Happy (Sexy) Halloween

There's a blow-out party tomorrow night at a big club on the waterfront. It's the time in the semester when people are getting punchy --- put them in costumes, stoke them with unlimited booze, and imagine the possibilities!

Being a Halloween party, part of the pre-game hype inevitably involves planning a costume.

A year ago, a friend mentioned that one of her acquaintences had thought about dressing up as a prostitute for Halloween. I was insenced. But this year, as I contemplate outfits, I have to laugh. Going as a prostitute might actually be a nice post-modern, ironical choice; or, I could be a sexy cowgirl, a sexy cat, a sexy take-off on SuperWoman, a French maid, a hula girl, a Bond girl...anyone of the typical costumes that we women so often choose. Indeed, some of my male friends have confirmed that their favorite part of Halloween is the eye candy the skimpy costumes provide.

Sanctioned dress up is an occasion where we feel comfortable vamping up our sexuality -- and it can be fun to trot out the alter-ego now and again. I've worn plenty of liberated, skimpy costumes myself - ranging from nothing but underwear to colored saran-wrap. Each time, it's been in the company of close friends, or in a female-dominated environment.

But this party is hosted by a law school association and will be attended by my classmates. These are people that I expect to have professional relationships with. In particular, these are men that I expect to have professional relationships with. To dress up in a way that drips with blatant sexuality, which asks to be objectified, seems also to ask to be taken slightly less seriously. On the otherhand, it can be fun to get in the game with the other girls and dress up in something fun and flirtatious. I don't want to come off as a boring, frumpy girl, ridiculous as that may seem.

Fortunately, I'll have a year to mull this over, since for other reasons I'm not going to be attending tomorrow night's wild event.