dispatches from Strip Nation, part 1, halloween

If the general media hue and cry is to be believed, there’s nary a girl over nine or a woman under ninety who is not dressing like a whore this Halloween. In recent days, there’s been a tremendous amount of media attention—both that of conventional media and that of its alternative counterparts—spent on how the range of female costumes has ranged widely from the mildly naughty to the downright fetishistic, with hardly any choice left for those chicks who want to dress up and not look like they’re selling hand-jobs for crack or taking a break from La Maison de Latex down the block.

It’s not like the sluttification of Halloween is a new thing. In season two of Buffy first aired in 1996, Buffy tried to convince her then very straight-laced best friend Willow to bare a bit of skin for the holiday.

“You're missing the whole point of Halloween,” says Buffy.

“Free candy?” Willow asks.

“It's come as you aren't night,” Buffy says, “the perfect chance for a girl to get sexy and wild with no repercussions.”

Oh,” says Willow, “I don't get wild. Wild on me equals spaz.” And then after gamely donning the navel-baring rock chick ensemble, hides her hottie light under a ghost-costume bushel, unable to follow through with the public performance of her inner wild girl.

I’m not particularly interested in getting my panties in a moralizing wedge over the choice of a fully-fledged adult woman to dress as a naughty nurse, or even over an uninformed kid’s choosing to wear some garb that’s age inappropriate. As much as I’m disinclined to suggest that this Ho-rrific trend is the second sign of the apocalypse—we all know the first was Xanadu, the Broadway musical—I am, however, interested in looking at what it means that the go-to Halloween garb for adults seems to be some variation of streetwalker.

I briefly attended a Halloween party this past weekend. In attendance was a Sexy Cop, a mini-skirted Marie Antoinette, a Gold-Digger, a Naughty Nurse, a Hot Devil and a woman with a deerstalker cap dressed as Sherlock Ho. (There was also a Tinkerbelle, a Marilyn Monroe, and a denim cut-offs wearing Amy Winehouse, but while those costumes may have some kind of intrinsic erotic charge, none of them were designed with sheer T&A-showing titillation in mind, so I’m not counting them.) Not including me, who dressed as a homicidal maniac, which meant I looked like everyone else, over half of the women at the party had dressed to thrill.

I have to wonder if women who choose to costume themselves in Fritz the Cat-esque appropriations of fetish and streetwalker wear do it for the facile reason that most people give: that Halloween gives the repressed a big Get out of Jail Free Card for their repressions. It just seems too simple an explanation for me, that old chestnut about how, as cultural philosopher Mikhail Bahktin suggested, the carnival give people the big fat transgressive blank check to live lives, however briefly, opposite to their own. Frankly, looking around me on Halloween, I’m not buying that.

Because for one thing, women have a limited lip service granting permission to be sexual. More than any time previous to our current millenium, we women own our own sexuality in a variety of ways never previously possible. We can talk about it. We can engage in it. We can attend workshops about it. We can educate ourselves. We can rightfully expect a life full of lots of orgasms of various shapes and sizes and colors. And most importantly, we can decide when or if we will ever reproduce, at least in most states and under most insurance plans. We certainly have the appearance of feeling joyously empowered with our own _____________ (insert favorite term for vagina here).

So perhaps this donning the fishnets and vinyl cowgirl gear has more to do with that pussy power (“pussy” remains my favorite vaginal term; don’t expect me to use “vajayjay” anytime soon), but I don’t think so. Because there’s something about this kind genre of costume’s use of excessive sexual force that gestures less towards empowerment and more towards something else.

To me, when “good girls” dress “bad” on Halloween, they are drawing the line in the sartorial sand between they, who have never chosen to support themselves by stripping in front of, talking on the phone to, or having sex with complete strangers, and those of us who have. They are, in effect, putting on these salacious clothes once a year to show that they have never had to be bad; therefore, they can choose to wear their badness as negligently and temporarily as a cheap Ricky's costume. And then once the cold, hard light of 1 November hits the sky, they can revert, like a showered if hungover Cinderella, to their properly chaste and culturally upright positions. No harm, no foul, no lasting memories of a stray hand, a cruel word, or an unexpected sex act tying the body, the money and the feeling into one greasy knot.

