There’s something scary—scary in all
the wrong ways—about a “sexy Jane Doe” costume.
The sexy cadaver costume is half of one of those “sexy” Halloween
costume sets that drive some people nuts. You know: Sexy Nurse &
Doc, Sexy Nun & Priest, Sexy Lady Pirate & Pirate Captain. The
girls’ costumes bare a lot of flesh, the boys’ costumes don’t, and that
is sexist and unfair and—wait, a sexy CADAVER COSTUME?!?!
Yes. Someone out there is selling a sexy CSI Halloween
costume set, and it’s no exception to the
clothed-male/nearly-nude-female rule. The girl gets a black, skintight,
miniskirted body bag (!) complete with a zip-up-and-over-the-head hood,
while the boy gets a baggy black lab coat with the word “coroner”
printed on it, presumably worn over street clothes. There’s nothing
sexy about “a man whose job is to deal with dead people looking at a
sexy dead stranger,” Lilith wrote in an October 2008 post at
Feministing.com, “an online
community for feminists and their allies.” No argument from me there,
Lilith, and I agree that there’s definitely a “power dynamic being
displayed” when a woman dresses up as a sexy cadaver for a man on
Halloween and lies down on an autopsy table, per the photograph from
the catalogue. There’s nothing sexy about that.
You know what else isn’t sexy? The grousing you hear, even in the
offices of The Stranger, when ads for “sexy”
Halloween costumes start appearing in early September. People I know to
be reliably pro-pleasure lefties—people who are all for
recreational sex and legal drugs and strap-on dildos—sound like
religious conservatives when Halloween rolls around. A children’s
holiday has been transformed into an opportunity for stupid straight
people to dress up in revealing outfits and make sex-crazed spectacles
of themselves in public. And isn’t that just sad?
Nope. It’s awesome—and long overdue.
I‘m often
asked—confronted—about gay pride parades when I
speak at colleges and universities. Usually it’s a conservative
student, typically someone who isn’t happy about my being invited to
campus in the first place. We gay people like to pretend that
we’re all about love and marriage, the conservative student will
insist, but look at your pride parades! Look at those guys in assless
chaps and all those bare-chested lesbians dancing! Just look! The
exchange almost always ends with this:
Conservative student: “Straight people don’t flaunt our sexuality
like that. We don’t have straight ‘pride’ parades.”
Me: “You should.”
And it seems clearer with every passing Halloween that straight
people do.
Back in the bad old days—pre-Stonewall,
pre-pride-parades,
pre-presidential-gay-history-
month-proclamations—Halloween
was the gay holiday. It was the one night of the year when you
could leave the house in leather or feathers without attracting the
attentions of the police. Halloween resonated for pre-Stonewall
homosexuals because the closeted life—out to a select few
friends, closeted at work and home—was a stressful masquerade
that never ended. We were good at masks, at pretense, at dressing up,
because we had to be in order to survive. Halloween took our skill
set—pretending to be what we are not—and allowed us to find
joy in it one night a year.
While Halloween is still celebrated by gays and lesbians, it’s no
longer the most important date on the gay calendar. Oh, we keep it, but
we don’t keep holy. It’s just another excuse for a party—and
we’re always on the lookout for an excuse—but Halloween has been
downgraded, displaced by other and better excuses for parties, by pride
parades and Folsoms and the weekend. There are still parties in gay
bars on Halloween, of course, and you’ll see plenty of homos in costume
on Capitol Hill this weekend. But Halloween belongs to heterosexuals
now.
And you need it more than we do. Straight people in Brazil have
Carnival, straight Nor-thern Europeans have Fasching, straight people
in New Orleans have Mardi Gras—all big public parties where
straight people show their tits, shake their asses, and flaunt their
sexualities. Booze companies attempted to make a national holiday out
of Mardi Gras, without much success. But straight people seem to have
made a collective unconscious decision to adopt Halloween instead.
You made a good choice, straight people, a better one than the booze
companies were trying to make for you. Whereas the pride parade is now
the big public celebration of queer sexuality with all its squalor and
glamour, Halloween is now the big public celebration of straight
sexuality, of heterosexual desire, every bit—tit?—as
squalid and glamorous.
