The Symbolism of the Slutty Neurosurgeon

One of the things I like most about my new job is that my office is not technically on campus, but rather on the far side of a strip mall across the street and a block or so down. At first I was worried about how I would stay connected being so far away from the action, but it turns out that hasn’t been a problem (and I don’t have to fight for parking).

It’s about a 15 minute walk, depending on where on main campus I’m headed. If you count the time there and back, that’s a good chunk of time I have to just let my thoughts wander. Sometimes you come up with the best stuff when the worker-bee portion of your brain is tied up dodging goose droppings (I’m hoping the lovely birds will head south soon – creatures with webbed feet freak me out, especially when they leave green turds all over the sidewalk).

Anyway, today being Halloween, my thoughts turned to costumes. I don’t get to dress up in my job – should a meteor suddenly strike a residence hall or something, the college most likely wouldn’t want a zombie or pirate queen for its spokesperson. And since I don’t trick-or-treat and I didn’t want to splurge last weekend going out on the town, I didn’t even come up with a costume this year.

There’s this phenomenon that’s been gaining steam (if you believe the MSM) in recent years. It’s been dubbed “slut-o-ween,” referring to the tendency of women to use Halloween as an excuse to doll up in outfits that would make a hooker blush. I don’t know if this is true or not … I can remember at least some of my mother’s friends dressing up as flappers, hookers and sexy vampires/witches/nurses when I was a kid, and that would be in the mid-80’s.

There’s some anecdotal evidence, in the form of reader comments in this posting today on Feministing.com, that the “let’s dress like strippers today” concept is creeping into costumes marketed to girls – again, I wouldn’t know, because a) I never had a store-bought costume growing up, b) I wouldn’t have been able to fit into a store-bought costume until recently and c) I haven’t gone costume shopping with any kids lately. Okay, ever. So I can’t say one way or the other whether “slut-o-ween” is in fact more prevalent than in years past, or if lazy columnists are just cribbing from Tina Fey.

What interests me is that, at least to some degree, “slutty” costumes for women have always been with us – and that they’re something women have inflicted on ourselves, as opposed to something with which the Big Bad Man has saddled us. If women collectively decided that nuns and bag ladies were the coolest costumes EVER, even the most chauvinistic costume-manufacturer would flood the market with them. They don’t make ’em if we don’t buy ’em, ladies.

On my walk back to my office today, I debated with myself why this was so. I found myself wishing that Roland Barthes were still around to comment on the symbolism of the slutty neurologist. (Then I got a great idea for next year’s costume – a laundry truck! It would probably go over better if I were a student in a Ph.D. program on literary theory, but no matter.)

Seriously – what do we women get out not only revealing, but suggestive costumes? There’s the argument that pretty much any dress-up occasion, from Halloween to proms to weddings is and has always been treated as an opportunity to show off our goods in a way we don’t get to do every day. Maybe the (alleged) escalation of “slut-o-ween” is nothing more than a mirror to the ever-astronomical weddings, proms, quinceaneras and Sweet Sixteens we keep reading about in the New York Times. (Me, I didn’t get a Sweet Sixteen, so what do I know?)

But I have to wonder why, on the one occasion where there are pretty much no social expectations as far as appearances go, so many of us choose to go “look at me” trampy. Hey, I’m counting myself in this, too. When I was a girl, my costumes included Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz,” a box turtle (literally…), Cyndi Lauper and the ugliest witch you can imagine (the year that all my sisters dressed as pretty princesses). But I was also, memorably, a French maid. (I still can’t believe my mother let me get away with that one).

Looking back on it, as an adult the times when I deliberately chose “slutty” costumes were times when I was desperate for approval from the opposite sex. Once, I had just dropped out of college and was living back at home with NO prospects, and the other was when I had just (and I mean JUST) gotten out of a relationship with the guy I thought I was going to marry. SO unhealthy.

Some people argue that Halloween costumes are nothing more than an innocent outlet for people to express the sexual identities we have to hold back 99% of the time. But WHY? Why do we have to bottle it all up 364 days out of the year, only to let our sexual power boil over into a carefully assembled slutty president costume? Maybe if American society weren’t so frickin’ puritanical, we wouldn’t feel the need for a “slut-o-ween.”

I’ll close with a recap of my costume last year. I hadn’t really planned anything, and then on Oct. 30 bell hooks gave a lecture at the college where I was working at the time. She mentioned what she saw as the mildly – okay, maybe not “mildly” – pathetic tactic of rolling up into a Halloween party dressed like a stripper who fell off the bang bus.

I felt a little guilty, being only one year removed from my epic Lara Croft costume. So that night after her lecture I went home and pieced together a look that would evoke a strong, sexy-but-not-slutty and, I felt, clever icon of womanhood – Annie Hall. I only wore it to the campus Halloween party, and no one under the age of 50 knew who I was supposed to be. But I felt good. I had fun. And isn’t that the point?

So from here on out I pledge no more slutty costumes for me. I’ll be goofy, scary or downright obscure – but not slutty. I don’t feel the need.