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Too spicy costumes rile parents - Ghosts, hobos replaced by Major Flirt and Handy Candy for kids
Charlotte Observer ^ | 10/19/2006 | KELLY SMITH

Posted on 10/24/2006 1:08:40 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd

In the 2004 teen comedy "Mean Girls," Lindsay Lohan's character, Cady, who just moved to the United States from Africa, observes that for American girls, Halloween seems to be nothing more than a day when girls can dress up in scandalous outfits and no one can say anything about it.

When mean girl Gretchen asks her friend Karen, who's barely clad in black lingerie and animal ears, what she's supposed to be, Karen points to the ears and says, "I'm a mouse. Duh."

The idea of sexy Halloween is not necessarily a new one. For years, Halloween parties have had their share of hot nurses and seductive pirates. But these are parties for adults, right?

Not anymore. With names like "Transylvania Temptress," "Handy Candy," "Major Flirt," and "Red Velvet Devil Bride," there is no doubt that costumes marketed to children and teens have become more suggestive.

Such costumes, which typically feature plunging necklines, fishnet stockings, knee-high boots and very short skirts, dominate the display at most costume shops and party supply stores, and parents are having a hard time avoiding them.

Robin Pese of Voorheesville, N.Y., the mother of two girls ages 11 and 14, walked out of a local party shop exasperated. "All the teen costumes are revealing. I walked out with nothing," she said. "You either have the adults or you have the kids, but there are no good ones for teens."

"Whatever happened to being ghosts, and just homemade costumes?" wondered Jennifer Dinova of Brunswick, N.Y., who was shopping for her daughters, ages 4 and 7. She said she was doing her best to steer her girls away from the midriff-baring get-ups and toward more practical costumes.

Even Lindsey DeVerry, 14, of Glenmont, N.Y., called the costumes for girls her age "a little weird."

Her friend Kacie Weatherhead, 13, of Guilderland, N.Y., elaborated. "They're a little racy," she said. "They all have really short skirts and are just really revealing."

Family therapist Lindy Guttman said: "It's a strange time we live in when half the doctors are women and half the lawyers are women, and all the little girls are prancing around in sexy costumes."

Guttman said girls today face "intense marketing" that didn't exist when she was a child or even when she was raising her own now-grown daughter.

Girls are bombarded from an early age with images that tell them to wear pink, love accessories and attract attention for being pretty and sexy, said Sharon Lamb, who wrote "Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers' Schemes" ($24.95; St. Martin's Press) with Lyn Mikel Brown.

When it comes to Halloween, Lamb said, the costumes marketed to girls severely limit the options they see for themselves. There's nothing inherently wrong with a little girl dressing up as a pretty princess, Lamb said, but the problem comes when such feminine, passive characters are all girls can envision for themselves. And she thinks it is that same ideology that pushes girls toward hyper-sexual costumes as they get older.

To Lamb, it is not about preventing girls from feeling sexy or exploring their emerging sexuality. Halloween is one night when girls can imagine themselves to be anything they want to be, Lamb said, and she thinks it's sad when what all the girls want to be are "hot chicks."

HOLDING SEXY BACK

Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown, who wrote "Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers' Schemes" ($24.95; St. Martin's Press), offer the following tips to parents who want to encourage their daughters to think beyond the risque costumes:

• Use this as an opportunity to talk to your daughter about sexuality and appropriate ways of exploring and expressing it. Talk to girls about what they fear as well as hope for in terms of intimacy and teach them there is more to sexuality than looking sexy for a guy.

• Avoid catalogs and packaged costumes. Instead, "imagine big" with your daughter, looking to her talents, interests and fears for ideas.

• Rather than getting attention for being pretty or sexy, encourage her to attract attention for other things, such as how unique and creative her costume is, or how scary she can be.

• If she loves the glitz and accessories of traditional "girlie" costumes, find creative ways to add those elements to other costumes.