We don’t resent you for taking Halloween as your own. We know what
it’s like to keep your sexuality under wraps, to keep it concealed, to
be on your guard and under control
at all times. While you don’t
suffer anywhere near the kind of repression we did (and in many times
and places still do), straight people are sexually repressed, too. You
move through life thinking about sex, constantly but keenly aware that
social convention requires you to act as if sex were the last thing on
your mind. Exhausting, isn’t it? It makes you long for moments when you
can let it all hang out, when you can violate the social taboos you
honor most of the rest of time, when you can be the piece of meat you
are and treat other people like the pieces of meat they are.
It’s that kind of pressure—pressure to conform and
maintain—that makes you want to pull on a pair of assless chaps
and march down the street, the kind of pressure that cries out for some
form of organized mass release. It’s the kind of pressure that a pride
parade—straight or gay, Mardi Gras or Halloween—can
release.
Right now things are a little unfair—a
little—on the gender front. Straight girls are expected
to show flesh on Halloween; straight boys aren’t. Sadly, I don’t
foresee that changing anytime soon. People who want to fuck
men—straight and bi girls, gay and bi guys—show flesh
because it works, it will attract positive male attention.
(Well, that depends on how you feel about male attention, I guess.)
Engaging in that sort of display—here are my tits!—is
perceived as feminizing, hello, and that makes it a less successful
strategy for straight males than it is for straight females. Showing
off their tits is an effective way for girls to attract straight-male
attention; guys who show off their tits risk looking like fags.
Straight guys don’t have the same incentive to bare their flesh on
Halloween.
It’s a shame, of course, because there are a lot of straight guys
out there who have amazing bodies, and they should be encouraged to
show off on Halloween, to celebrate their erotic power and do like the
gay boys do: objectify and be objectified at the same time. That would
make the straight pride parades, aka Halloween, feel as egalitarian as
the gay pride parades on which they were unconsciously modeled.
“Every year around Halloween, I see some
columnist or blogger or other talk about how ‘Halloween is just an
excuse for girls and women to whore it up all night,'” writes
nicolechat on a post at Feministing.com. “But every time I read
that, I think to myself, so what? What’s wrong with having a night
where we can say ‘This is my body, and I’m not ashamed of it, or of
using it to express my sexuality.'”
Nothing at all, nicolechat. Heterosexuals in North America have
needed a holiday like this for a long, long time. And now you’ve got
one in Halloween. It’s yours now, straight people. Be good to it. And
remember: Wrap those bandages loosely, and by midnight your boyfriend’s
“mummy” costume will be just as revealing as that off-the-rack “sexy
witch” costume you bought at Champion.
Happy Heteroween. 
The definition of empowerment is having ownership of your choice. It has nothing to do with if I make the outfit (which I did) or not. I want to be sexy because it’s my choice, not because it’s what is expected of me on Halloween. Which it obviously is.
I love being sexy on Halloween! And I encourage my VERY heterosexual guy friends to show a little skin… and they want to… but aren’t quite sure how to do so with out looking “gay”. The desire is there, we just need to make them feel OK to do it! Halloween is necessary…we all need a night to blend in and have fun!!
shellym sounds like a load of fun. Makes me thank fuck I don’t live in Seattle anymore and have to deal with PC humorless bitches like herself.
dressing up in a sexy costume might make me an object to some, but I am not _only_ an object, ie I am not reduced to nothing more than a stereotype simply because someone may think it, initially. Furthermore, if I’m going to be defined by a sexy Halloween costume or some other uni-dimensional aspect (I know we’re often only allowed one) of my appearance, to echo @39’s point, the issue isn’t what I’m wearing at all.
What’s wrong with “that chick’s hot,” anyway? A lot of interesting conversations get started that way. Say I start out as a stereotype, and become an actual person thirty seconds in. Is that not a sophisticated enough way to break down stereotypes? I think the mace would do a lot more damage, perpetuating stereotypes…
So yeah, I take offense that my fellow feminists are willing to go so far as to say that I “don’t understand the implications” (I am knowledgeable and excelled in Women’s Studies ps.) I would be loath to insult others in that way. In fact, making it all about how a woman behaves and dresses, and saying “women can’t just do what they want despite sexism” _is_ sexist, and frames the issue in totally the wrong way.
#105, you’re right. Those are totally valid arguments, and I never meant to sound as though I were attacking other women for the choices they’ve made.
I have strong (obviously unpopular) opinions, but I shouldn’t assume that those with different ideas just haven’t thought the issues through or don’t have opinions that are equally as valid. I really didn’t mean to be condescending and I’m sorry it came across that way.
