The 5 worst kinds of "sexy" Halloween costumes at Yandy.com

Not even close to making the list.

Yandy.com is known for its ridiculous contributions to the "sexy ____" Halloween costume epidemic, helping young women provide their male friends with a plethora of unspeakable fantasies, from sexually available french fries to women dressed as Bugs Bunny (who, admittedly, was attractive when he put on a dress and played a girl bunny).

But in addition to the self-objectification that comes from mixing porn with your candy corn on the 31st, Yandy provides several opportunities to set feminism and civil rights back decades. 

Here are some doozies:

Runners Up: "Sexy Working Women Who Get Sexually Harassed on The Job"

How is this even a nurse's uniform?

Nurses. Flight Attendants. Domestic workers. Whatever it takes to minimize women's serious contributions to the workforce.

5. A Pink Frisky Leopard "For The Cure"

AKA "Breast Cancer Awareness Pink Leopard Costume"

Hell Hath No Furry Like a Pinkwashed Sexy Leopard. But hey, 10% of the proceeds from the sale of this thing "will go to benefit breast cancer research and awareness".

4. Asian Fetish Get-ups

"The Geisha With The Dragon Tattoo"

What do you get when you combine sexism, racist stereotypes, and a lighthearted look at prostitution in one costume? Yeah. Just don't.

3. The "Sexy Schoolgirl"

"Seductive School Girl"

I don't know why girls' private schools still insist their students wear kilts. The fetishization of "school girls" reeks of Nabikovian ephebophilia. And feeding the fetish at Halloween isn't helping stop the sexualization of teenagers.

2. "Indian" anything

"Reservation Royalty"

My brother-in-law, Dave, who is part of the Canadian First Nations community, told this story today:

I was in a Halloween shop with my kids when the clerk came over and asked: "Can I help you find anything?" I then asked him:"Yes, do you have any 'Black suits'?" I told him that I wanted to go out as a 'black guy' for Halloween. He said "No". Then I asked him: "Well how about Jew suits... do you have any Jew suits?" Again he said "No!" I asked him if it seemed offensive and he said while scratching his head: "Well...yeah, it would be." Then I pointed at the Native American outfit they were selling and said: "So is that..."

1. And the winner is...

This stupid costume, racistly called "Robyn da Hood", was not a particular standout until last week, when it appeared in a rather notorious Instagram and Facebook photo:

Via thinkspeakstress on Tumblr

That's right — if you really want to stink up Halloween, you can now dress up as Caitlin "Kt" Cimeno, the woman who showed the world how racist young white Americans can still be. She's pictured with her brother, Greg Cimeno (as George Zimmerman) and friend William Filene (in blackface, as Trayvon Martin).

How meta would that be? It's a little late to order now, but there's always next year.

Real nurses fight MTV over sexy nurse reality show

Via MTV

Home of Jersey Shore and Teen Mom, MTV is not exactly known for respectful or dignified portrayals of people in their reality TV shows. This time, however, they may have picked on the wrong cliché.



"Scrubbing In" follows a group of nurses on and off the clock:

What do you get when you mix the drama of "The Hills" with the partying of "Jersey Shore," and then put everyone in Crocs? That would be "Scrubbing In," MTV's newest docu-drama series that follows young nurses who temporarily uproot themselves to tend to the sick in different parts of the country. In this case, the destination is Orange County, and while the weather is picture-perfect, the emotional climate will call for many an umbrella.

As the trailer shows, the climate calls for a few condoms as well.

From MTV's point of view, I can see how this seems like reality TV gold. Attractive nurses who work hard and play hard, living communally. Who wouldn't want to watch that?!?

Nurses, that's who. The president of the Ontario Nurses' Association, Linda Haslam-Stroud, wrote an open letter to MTV (who also broadcast in Canada):

“It is insulting and simply unacceptable to those of us who use our skills every day to provide quality patient care. The nurses portrayed in the show [are presented] as sexual objects, exploit negative stereotypes and diminish the fact that we are knowledgeable health care professionals who make the difference between life and death for patients every day.”

The ONA has thrown its considerable support behind an online petition and Facebook group, launched in the United States, to cancel the show.

ONA has been successful before in fighting the sexual objectification of their profession. Organized action against Cadbury-Schweppes led to the premature demise of this Dentyn Ice campaign:



A full season of TV production, however, is a much bigger dragon to slay. But it's worth a shot.

The problem with the objectification of nurses is more than a sociological one. In Canada, one third of all nurses report being assaulted by a patient. A Florida survey in 2008 had almost three-quarters of nurses reporting an on-the-job assault.

Assault by patients takes many forms, from verbal and emotional to physical and sexual, but in all cases the portrayal of women in the profession as hypersexualized party girls is hardly helpful in creating a safe environment for them as they care for people in close quarters. They work in constant fear of being stalked by patients.

Nurses really deserve better than the reality show treatment. Everyone does. But considering the profitability of sleaze these days, is there any real chance of changing corporate TV minds?

Via Change.org

Oh, nursing professionals will **love** this one

All ads via Ads of The World

I've worked with our national nurses' association, as well as done tons of healthcare branding, advertising and recruitment. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that nurses absolutely hate this shit. 

Not only is the "sexy nurse" stereotype (who is always female) damaging to the dignity of all women, it is particularly insulting to a professional cadre who are universally loved for caring for us at some of our lowest ebbs. As one nurse once told me, "the first person and the last person who will touch you when you are alive, will probably be a nurse.

Don't you think she (or he) deserves better than this?

The campaign is for a disposable syringe company, claiming that re-use of syringes (gross) is the #2 spreader of HIV. I usually think of this in back-alley smack terms, but I suppose its possible that Indian hospitals sterilize and reuse glass ones. But is this a stretch in correlation? 

Ask DDB.