Leave Halloween to the Kids

Halloween has taken a turn for the worst, LA Times columnist Joel Stein complains, with the rampant introduction of adult sexuality into the last remaining kids' holiday untainted by politics. "People vastly prefer Halloween parties because New Year's Eve involves dressing up like an adult," he grouses, "whereas Halloween involves dressing up like a slut."

He has a solution: "Slut Day," to channel adult urges in the summer, when it's "plenty hot enough for really degrading costumes." Stein's not unsympathetic to the need to express the hidden self: "It makes sense that once a year I get to peek into your psyche and find out whether you think of yourself as a whore nurse, a whore pirate, a whore angel, or a whore whore." (More Halloween stories.)