But even that explanation is a bit facile, even if it is correct, and I think it is, however unconsciously for the lion’s share of Sexy Hogwarts Students tipping over tonight in their Lucite platforms. Because this trend wherein women are dressing like they should be called next on main stage, as much as it speaks to their defining their 364-day selves against their Halloween fantasy, also speaks to the seduction of what I’ve come to call Strip Nation.

Strip Nation is the place where little girls wear body glitter for fun, where pole dancing is a fitness pursuit, where chicks have standing appointments for monthly Brazilians, and weekly tans, French manicures and matching pedicures. It’s the place where women purposefully show bra straps and g-strings. It’s where average women have the lower-back tattoo, body piercings, and t-shirts that read “Diva.” It’s the where women get breast implants, labiaplasty and anal bleaching. It’s a place where family restaurants have waitresses wearing orange short-shorts, and where drag-queen restaurants have banana deep-throat contests, and where eighteen year-old girls win them.

Strip Nation is where we live now. It’s not a bad place to live. Strip Nation gives us Carmen Electra and body butter. Strip Nation lets us shake our booty with abandon. Hell, Strip Nation, combined with Hip-Hop Nation—it’s a unified country of dual principalities—has given us the word “booty.” Without Strip Nation, we’d still be pogoing and wearing flat shoes and high-waisted pleated pants.

Strip Nation can be a lot of fun, but it’s a deeply problematic kind of fun. I am proud to have been a stripper, but I know that stripping is best kept in the strip club because stripping is about serving up a fantasy based on the most simplistic heterosexual male’s formulation of an uncomplicated woman. Most simply, Strip Nation provides a dreamscape based on a model of a two-dimensional woman and men’s desire for them. And while that is all well and fine for an eight-hour strip shift, it has major issues when it goes rampant, out into the streets, and disseminates like a virus into the culture at large.

I wonder how much women choosing to dress like a stripper for Halloween—whatever the flavor of the specific fantasy—isn’t centered on an unquestioning slide into the happy amnesia of Strip Nation: a place where men will be men, women will be girls, and no one need have a thought cross their untrammeled brows. I wonder how much the Naughty Nurse, the Sassy Satan, the Wanton Witch, the Reform School Drop Out, the Pirate Wench, and all the heaving bosom, exposed thigh rest, has more to with the prefeminist nostalgia that Strip Nation embodies. I wonder how much the naughty Halloween costume hasn’t less to do with getting one’s freak on as it does with doing so in a way that feels like you don’t have to think about it when you do.

Tomorrow, Halloween will just be a bunch of garbled stories and memories, gone for another year, But we’ll still be living in Strip Nation. Look around you, it’s everywhere. Fun, yes. But at what cost?

Comments

[O]

Excellent post. I wonder how much women choosing to dress like a stripper for Halloween—whatever the flavor of the specific fantasy—isn’t centered on an unquestioning slide into the happy amnesia of Strip Nation: a place where men will be men, women will be girls, and no one need have a thought cross their untrammeled brows.
I think that's it. I think that's exactly what it's about. And maybe the appeal of Strip Nation more generally is the happy amnesia. Strip Nation kind of reminds me of that drug everyone is taking in Brave New World.

And while I think you are right that Halloween ho-ing is about that line in the sartorial sand marking the good girls from the bad, I think there may be something else going on here too.

All carnivals are partly about celebrating the flesh and providing a temporary escape from normal life. They're supposed to be (in part) about being something you are not, wearing a mask. You can be anything at all.

So out of all the many masks we could choose...why do women overwhelmingly choose this one? So much of our lives as women is already bound up in our sexuality and especially in the good girl/bad girl dichotomy; so much of our time is spent in negotiating that. And here during this one 24 hour period that is supposed to be about make believe, and escape without consequences, and humour, it's still the good girl/bad girl mask we mostly choose. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[Paul Davis]

having watched my 16 year old step daughter step out today in an even more titillating and unabashedly "i am a sexually active female and you know you want me" costume this year than last, i read this and loved it. i don't even know how to begin to think about grown women who do this - my thoughts are mostly centered on their younger counterparts. what frightens or saddens me most is the lack of awareness of what and how men, including teenage males, actually think. sometimes, i don't even know if the all-wise-having-done-the-stripper-thing CG fully grasps the horror of the contemporary male mind. I see my step daughter and her friends engaged this with as though it were a kind of fun game that nobody will really take *that* seriously, although it would be kind of cool if that guy in 11th grade thinks i look hot and/or cute in this. But thats not what men (and especially not 11th grade boys) think, ever.