I bet Shellym throws one fabulous Halloween party
“They would be if we got to choose, but we don’t – all the outfits offered are sexualized. Even the ads on Stranger for Halloween show women sexualized and objectified and NOTHING ELSE. There are NO other options.”
make your own, you imagination bankrupt.
I know I’m late to the party, but what an interesting thread. A couple of people raised the issue of other countries — which is what I keep going back to. I was in India for two months a couple years ago. I found I had to wear a salwar kameez, because when I was dressed in what would be considered VERY modest western clothes (e.g., long pants and a tunic top that covers the hips), I was harassed and stared at, and had my ass grabbed on the street. Even in the salwar kameez, I still got leers.
So while I think it’s complicated, and that there is still a fair amount of sexism in the U.S., I have to say that I think the idea that women should be able to wear whatever they want, sleep with whomever they want, *and still expect and demand that they not be harassed, raped, or stigmatized* is a vital part of full equality and empowerment.
We can’t demolish the “she was asking for it” excuse if we can’t accept the idea that women must be free to wear skimpy clothes with impunity.
Sexy clothes can and should invite people to objectify you — whether you’re man or woman, gay or straight — but the feminist ideal we should be shooting for is a world where we can objectify each other and still respect each other as fully human, right?
As for the whole pre-packaged “sexy” costume thing, that’s really more a taste issue. The hipster/d.i.y. aesthetic frowns on conventional, mass market Halloween costumes just as it would on generic mall style any other day of the year. But if you want to be a pre-packaged “sexy nurse” and I want to make a homemade Campbell’s soup can costume and wear it with red fishnets, we’re both being “sexy” — and we should both have the right to do so. (And if we want to wear something that’s not sexualized at all, we should also feel free to do so.)
hey ShellyM, that was a lovely reply. I’m sorry people jumped all over you so nastily, too. Also @109, nice. This is one of those (rare) times where I don’t feel totally gross about commenting on a Stranger post.
You guys are focusing WAY too much on the concept of packaged costumes and not on the point. Make it or buy it, it doesn’t matter – there is an EXPECTATION of women dressing slutty for Halloween. If you make yours, fucking fantastic, SO DID I, but Halloween costumes/ads/culture only showing women in sexy outfits is objectification and perpetuates rape culture.
Like you said @109, we should be be able to wear whatever we want and not be attacked or harassed because of it. But dressing slutty doesn’t solve that. Like I said above, empowerment is when we have ownership of our choice. If I want to wear modest clothes, it because I want to wear modest clothes, not because it is expected of me or I need to protect myself from harassment. If I want to dress sexy, it is because I want to dress sexy, not because “that’s what you do” on Halloween.
Heteroween will stop being a sexist concept when we have ownership of our choices and it stops being seen as a big party for women to dress in a titillating way for men (w/o being called whores) while men dress as whatever and hit on said women.
you don’t have ownership of your choices?
Why not? To whom have you given them?
Where whatever the phuck you want. the end.
As if to prove my point, at the end of comments is a google ad for a youtube video of “Sexy Costumes” of Halloween ’09. Showing 3 white women – a sailor, snow white, and a beer maid.
Ownership of choice my ass.
@111
Kersey,
From whom has this expectation come from? Other than in your own mind, how have you determined this expectation exists in general?
As a heterosexual man who likes sex and sexy women very much, I can say that I don’t expect all women to dress sexy on Halloween. Based only on past experience with this date, I do expect there to be a mix of sexy costumes, stupid ones, store bought and so on with many variations and repetitions.
It seems really to be about being able to express some aspect of oneself on a certain day. Some men and women like to show off their sexy bodies and can’t do it as much as they would otherwise like, so they do it on halloween. Some do it to get looks and feel desired. Some only want to be desired by the men and some want all takers.
Do you really think that women are attacked and harrassed just because of what they wear? Old and/or the disabled are attacked on the street/targeted in their homes by sick people who just want to take what they want, no matter who they take it from. The desire exists within these sick people. Who they ultimately pick to attack may depend on many triggers and one may be clothing.
@2
“Oversexualization of women affects me and my rights to choose not to be sexual.”
Isn’t oversexualization when you’re both too sore to go again?
If you think that violent criminals are the way they are becuase of anything but how f-up they are inside, then you should think again. Instead of walking home alone, maybe you should walk with a friend if you haven’t pissed all of them off already by your whining.