• Add an element of power to the character she chooses. If she wants to be a fairy, let her imagine she's a fairy in charge of her whole kingdom. If she wants to express her sexuality, suggest that she be a toga-wearing goddess of wisdom. "If you're playing at being grown-up, think of all the things that being grown-up means," Lamb said.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: halloweencostumes; moralabsolutes; pedophilenation
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To: UseYourHead

Eeewww


81 posted on 10/24/2006 2:31:24 PM PDT by Blackirish
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To: MineralMan
For a "Non-evangelical Atheist" you've managed to hijack this thread from a discussion about inappropriate costumes for children to a rant about those "Christians"

But then you never do miss a chance to try and impune Christianity or what you think Christianity is

If you have chosen to be an atheist fine but stop hijacking threads with your form of "religion"

82 posted on 10/24/2006 2:31:41 PM PDT by apackof2 (They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care)
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To: Blueflag

Handy Candy - Candy Striper
Did you notice that it comes with a handy 'stethoscope". But, only 'one size' is available. Wonder what size that is....?


83 posted on 10/24/2006 2:33:48 PM PDT by gb63
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To: apackof2

I'm not impugning anything. I'm relating what happened, historically. Christianity just did what always happens when a more advanced culture moves into a region.

It could not have been otherwise.

Don't mistake history for condemnation. I didn't have anything to do with that history.


84 posted on 10/24/2006 2:33:55 PM PDT by MineralMan (Non-evangelical Atheist)
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To: gb63

Extra short I beleive, based on the picture.


85 posted on 10/24/2006 2:34:52 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim (Dancing through life like a street mime with tourettes syndrome.)
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To: apackof2

Actually that started with post 7, not by MM.


86 posted on 10/24/2006 2:35:07 PM PDT by discostu (we're two of a kind, silence and I)
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To: MineralMan

Just to throw you a curve -- Christianity, the faith, has nothing to do with a pagan holidays. The Christian Church (i.e., Catholicism and the CoE) had everything to do with incoporating pagan holidays.


87 posted on 10/24/2006 2:36:31 PM PDT by Blueflag (Res ipsa loquitor)
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To: Names Ash Housewares
It is usually role playing. People dress as their secret desires.

My son wants to dress as a box of popcorn. What's his secret desire?

88 posted on 10/24/2006 2:38:44 PM PDT by Fudd
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To: MineralMan

The devil meant it for evil and God turned it to Good.


89 posted on 10/24/2006 2:41:14 PM PDT by Rte66
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To: Fudd

To get paid to go to the movies?


90 posted on 10/24/2006 2:42:48 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim (Dancing through life like a street mime with tourettes syndrome.)
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To: Tijeras_Slim

I think it must be the "handy" part that is objectionable.


91 posted on 10/24/2006 2:43:53 PM PDT by Rte66
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To: MineralMan

It was Yoda, but it was, "Do, or do not. There is no try."

Does correcting a Yoda quote qualify me as a geek?


92 posted on 10/24/2006 2:44:37 PM PDT by HeadOn (Pro Deo, Pro Familia, Pro Patria)
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To: Fudd

"My son wants to dress as a box of popcorn. What's his secret desire?"

To consume himself! LOL
Be a movie star???
Popcorn is always a hit.


93 posted on 10/24/2006 2:45:01 PM PDT by Names Ash Housewares
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To: HeadOn
Does correcting a Yoda quote qualify me as a geek?

Yes, but live long and prosper anyway.

94 posted on 10/24/2006 2:45:45 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim (Dancing through life like a street mime with tourettes syndrome.)
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To: Tijeras_Slim

:-D


95 posted on 10/24/2006 2:49:44 PM PDT by HeadOn (Pro Deo, Pro Familia, Pro Patria)
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To: Fudd
"It is usually role playing. People dress as their secret desires."

My son wants to dress as a box of popcorn. What's his secret desire?

He's cornfused.

96 posted on 10/24/2006 2:49:44 PM PDT by Dracian
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To: Fudd

Buttah


97 posted on 10/24/2006 2:54:53 PM PDT by Rte66
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To: Fudd
"What's his secret desire?"

He likes to be buttered up?

98 posted on 10/24/2006 2:59:13 PM PDT by Deaf Smith
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To: dead

My 5'10" adult daughter is doing so. She does get the occasional comment.


99 posted on 10/24/2006 3:03:39 PM PDT by p. henry
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To: dead
THIS is a KID'S costume?!?


100 posted on 10/24/2006 3:11:14 PM PDT by FortWorthPatriot (Semper Fidelis)
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