They don't admire the aesthetics - that's for gays (he says in his most slanderously generalizing remark so far this year). They admire the flesh and they are consumed by the want. The girls appear to have some inkling of this, but in truth even 20 years from now, most of them won't understand the depth (or is it shallowness) of the want, the objectification of it, the utter, total disconnect from their person that it is really based on. And oh yes, there are a few exceptions, a few nice young men who look past the pert breast, the tight ass, but they merely prove the rule.

So - this is a game being played by women, but a game where the rules as understood by the men are totally different. With luck (and if they trick-or-treat as a team) nobody gets hurt, but it merely continues the disconnect between the nascent sexuality on both sides. It makes me sad. I don't have any female friends who have not had male sexuality forced upon them, and here is a 16 yr old who I care about dressing up to *invite* such an act. Except of course that in her mind, she's not. Or she is, but its not serious. Or something. Like. That.

Strip nation. Yep, the brazilians start not too long after menstruation now. Welcome to your life as a woman. I'll end as O did, because its so perfect: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[Jsn]

Is it the dilemma of rebelling against sexual repression and the commercialization of crassness? The shallow and hollow world of precocious JonBenet Ramsey adolescent beauty contests; adoration of vulva baring Paris, Lindsay and Bitney; the whore for fame mentality of E reality shows - all taken in stride as legitimate and entertaining in reaction to the uptight rightwingers who view all things sexual as evil.

The pendulum has swung so far that each new push of the envelope threatens to burst. Forget morals, where the fuck are ETHICS? I came upon "The Bachelor" by way of "The Soup" and saw the schizoidal behavior that explains it all.

A contestant from Texas had the bachelor do body shots of her bikini clad body (nothing wrong with except that what should have been a private or at least semiprivate moment was broadcast on tv. She offered herself to him in every way concievable, not because she loved him but because she was trying to beat out all the other contestants. She had the temerity to say on camera that she was a christian with very high morals without any sense of irony. (I am not a believer in any deities, elves or fairies btw.)

For this schizoidal girl and many others (men included), the dream of celebrity, the willingness - no EXPECTATION to prostitute themselves for fame and money without taking into account the loss of dignity is pitiful. I'm all for pussy power and getting away from sexual repression but I also am against the popularization of sexually denegrating behavior just to attain some popcultural affirmation.
It's anyone's right to do it if they like, but marketing it to the masses, who seem unable to grasp the impact, is troubling. It's not Strip Nation so much as 24 hour cable all access Strip Nation countered by Fox News sycophantic moralists. Sex sells, evangelists reap obscene profits, everyone wants to be famous and all the while the marketing execs play all sides, continually pushing the envelope and for what? You guessed it...

[The Beautiful Kind]

Yeah, dressing slutty on Halloween is like serving your cleavage up on a plate for all the dudes, and I don't think they rightly deserve it. Luckily you can be WHOEVER you want to be on Halloween - your choices aren't limited to flammable flimsy piece of shit costumes. One year I dressed as a man, August Strindberg (I LOVE gender bending). One year I was Leonard Cohen's song "Famous Blue Raincoat". This year I was my boyfriend's grandma.
You'll like this post a friend of mine wrote: http://www.planetsave.com/blog/2007/10/31/happy-green-halloween/

And I have to admit, I am curious about the gold digger costume you saw the other night, that one sounded pretty clever. I hope she had a super old man as a prop.

[rachel]

This is as beautiful and incisive an analysis of Halloween-as-stakes-free-Strip-Nation as I have seen. My daughter is only 2, and happy to be a spider this year,but I will be saving this for her to read when she wants to be a 12 year old Spider Slut. Thank you.

[Deity]

I think you touched on one of the lynchpins that deserve some attention when trying to address this phenomenon: the Media

That there are massive amounts of media attention on the skanky range of female costumes feels self-serving because a large reason so many women gravitate to this option is due to the depiction of their gender IN the media. You mentioned Ricky's, looking at the ads they shuffled out in preparation for outfitting the festive brigades, every single female option they showed was slutty in some way. Whereas, their options for men were goofy, juvenile and boisterous.