You don’t think men are assaulted on the street when they walk home alone? Violent crime affects every segment of society! Even the police can be directly attacked on the street.
G
What was my boyfriend (who is straight) on Halloween? A sexy lumberjack. The year before? A sexy pirate. I was the covered up zombie. Yay for role reversals!
shellym,
I wholeheartedly agree with your argument. I’ve tried finding people with similar views for quite some time here in Seattle, but with no luck so far. The vast majority of feminists, or those concerned with gender issues, seem to be in the “sex-positive” feminism camp, or they at least seem to feel “I wouldn’t do that MYSELF, but women should be able to do whatever they want”. What they never seem to address, is what you are pointing out, that people CAN do whatever they want, but it doesn’t mean it will be empowering for themselves or women as a whole just because they want it to be. These actions/statements/ideas don’t exist in a vacuum, and context makes all the difference. Seeing the relevancy of “the personal is political” doesn’t seem very common anymore. Thank you for contributing your views to this post as much as you have, because it is a welcome and unexpected break from the predominant viewpoint. If you would like to talk more, I have a profile on The Stranger Lovelab, and my username is AmalgaMan.
^ dresses as a ‘feminist’ to get laid on Halloween
Doot,
If I was trying to act like a feminist to “get laid”, then it seems like I’d be picking a pretty poor strategy. I’d say feminists are not a majority of women, and the feminists who share shellym’s views are an even smaller minority of feminists (as she even says in comment #106 that her views are “obviously unpopular”). If I wanted to act some way just to increase my chances with women, then why wouldn’t I try to win over the majority of women who DON’T have views anything like shellym’s?
I am merely trying to share ideas with, and connect with, someone with whom we could mutually relate to each other. Since these viewpoints ARE so unpopular, there aren’t many people around who you can discuss these issues and agree with.
If you don’t have a Stranger profile shellym, but would like to talk, you can email me at shishnal@gmail.com.
порно трансов http://video-shemale.com/porno-transov.h…
make that ‘humourless feminist”
This is super late, but I completely agree with you, Shellym.
I still say shelly’s argument sounds like “that bitch was asking for it.”
I completely agree. I used to be against slutty Halloween, but I think I’m seeing the light.
@3:
You are an idiot for suggesting that she “get a boyfriend” to walk her home.
The issue I’m having with it is not the slutty costumes in general. I think if you want to wear a scrap of fabric, you totally should. What I’m upset with is the lack of awesome costumes if you don’t want to be that naked.
shellym and supporters, kudos. i’m totally appreciative of your viewpoints.
it makes me sad that people are jumping on shellym and using negative stereotypes of feminists to critique her.
she is articulately bringing up some great points, and anyone with a brain would realize that she isn’t just trying to suppress women or their sexuality. her arguments are much more nuanced.
i am “sex-positive” and support women in exerting sexuality in whatever way empowers them and makes them comfortable.
if sexy Halloween was all about women and men alike going out, looking hottt, and then engaging in consensual, awesome, crazy good sex, then I’d be like, “fuck yea!”
i DON’T, however, believe that sexy Halloween costumes are necessarily empowering or positive, and in fact, i think they usually AREN’T.
i’m not policing what people wear — i think that if you wanna bear all, go for it, and for many people this can be gratifying and fun.
but in my experience, i know many women who dress sexily on Halloween not because they enjoy the “liberation” it brings or some other reason, but simply because their single aim is to attract hetero male attention, which they think will make them happy. when they fail to attract positive attention, they are disappointed.
i stress: i am not trying to say that i think other women are incapable of making their own decisions or thinking for themselves. but i do think that hegemonic culture places a high premium on looking a CERTAIN way and attracting a CERTAIN kind of attention….it’s all well and good if weirdos on Capitol Hill feel empowered to dress however they like, but at the end of the day, the majority of cases we’re talking about here are happening on college campuses across the country, where, NO, women are not “empowered” by sexy costumes. they end up feeling pressured, inadequate, and disappointed in themselves.
Best costume I ever wore for Halloween was Max’ wolf suit from Where The Wild Things Are – a friend made it and I borrowed it. I got about 10,000 compliments and not one person said anything about how I should have dressed more sexily.
