercial exploitation: "It's the disturbing rise
of raunch culture, but now it's reaching down to
children," says Dr. Susan Linn, an instructor in
psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "It's a reflection
of a growing commercial trend to sexualize increasingly
younger and younger girls."
Youth are immersed in a sexualized world and it's both
disconcerting and damaging, says Linn, co-founder of the
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood at the Judge
Baker Children's Centre in Boston. "Essentially what's
happening is that young girls are being marketed all
this sexual stuff before they're old enough to
understand what sexuality means. They don't have the
capacity to understand what message they're sending out
-- and are they prepared to deal with the response?
Skipping childhood
"They're being trained to move from being pre-schoolers
right into being teenagers, preoccupied about how their
bodies look, dating, shopping and being princesses...
It's depriving them of their childhood," adds Linn, a
psychologist and author of Consuming Kids: Protecting
Our Children From the Onslaught of Marketing and
Advertising (Anchor Books).
The creativity has totally gone out of Halloween, says
Linn, adding, "it's never been harder to be a parent
because the prevailing culture is so toxic." She
strongly advises parents not to bow to marketing
pressure that makes young girls grow up too fast and
promotes that there's only one narrow way of growing up
-- and that's to always look sexy and pretty.
Costumes are scarier than ever, says Nancy Rue, yet
there are very few age-appropriate costume options for
young girls out there -- they go from Disney to trashy
Diva.
"They're offered adult fare for what used to be a kid's
most fun night of the year," says Rue, who has written
more than 100 books for young people, her latest called
Girl Politics: Friends, Cliques and Really Mean Chicks (Zonderkidz/Harper
Collins).
What's happening, she adds, is that "young is getting
older, so younger and younger kids are wanting to look
older and older, and in the market, older equals sexier.
"The sad thing is, it isn't the girls who are asking to
look like high-class prostitutes. They're being told
that's what they're supposed to look like," says Rue.
So just what's too sexy? "Anything that says, 'See my
butt? Oh, and have you noticed the breasts? That's what
I'm all about, you know.' If the outfit -- Halloween or
not -- takes the eye directly there, the fun's over."
Rue strongly believes that girls need to be the age they
are: "Halloween is such a delightful time to express
their delights and dreams and fantasies. I'd love to see
parents guide girls back to that."
So when your daughter is pushing the costume envelope,
use it as a teachable moment.
"Rather than lecture, chat together about the reasons
and explore the fact that it isn't other kids who've
established the trend, but adults in marketing ...
Establish some guidelines. How short is short enough?
How low can the neckline be? How many sizes too small is
permissible? Then let her make her choices within those
parameters," says Rue, a speaker with Virtuous Reality
Ministries, a national ministry that provides tweens and
teens with the tools to navigate today's culture.
Be understanding, as well as clear, consistent and a
good role model. "This isn't her fault -- she's
responding to the society she lives in," Rue says. "It's
a great time for her to start shaping it, instead of
letting it shape her."