So here we are. It’s November already and another Halloween has come and gone. It’s always a sad time of year for me, because the Halloween is by far my favourite holiday. This is for a number of reasons.

I find the parental contradictions implicit in the very concept of Halloween to be absolutely hilarious. All year, parents of young children warn their kids against accepting candy from (or even speaking to) strangers. Then, one night a year, they send their kids out in the night to solicit candy from these same people.

In my opinion, it’s these little contradictions that make us human. It’s also these little contradictions that end up poisoning kids to death every October, but maybe I’m just being cynical.

Another reason I love Halloween is that it’s the one time of year when adults walk around dressed up like things such as bunny rabbits or zombies or, in my case this year, used tampons. Halloween is like a free pass to be silly without anyone being able to say a damn thing about how people should act their age, or that dressing up like a used tampon is “gross.” I really enjoy walking around seeing silliness on every street corner and in every bar, at least one night a year. I think it’s healthy to be silly.

The main reason I’ve come to love Halloween so much, though, is the trend that has been gaining momentum recently like a scantily clad steam engine: Slutty costumes. This is nothing new, we’ve all seen them. At any given bar or party on Halloween, about half the girls there will be dressed as a slutty something or other. There are slutty nurses, slutty soldiers, slutty superheroes, slutty hobos (one of my personal favourites), slutty flight attendants, slutty maids ... the list goes on and on. The slutty costume has become one of the most constant and reliable things about Halloween.

The only real problem I have with the slutty costume is that it confines itself almost exclusively to women. Very rarely do we see a guy dressed up as a slutty construction worker in little white gotch under a tool-belt or something, with his junk hanging out in all its glory for the whole world to see.

We see this same alarming trend in bathing suits as well. Many women wear skimpy little bathing suits at the beach and are praised for doing so (by myself included), but when I put on my sweet-ass little burgundy-coloured Speedo, people either laugh or look away disgusted.

Maybe it’s because guy junk it not as attractive as girl junk, or maybe it’s because we don’t live in Europe or Brazil, but what I can tell you is this: regardless of your sex or gender, if you wear a slutty costume on Halloween in an attempt to get laid, bring a change of clothes, because no one wants to get caught doing the walk of shame dressed as a sexy cat.

J. Williamez is a local musician whose music gives equal opportunity to male and female junk. Check him out Wednesday nights at Shannon’s Irish Pub.

Published in Volume 64, Number 11 of The Uniter (November 12, 2009)