Want a Fright? Check out Tween Halloween!

Halloween is the perfect time to act out your fantasies, but it seems that costume designers are telling young girls that these fantasies should involve fishnet stockings and lace-up bodices. Or maybe they are just trying to scare parents.

Would you like your 8-year old to be a Graveyard Fairy Child ? The description reads: “You'll be for more tricks than treats in the Graveyard Fairy costume.” More tricks than treats?? Are they kidding?   Or perhaps you can have this young maiden searching for her lost “little dears”.

I know this story makes the rounds every year and here is this year’s take on Global News in which the retailer says that the sexy kids costumes always sell out. (I guess too many people watch Toddlers & Tiaras.) The psychologist in the piece asks what kind of message are girls getting when they are getting free candy by showing up at someone's door looking like a sex kitten. Hmmm... 

Of course, there is a feminist perpective that says allow your kids to play with their sexuality, that is how they figure out the limits. We don’t worry about our blood-obsessed boys becoming serial killers so why do we worry so much about the girls looking like streetwalkers?

Truth is, when did Halloween become about sex? Even the adult women’s costumes look mighty slutty. A French Maid costume is degrading at any age. At Halloween there is pressure to throw off our politically correct posturing and revert back to stereotypes where the women are all sexy and wear thigh high boots and the men are powerful and scary.

Do you think girls' costumes are getting too trampy, or is it all fuss over nothing?