Sexy? Scary? Whatever. Still not funny.

I first saw this item over at Kate Harding's blog Shapely Prose (which is terrific, btw). Kate also blogs at Shakesville and a couple of other places, and she recently invited two excellent co-bloggers, fillyjonk and sweetmachine, to join her at Shapely Prose. She and her colleagues are writing some excellent critiques of the whole 'obesity epidemic' thing, the weight-loss industry, plus fashion, fitness, and links to accurate health information for fat chicks. And lots of stuff for all of us, whether or not we're fat or female, to think about.

Anyway, Kate was pretty disgusted by this Halloween costume, which was apparently advertised at HalloweenStreet.com, among the usual costume options for adult women: Sexy Nurse, Sexy Demented Housewife, Sexy Brick House (?), Sexy Schoolgirl, etc. ad naus. The name of this costume is "Sexy Anna Rexia," and it comes with a belt and choker that look like tape measures. Hahahaha. I share Kate's disgust. Mental illness is just not funny, especially a devastating one that can cause death.

And I'm not amused by the pairing of sexiness and a debilitating disease that makes a person anything but sexy. I spent way too much time during my teens and early twenties hunched over a toilet bowl puking the rare complete meals I had to eat. Measuring and weighing myself every time I ate, drank, peed, or took a (laxative-enhanced) shit. And when dieting didn't work, I added exercise, eventually up to 5-6 hours a day. Which made me ravenously hungry, and sort of cut into the little time I had for socializing. And despite increasingly desperate efforts, still failed to make me skeletally thin.

But I also agree (to a point) with Carol Lloyd over at salon.com, [you'll have to watch an ad if you're not a subscriber] who said, "Even as Anna Rexia makes my skin crawl like no other Halloween costume ever has, I'm also not terribly comfortable getting worked up about a costume for a holiday that is all about embodying our fears." Which, yeah. The holiday is about dressing up as the things we fear.

So I went over to halloweenstreet.com to see whether the Sexy Anna Rexia costume was available in plus sizes. I would probably not have purchased it, had I found it, but I do in fact fear that obsession, and I still do have to fight with it sometimes.

I couldn't find it in the plus size costumes; nor, in fact anywhere on the site. The links I found all led to something else, and the site search function gave zero results. A lot of feminist bloggers and eating-disorder-recovery bloggers wrote about it, and I guess halloweenstreet.com responded to all the negative feedback they must be getting, and removed it from their site. Maybe you'll find them on eBay or something, after all the fuss is over.

Back on halloweenstreet, though, I was kind of startled by the number of options available in the "sexy" category, at least for women. I know that others have commented on this phenomenon, this increased sexualizing of halloween dress-up options (which does extend to teenage and even little girls' costumes, also kind of alarming in some ways -- I didn't see a lot of that on halloweenstreet, but I've heard parents complaining about it generally).

I do think that it's an interesting answer to the question 'what is it we most fear?' Sexy women? That kind of scares me.

Anyway, the Halloween costume I really want? And have never once worn, even though I already have my very own tiara? Fairy princess ballerina.

Be very afraid.