It’s the super bowl of parties in Madison, Wisconsin. It is a weekend where the bars have lines even longer than the night we beat Ohio State. It’s the only time in my life a friend has dressed up as a Victoria Secret angel, wings included, and walked confidentially down State Street. It’s Halloween. To say that students look forward to this holiday is a huge understatement. Each year thousands of people stumble drunkenly down the streets in costumes that look like anything from giant tampons to Justin Timberlake’s “dick in a box.” I can’t help but look forward to seeing what surprising new costumes people creatively come up with. But I’m never surprised to see how many girls wear little but their underwear. No one puts it better than Cady Heron, from Mean Girls, when she said, “Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” It’s so true. Halloween seems to be the “get out of jail free” card that girls can play to wear skimpy outfits, overdone makeup and fishnet tights. But why do we subject ourselves to this? Do we want the attention of showing a bunch of cleavage to inebriated men? Do we secretly wish we were that bad girl that every boy lusts for, but normally wouldn’t want to be branded that way? Or does every girl in college just really want to get laid on a holiday? To find out these answers I wanted to go to the source, college girls at Madison and other campuses. I polled over 100 students in a survey to see what reasons I could dig up.

Over 45 percent of the ladies that responded said this year they were going to be dressing up “sexy” for their Halloween costume. Shocking. Dressing up in everything from a sexy iPod (I don’t want to know) to Batgirl, most of the girls had about the same past costume ideas. One even bosted that she had been seven different sexy outfits since being a freshman: Indian, baseball player, Dorothy, French maid, pin-up girl, teacher and student! After seeing these costumes it’s hard not to think immediately that the girl was looking to hook up with anyone that night. Surprisingly, 69 percent wanted to only look “attractive/pretty” while three percent were aiming to look “slutty.” Also, 63 percent said that they were dressing up to please themselves and as little as 25 percent said they wanted to please men! It doesn’t matter if it is freezing cold either, because 54 percent said they would still wear a sexy outfit in below freezing temps if they liked it enough. When looking at the results, I thought there was no way these girls were serious. They were only looking to dress up like a slut to please themselves? Why walk around in the cold unless you gain something besides frostbite from it?

This leads me to believe that women dress up in sexy costumes because it’s also the one weekend a year you can be a complete “tease” to men. The majority of the voters agreed that most women dress up slutty because “they want to feel sexy and desired.” On the other hand, over 70 percent think that if they do, guys will “pursue her so he can get lucky.” Most women aren’t looking to have sex on Halloween. Most just secretly crave attention from men but are scared at what comes with having a drink bought for them. It is a look but don’t touch policy. When asking why girls dress up this way, one girl stated, “[Girls] try to get guys’ attention because they think they otherwise wouldn’t give them a second look.” Another said, “We want to look cute, we want our friends to think we look cute, we want guys to think we look cute and we want cute pictures to put on Facebook.” Most agreed that it was the one night of the year they could get away with looking that slutty and, bluntly stated, they do it to “make me feel wanted and desired, even if I am in a relationship. It’s the one night my boyfriend can’t tell me my outfit is too revealing and I can still get all the great looks from other men.”

It’s my conclusion that girls choose to dress this way to get attention and feel important – it’s a superficial way for women to gain control over the situation and human nature. In one of my economics classes, I read an example of something called “ability signaling.” The first applicant for a job drives up with a scruffy beard, a tweed suit and an Oldsmobile 1996. The next is in a tailored designer suit and driving a BMW. Who would you choose? The majority of people would choose the second because he seems more desirable and competent for the job. So, in my exploration of why women wear such revealing costumes, I wondered how our first impression of someone affects our behavior toward them. Playing the psychologist here, it seems to make sense why a guy in college might walk straight past the girl dressed up as a giant banana to talk to a “Pocahottie.”