Festivals involving masks and demons are generally about sex. It's part of human nature--if we stay too buttoned up for too long, we go bonkers, so we invent these times for animalistic release. By opening the field up to ghosts and goblins, we relinquish control of our sexuality; we become blameless.
I'm a firm believer that sexuality has a central place in human experience and that, as much as food or exercise, we ought to be able to talk about it with our partners and our doctors and our friends. Not just the bare bones, but the mechanics. Maybe it's because I'm a scientist, and I want to see a continually expanding field of knowledge in every direction, not just the comfortable ones, but I think sex gets a raw deal in the US. We want it; we try to have it; we mock each other for trying to have it; we plaster it all over the media; we condemn girls and women who do have it; we try to avoid wanting it; we reward boys and men who do have it; we try not to acknowledge that some people are forcing other people to have it; we try to avoid wanting it in any "unusual" way; we buy accessories for it; we prize some variations of it above others--the list goes on, these ways in which we sabotage ourselves.
Complaining about how Halloween costumes for women are all skimpy stewardesses and sexy nurses misses the point. The point is that we have a messed-up relationship with sex, with our own bodies, and one day a year, we want to feel free and desired. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But until sex becomes something we can talk about, without shame or guilt, until we can get the contraceptives we want from doctors who support us without judging us, until we can talk to our partners without fear of mockery, we aren't free, and putting one day a year aside for it doesn't make it so.
It's another little taste of freedom.