For this reason, i'd like to point out that i believe the trends exercised on Halloween have extended in some regards to the warmer parts of the year. Sitings of low-rise jeans, tube tops, sickeningly short skirts, cleavage and belly piercings have grown exponentially.

[Kristin]

Quite frankly, CG: You lost me here. I'm in awe at your vocabulary, but somehow the meaning was lost for me amidst the buildup of pre- and postmodified nouns. I'll be back again and again, I assure you. One - I for one - would hope with more patience and brains.

[Free]

Almost all women have beauty. Very few men do. Avg man would have no idea what it would mean to become aroused at sexiness that he created. Women often do create sexiness and become aroused by it. Much as some men/women cannot tell a joke, sing karaoke or dance in night club setting, avg woman has no clue how to "go with" the sexiness she creates. Pro woman does; in fact, she makes a living at it. She (pro woman) should not be surprised or conflicted over clumsy avg woman and her inept sexiness. Not a mark of Babylon-esque empire collapse--perhaps a sign that flowers evolve ever more beautiful petals to attract birds, bees and butterflies.

[chris kraft]

great post, chelsea and really great comments!

[Jess]

I was a nun for halloween. But that's besides the point. My friends were the sexiest strawberry shortcake you've ever seen (i.e. she didn't even have to bend over and you could see her matching underoos.) and the queen of hearts for halloween.

I believe your analysis of this holiday is correct. But I suppose the question is this: Is it good or bad for us to be so nonchalant about getting down? Should it really be something that isn't thought about for at least a moment?

I think it should. I'm all for pussy power, but if a woman doesn't even bother to think about the sex she's about to have, or with whom she's about to have it, does the risk become greater than the benefits of the empowerment?

[Liz]

Excellent post. Halloween brings out the radical feminist in me these days.

[learn]

Great read. I think there may be another perverse layer on top of this. With the rise of Strip Nation (which is a perfect- and perfectly catchy- way to coin the whole phenomenon!), I think its pure mass cheesiness starts to become a taboo and then a fetish in its own right. So pretending to join the mindless ranks for one night may be one way for some to stick it to the Strip Nation man?
It would still be reactionary, and how healthy it is would be hard to determine (as with many fetishes), but I wonder if the desire is to act out this sliding into amnesia, rather than actually slide into the amnesia.. Err if that makes sense.

[rich]

Excellent post CG. I have some strip clubs for clients. I keep them open against the puritanical types that think any thing sexy is bad. Against the Supreme Courts ruling that cities are allowed to presume negative secondary impacts such as crime, I have to prove to city attorneys that their presumptions are wrong. I have been quite succesful in accomplishing this using actual police data. My repeated message is that the clubs provide the illusion of sex for men who want to be duped. Our dancers create this illusion. Our security enforces the no touching rules and the safety of dancers in the clubs.
I preface my comments with this because I find it disturbing that 'regular' dance clubs now provide poles for females to perform very sexual dances. Our strip clubs sell risque' outfits for females to wear to these public nightclubs. How is it that young women don't know or ignore the message that they send to men wearing these outfits and dancing on poles. I know what the men think and believe about women exhibiting this behavior and dress and it is not about repressing their own urges, but rather these women have the same desire to copulate without consequences, that they have.
I believe in the sexual liberation of women but I feel that many women who are in their early years don't have a concept of the repression their gender is escaping or the fact that male sexuality is hardly benign. There needs to be a balance between repression and Strip Nation. Keep up the good writing.

[Jim Rockford]

I think you're reading too much into this.

"Sexy" costumes for post-puberty girls/women is a measure of:

1. Flaunting what you have, relative to other women "Look at me I'm hot/hotter than you"
2. Competing for a higher class man in the hook-up night of the year (or staving off competition).
3. Easy -- "sexy" is easier to pull off than scary. Just don't wear that much. Voila "sexy."

Given that Halloween is THE big hook-up/date night of the year, it's probably #2 more than anything.

>There needs to be a balance between repression and Strip Nation<

No. Men need to have a concept of basic human rights.

[X on the MTA]

I just re-read this for like the 15th time. I am not a fan of re-reading, but I love the way I can always come back to your writing and find something new. This time it was the Fritz the Cat reference. More importantly, your writing does not become stale, well, at least not most of PDT. I really wish this post could be required reading for September.