‘Time to get out the old sexy nurse costume’: It’s Halloween

When did Halloween costumes become so sexualised, Frances Whiting writes. What’s wrong with chucking a sheet over your head and cutting out a few holes?

Why do we all need to dress up as sexy nurses?

Halloween is nearly upon us, and you know what that means, don’t you ladies?

Time to get out the old sexy nurse costume. Or the sexy witch. Or the sexy teacher. Or the sexy radiographer.

Honestly, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t really matter what profession you choose anymore, as long as you pair it with some sort of pitchfork/pair of wings. I’m thinking of going as a sexy debt collector this year, actually.

I don’t understand when Halloween became sexy, do you?

When I was younger and Halloween, which has its origins in the Celtic Festival of Samhain some 2000 years ago, first began to be celebrated in my neighbourhood, it was a far simpler affair.

The kids who were allowed to celebrate it - obviously not me, I wasn’t allowed to pluck my eyebrows until I was 32 - would bung together a costume from whatever they found at home. Usually an old sheet they’d get in trouble for cutting holes out of later.

Halloween costumes have become far too elaborate.

But these days, Halloween is a far more elaborate affair, and like it or not, it appears here to stay, the numbers of kids out trick or treating growing every year, including my own when they were younger. I resisted the spooky call of Halloween for years, but eventually gave in for the same reason I capitulated on every other rule I tried to enforce in my household when the kids were growing up. Exhaustion.

And also because I could see that it was fun. So much fun. In a world where kids aren’t generally allowed the sorts of childhoods many of us experienced - getting home from school, slamming your bag down, heading out to play with your friends and not coming home again until it was dark, Halloween seems to be the one night of the year that feels a bit like that. Out on the neighbourhood streets. With your friends. Being given free chocolate. What’s not to love?

Well, there is one thing. And in the interests of a community service announcement, which so many of you depend on me for, I would like to sound one note of caution. It’s the costumes. And not just the sexy ones. The really cheap ones. The ones none of us are going anywhere near an open flame in.

Why can’t costumes go back to being simple, not sexy? Picture: Thinkstock

Just recently the Center for Environmental Health has put out a warning that many of the costumes to be found online or at supermarket and craft outlets contain lead, cadmium and BPA. All of these substances have been found to cause harm in humans, particularly lead. Independent testing found that many of these costumes had these substances in them at levels not deemed safe, which frankly, doesn’t surprise me.

I once threw out a Halloween costume I bought at a supermarket because when I took it out of its plastic bag, the chemical scent was overwhelming.

And my friend Diana said that when she put a similar witch’s costume on her daughter, the little girl’s skin immediately came out in red welts.

I don’t mean to be a scaremonger, but really if you can’t be scary at Halloween, when can you? Check the labels of the costumes, and if there isn’t one, or it’s not clear, it might be time to go back to the old cotton sheets.

Fran Loves: British writer/illustrator Florence Given whose particular brand of feminism is music to this mother of a teenage daughter’s ears. Heads up, her new book Women Living Deliciously is a bit sweary, but it’s also full of chapters with titles like “I’m Not Here to Look Perfect, I’m Here to Decorate Myself and Have Fun!”