Halloween, 1996. This was the only time I ever bought a packaged polyester Halloween costume. It was a 1950s girl’s poodle skirt, and I only did it because “Grease” was my favorite movie at the time. It was $20, and not only was that extremely expensive and out of my elementary school budget (on a dollar a week, a cookie at the cafeteria is a splurge), but it was uncomfortably itchy, too. On top of the scratching epidemic, everybody had the same costume.

So much for self expression on the one day of the year you get to be whatever the hell you like. The next year I returned to my DIY costumes from my closet and went as a Spice Girl. Last year I went as Amy Winehouse. I haven’t changed very much.

But walk into a Halloween store today and head over to the children’s section, and the 1950s poodle skirts are gone. In lieu of itchy wannabe 1950s get-ups are Little Bo Peep Show and sexy “witches.” This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise; Halloween has over time become an opportunity for us women to get scantily clad and have no one say anything except “damn, girl.” The semi-nude push-up bra look has never been my choice of costuming, as I’ve preferred to go down the path of witty and unrecognizable (see Amy Winehouse, and my previous collegiate pumpkin-time endeavor as a pregnant Nicole Richie, baby bump, self tanner and all).

This hypersexuality was bound to trickle down to the young ones eventually. I’m not a feminist by any standards, and I would encourage young women to embrace their bodies on any given opportunity, especially one where no one will say a thing, but given the opportunity to be whatever the hell you like for one night, you’re going to go and pick a pantiless Dorothy?

I’m sorry, but I don’t think Auntie Em would allow Dorothy to go out dressed like that, and I imagine she would have not been too happy if she came home with a straw baby in her belly (damn you, Scarecrow).

And beyond being a naked neurosurgeon, you’re going to be the same naked neurosurgeon as the next girl, because it came in a bag. But as an adult woman, it’s a matter of choice to put on that sort of costume. It can be empowering, sure, to walk the line of seductress and pornographic pop tart. But while we’re on the subject of pop tarts, it’s not okay to encourage the little prepubescent pop tarts in the second grade to start running for the fishnets and push-up bras. They have a lifetime ahead of them, where push-up bras will actually become a part of the picture for some of them.

Maybe I was crossing the line as a Spice Girl in the third grade, but at least I made a personal to choice to sell girl power and not just myself. And besides, my mother made me wear a light jacket when we went trick-or-treating, because even Spice Girls are capable of catching pneumonia.