I was bothered enough to feel compelled to write about Stephanie Dunn's Thursday article "Halloween treats adults to more than candy" in this week's edition of Sex on the Avenue.
I'm impressed that the Alligator has the gall to run a seemingly sex-positive column; in fact I applaud it whole-heartedly. However, this writer has continually missed the mark and simply enraged me this week.
I do not approve of the way in which Dunn presented her case against scandalously clad women on Halloween. Is Halloween really the one holiday "created for the sole purpose of getting boned"?
What about New Year's Eve? Or Valentine's Day?
The way in which Dunn discussed women's costume choices both degraded and reinforced the objectification of women and their bodies.
By calling women "sluts" and "whores," Dunn recreated the image that women are objects asking to be ravaged, exploited and "boned."
It's highly degrading to construct women as inferior beings who don't seem to have enough sense not to dress up like "raunchy little hookers."
Then Dunn moved on to men. Why are men continually painted as brutish, lazy and sex-crazed? These stereotypes hurt men just as much as they do women. They encourage men to act in a hyper-masculine manner and send the message that something is wrong with them if they don't behave this way.
There were many other things that bothered me about Dunn's work, but what was most frustrating was the lack of any real critique or content.
I would rather see the space used to actually discuss these constructions and people's seemingly sex-driven Halloween choices than some crap about how women are all sluts on Halloween, how dressing up is an excuse for people to play out their "kinky beyond belief" fantasies or pretend their partners are someone else because on this one night, it is socially excusable.