And last year, my husband was Bad Santa and I was Mrs. Santa’s Sister…he got all kinds of pretty girls to sit on his lap. 🙂
Sorry, Halloween is not Straight Pride Day. It is Scary People Pride Day, a day in which the bizarre and fantastical among us can walk openly, scaring the bejeezus out of our more normal counterparts without really being judged.
Well, they judge us if we ask for candy if we’re over 14 or so.
Sexy costumes on Halloween are just lame – for anyone. Worst trend ever for the holiday. Be funny or scary but donning a costume on Halloween just to be sexy is an indication of an incredibly lame, unimaginative, and horribly repressed person I would avoid at all costs. Life is too short to waste on such types.
If only *all* women’s costumes weren’t “sexy.” If we’re talking about choice here, why not have a variety in terms of adult women’s costumes? And where are the men’s “sexy” costumes?
What bothers me most is that those “sexy” costumes are cheaply made and are basically the same basic outfit in different colors with a little prop. Show me some ingenuity, creativity, and such, and maybe skin, too — now that’s really sexy.
ShellyM,
Just a little Twisty truth got folks here all het up, hmm?
Thanks for the sanity.
2 years later, and after reading the whole thread, what strikes me most is how few people understood shellym’s argument. It was far more nuanced than the strawmen that were attacked instead.
On the other hand, I still disagree with her. My reaction to her and other feminists is always a desire to ask them what they imagine a world without sexism would look like. Would there not still be sexual desire, and objectification, as there is currently among gay men? Would there not still be dominant and submissive roles that people are naturally inclined to assume? Would there not still be differences in how men and women in general experience and express their sexualities? Would there not still be rape and assault? It seems to me that to understand the effects and extent of sexism in our society, we need to understand that human nature by itself creates imbalances and differences, and desires and fantasies.
This is not to say we should ignore the historical context when discussing the significance of dressing sexy for Halloween. But at least as important as knowing where we’ve been, is knowing where we hope to be.
Dan, please don’t say “assless chaps”. All chaps are assless. Chaps with an ass are called “pants”. Since chaps were traditionally worn over pants, you can say “pantsless chaps” if you want to emphasize that the clothes have no ass, or emphasize that the wearer clearly does.
So much negativity on this thread. I have feminists telling me I’m being controlled by the patriarchy. I’m so conflicted. Oh, wait, no I’m not. Because I’m an adult. I’m a feminist and I really don’t need other feminists talking to me like a little girl who needs guidence (see what I did there? Demonstrated how you sound like the true patriarchy. Because you do.) Men and women who call women whores or put them down for dressing a certain way (sexy or cheesy store-bought sexy) lose my respect instantly. Guess what? Sexy is subjective and personal. Stop telling women what to do. Start focussing on how to treat people like humans. Have fun being sexy (or not…it’s your life) Be respectful and have fun.
p.s. I like funny costumes for Halloween. Sexy for other occasions. That’s my bag.
all chaps are assless.
I dressed as Helen Mirren this year, live in Dallas and attended a “masquerade” ball full of 20-somethings wearing store-bought ‘sexy’ costumes. Know what? I saw insecure people, male and female, just trying to get laid. not much more, not much less. I saw awesome costumes and proudly attended with the Blues Brothers as my dates (sadly, there wasn’t an amazing tryst after the party, which would have capped off a night of wannabe hedonism quite well.)
I was asked no less than four times where was my whip: in a floor-length skirt, non-cleavage-revealing bluse and amazing mask, I was preseumed to be a dom. That’ just fine with me, because what I saw was that het white males culturally are timid, even on Halloween. Every person who asked me to hurt them (most gleefully) were white males. Some things never change, including an apparent desire to not have to be the initiator.
I’m also a woman raised by a first wave feminist. I’m amazed that here in DFW, straight men are beginning to WANT something different in public M/F power plays. I LOVE IT!
I also have a friend who designs for a major costume company, and she’s expressed being a little torn in not having the flexibility to offer ‘sexy’ in a different light. I sincerely hope she opens her own company soon and we all get to see the awesomeness that is variety in choice.
Just because a paradigm exists doesn’t mean subversion’s not a good way to challenge it. hang with us Buddhist feminists and look for blaance and equanimity sometime. the mind shift has been amazing, and I don’t miss my hardcore feminist days a bit.
