Here at Chico State, we’ve seen it all. Sexy cats, nurses, bananas, you name it. Let me be the first to tell you if you don’t already know: Chicoween is fantastic. Slut-shaming is not.
Prime Time Productions puts on events all weekend. The community comes together to celebrate, and there are so many parties downtown it’s slightly overwhelming.
What’s even more overwhelming is the number of men I know that are going to bash women for dressing up as sexy bananas while they are dressed up as a giant boob. That’s a thing, look it up.
The problem with sexy costumes is not that women are choosing to wear them, but that there is a community of people who will blatantly shame them for it.
Personally, there is no argument here. Don’t do it. Don’t shame women for being themselves and putting clothes on their body that makes them feel good and look good. Don’t bash your best friend for dressing up as a sexy ghost because it makes her look slutty. It doesn’t make her look slutty. What does looking slutty even mean?
Women do it to each other, men do it to women. The only person who is slightly allowed to call you out for being too sexy is your 89-year-old grandma. Even then, your ‘nanna is out of touch anyway.
In media, we are constantly being shown advertisements of women who are using their sexuality to sell everything, from bras to cars to Doritos. But when Halloween comes and women wear anything revealing, it’s like they just committed the biggest crime of the 21 century.
If you don’t want to go as a sexy banana for Halloween, that is perfectly OK. If you do, that’s perfectly OK too. I think the underlying solution to this ongoing problem is that we have to accept people for who they are.
We have to get over our own thoughts and feelings and realize that women can wear whatever they want. It doesn’t make them a slut, it doesn’t mean they want to have sex with you and it doesn’t mean you can slut-shame them. All it means is that they’re trying to celebrate this holiday.
If you choose to go out as a sexy ghost or a sexy banana, there is full support for you by many. Don’t let people bring you down. If anyone tries to make you feel bad, I encourage calling them out for it. No one is allowed to make you feel bad about the choices you make, and no one has any control on what you choose to wear other than yourself.
Kendall George can be reached at [email protected] or @Kendallmgeorge on Twitter.
