Postmodern Courtesean -- Going dark just in time for Halloween

Aarrggg! Two years ago (which would be about 31 internet years) Olympia Matisse of the evidently now-erstwhile Postmodern Courtesan posted a vivid analysis of what motivates vanilla adults who wear prostitute, bunny, dominatrix, and other "vixen-y" costumes to Halloween parties. She hinted that such clich&eacu; "safe environment" departures were part and parcel of a general discomfort with everyday sexuality rather than the normal interpretation that it's some kind of celebration of a "wicked" inner personality.

It's a serious shame that she's gone dark instead of just leaving her site up because I'd *really* like to be able to refer to her site (not to mention refresh my memory) after reading a far more conventional takedown by Stephanie Rosenbloom of The New York Times titled Good Girls Go Bad, for a Day.

Perhaps, say some scholars, it could even be good. Donning one of the many girlish costumes that sexualize classic characters from books, including "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," "Cinderella" and "The Wizard of Oz," can be campy, female sartorial humor, said Professor Gill. It can be a way to embrace the fictional characters women loved as children while simultaneously taking a swipe at them, she said. "The humor gives you a sense of power and confidence that just being sexy doesn't," she said.

Dr. Tolman added that it is possible some women are using Halloween as a "safe space," a time to play with sexuality. By taking it over the top, she said, they "make fun of this bill of goods that's being sold to them."

"Hey, if we can claim Halloween as a safe space to question these images being sold to us, I think that's a great idea," Dr. Tolman said.

But it may be only an idea. Or, more fittingly in this case, a fantasy.

"I love to imagine that there's some real social message, that it's sort of the female equivalent of doing drag," Dr. Nelson said. "But I don't think it's necessarily so well thought out."

Tanda Word, 26, a graduate student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, who wrote a satirical article about the trend for The Daily Toreador, agreed. "I think it's damaging because it's not just one night a year," she said. "If it's all the costume manufacturers make, I think it says something bigger about the culture as a whole."

See the whole article here.

Note: that last bit seems significant. Later in the piece several manufacturers say they wished to offer more choices that weren't as "hawtt" but that they didn't sell well so there wasn't much incentive to make them. Chicken, meet egg. Egg, chicken.

Anyway, I hadn't yet started my blog when I read it and..

Woah! (Sound of lightswitch turning on!)

Well son of a gun! Before I started this blog I was a frequent poster in the sex forum of the old closed, member-only, un-Google-able Utne Magazine's Cafe Utne. (It's since moved, and it's evidently still unsearchable, but there's a link to the new location in my sidebar.) Anyway, when I moved to my blog I archived all my old posts (not easy -- I used a bunch of Perl scripts) and, after a brief pre-Halloween seance-via-Vim, it turns out I archived Olympia's post there.

And so while still lamenting the demise of the real PostmodernCourtesean site I can at least present her ghost from seasons past.

It's Halloween, time to get undressed

While I wasn't paying attention to the calendar, Halloween rolled around. I know I should have been clued in by the abundance of candy corn, or the evil looking pumpkins, but there are no kids in my building, so we fellow tenants don't have the responsibility of providing treats come Sunday night. That makes me sad, actually, as I have fond memories of childhood trick or treating in apartment buildings: you didn't have to wear a coat over your costume as you never left the house; you could stop at home to get another bag to fill when you'd overstuffed your first; and if you were really lucky, you went with a friend from another building and hit both buildings in the same night.

But sometime after trick or treating became obsolete, it was replaced by the Halloween party - a much less wholesome activity. As a woman in my profession, I am often attired in sexy clothing. But this is sexy clothing of the plunging neckline, strapless gown variety, not the fishnet and lucite heels variety so favored by, well, just about every woman under 35 at every Halloween party I've been to in the last ten years.

Did you know that kittens, devils, nurses, and 'hos' all wear fishnets and lucite heels? They do on Halloween. Halloween has become the one night of the year when prim and proper women can run around the streets half naked and drunk - in costume. If you've ever been to a hospital, you'll notice the nurses generally wear flat shoes and smocks; similarly cats don't wear shoes at all. But just about every costume favored by women has become carte blanche to be, well, promiscuous.

Before you start hammering me about the fact that my job is promiscuity, let me be clear: I have nothing against women wanting to dress provocatively or act promiscuously; it's the deception I object to. If a woman wants to let her stuff hang out one night a year, why dissimulate? Why not actually go to Halloween as a stripper? Or a nudist? Or a showgirl? All three of those professions would enable the costumee to wear little to nothing without seeming like such a fraud.

The problem as I see it is that women are still unable to come to terms with their own sexuality and the desire to express that sexuality, so instead of being up front about wanting to be seen as attractive or sexy, she must instead be a sexy cat, or a sexy nurse, or a sexy devil. She uses the uninhibited holiday of Halloween to give voice to her pent up sexual energy, get drunk, snog with some stranger at a party, all under the protection of Slut-Kitty, her alter-ego.

I am especially sensitive as I am going to a Halloween party this weekend where the host has already warned that the number of mostly naked slutkitties will be high. I've never been much of a costumer myself, but I can usually find a witches hat somewhere and pair it with a black dress, perhaps a broom - you know, that old chestnut, but I have been to a couple of truly spectacular costume parties where nudity wasn't a prerequisite - and they were a lot more fun.

Case in point: the dead people costume party. It didn't matter who you came as, as long as the person was dead. Excellent costumes included Mobuto Sese Soku (former president of Zaire), Jackie O, Jane Austen, Mary Queen of Scots, and Emperor Hirohito. This was a fun party. Everyone was fully clothed, and that prevented us from feeling the necessity to ogle one another instead of talk to one another. I know I'm old fashioned this way, but I do tend to go to parties to talk to people, not have sex with them. We could make a date to have sex at another time, but if I'm spending my party time trying to score, I'm not actually having any fun.

Another fun party I've attended: cartoon character costume party. Optimus Prime was there, as well as Skeletor, a group of girlfriends dressed as the Misfits (from Jem), and there were a couple of carebears spaced throughout.

The other thing that grates on me is the idea that sexiness and trashiness must go hand in hand. If a woman feels that the only way she can express her sexuality is through a trashy misrepresentation of herself, there's something enormously unfortunate about that. Creating alternate personas for ourselves, personas that drink a lot and flirt a lot and get it on a lot, is so counterintuitive as to make my head spin. Getting dressed up should be fun, not a competition to see who can be the most naked while still evading arrest. It's not like our street clothing is that demure to begin with. But seeing groups of women each Halloween in trashy, not to mention generally unflattering, garb, serves only to depress me. And I wonder if the next morning it depresses them as well.

The original link was http://www.postmoderncourtesan.com/archives/000500.php

Compare and contrast this with Rosenbaum's piece.

Olympia hadn't been posting much of late, and so I already missed her. Reading her old work reminds me why.