Great article. I was at an adult Halloween Party where my girlfriend’s long, lean, husband was dressed as a ladybug – pink spandex bodysuit, tutu, wings, retro bug-eyed glasses, the whole shebang. He moved with such freedom and delight, it was clear he’d been needing to wear this costume his entire life. His wife was a sexy cop and likewise the costume represented part of herself that had previously gone unexpressed. Yes, there were lots of people who’d set out to get laid, but I don’t have a problem with heteros finding reasons to explore debauchery. Whatever it takes.
Thanks for the support.
Great article. I was at an adult Halloween Party where my girlfriend’s long, lean, husband was dressed as a ladybug – pink spandex bodysuit, tutu, wings, retro bug-eyed glasses, the whole shebang. He moved with such freedom and delight, it was clear he’d been needing to wear this costume his entire life. His wife was a sexy cop and likewise the costume represented part of herself that had previously gone unexpressed. Yes, there were lots of people who’d set out to get laid, but I don’t have a problem with heteros finding reasons to explore debauchery. Whatever it takes.
Thanks for the support.
This may have already been mentioned, but it’s worth mentioning again:
As a guy, I’d LOVE it if I could objectify myself more for Halloween without being perceived gay, or being laughed at by women. But it’s very difficult to show some flesh as a dude while also being “sexy” to women. (Not impossible, however).
It’s not abnormal for women to dress in non-sexy costumes, I see it quite frequently, actually. Ladies have more choices in this matter than men do. It’s perfectly acceptable to do either. Is the complaint that you won’t get noticed as much as the sexy girls? Well that’s obvious… since getting noticed is the point of dressing sexy.
No matter what, there is an undercurrent of biology here. Men are very visual and biologically determined to look for physically healthy women to have sex with. On the other hand, women are typically less motivated by the physical characteristics of a man, and more motivated by the success and alpha factor of a man. It’s the same thing, but less obvious.
What does this come down to? We’re both most attracted to the alpha of the group. For women it’s a hot girl in a hot outfit. For men it’s more complicated than that. A guy doesn’t have to show a lot of skin to be in the alpha outfit, but he probably DOES have to put a lot more time, money, and energy into that costume than most women have to put into their sexy nurse costume and pushup bra.
The final point: No matter what, for either men or women to have the “hottest” costume, they must first dress to get noticed, and second they must show the world that they’re fit and healthy. It’s a winning combination, and it just so happens that our male-dominated society basically gives girls a road map for how to achieve those two goals. Just because the path is clearly laid out for women doesn’t mean that men aren’t under similar pressures to perform in one way or another. The hot girl in the hot outfit IS in a power position. Just ask the shy guy in the corner who you didn’t immediately notice and ask him to approach the girl you immediately noticed when you walked in, and then tell me she isn’t in a position of power.
Having said that, I DO have a problem with the oversexualization of women, however being sexy on halloween is not a contention. The contention is more along the slutty “bratz” dolls for little girls, the busty and thin Disney princesses, and other things which are putting out messages to the youth, telling them to be sexy. Once your an adult, and you’re in an adult environment: Show the world what you got.
In closing:
Sexy nurse in a bar: perfectly fine
Sexy nurse at the children’s costume parade: not fine.
are “sexy” halloween costumes liberating for women, or just feeding into the patriarchal system? the answer, as with almost anything, is that it depends on the context…in this case, the costume. i would posit that a Sexy Lady Gaga costume, a Sexy Witch costume, a Sexy Cop costume, are, in fact liberating/empowering, because they are based on figures who are known in our society as daring/unconventional and/or located in positions of power or control that women are not normally seen in. more questionable are some of the costumes that infantilize women, such as: Sexy Care Bear, Sexy Bo Peep and Sexy [Insert Childhood Cartoon Character here]. at the very least, they play into old-fashioned notions of women being “cute”/dumb/childish; at worst, they border on a world of pedophilia-ish sexual desire that i think we would probably all agree is just inappropriate.
as well, i have to say, having friends who have worn both classes of sexy costumes, the ones in the former group have almost universally been women who are strong, empowered females in other aspects of their lives (and who enjoy that type of awesome sex in which both partners are satisfied…whether gay, straight, bi, whatever), whereas the latter have been ones who are lacking self-confidence and direction and tend to base their lives around trying to get and please men on the men’s terms only. the costume is thus really only a symptom of a deeper misdirection, and that’s what needs to addressed, through sympathy and example and advice and education, not by attacking them for wearing the costume, or lumping all women’s expressions of sexuality into one interpretation.