In the critically acclaimed movie “Mean Girls,” Lindsay Lohan’s character makes a very astute observation when she announces, “Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girl can say anything about it.”
Indeed, regardless of the weather or the economic climate, October 31st and the weekend immediately before it usually bring gaggles of scantily-clad women and men to the streets of American cities, and Boston is no exception.
Whether it’s the classic sexy nurse, sexy Smurfette, sexy firefighter, sexy zombie, or even a sexy Mrs. Obama, many people exhibit no shame and very little humility on Halloween, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the American way.
But has it always been this way? And if not, when did it become acceptable for grown women and (sometimes) men to release their inhibitions, throw caution to the wind, and go out in public dressed in outfits that appear to have been borrowed from the set of a mid-90’s porn production?
The answers are not easy.
There has always been a slight mist of mischief around Halloween, a relatively new holiday in America that was first introduced by Irish immigrants in the mid-1800s. The New York Times’ archives from the beginning of the 20th century are full of mentions of juvenile pranks and vandalism, and police forces even used to employ young boys on Halloween nights to help curb those incidents.
Though children have always celebrated the holiday innocently enough, Halloween seems to have had a sexy twist for adults from very early on, a twist that has only been accentuated by the sexual revolution and/or the sexual degeneracy in this country.
Skeptical? This (hardly) comprehensive and thoroughly persuasive timeline might convince you otherwise.
