Girls dance around in short white dresses with nurses’ hats, while others socialize wearing pink leotards with pairs of white bunny ears atop their heads and cotton rabbit tails on their behinds. It is a typical college Halloween party.

For many, the notion that Halloween is a once-a-year opportunity to dress sexually and not be judged is a widely accepted thought.

“I think Halloween is the one time that girls know they can get away with dressing up really revealingly,” Tamara Carroll ’07 said.

Johanna Justin-Jinich ’10 and Elena Logvinenko ’09, both members of the Cunt Club, a student group that examines the many aspects of female sexuality, think that there are many reasons that girls wear “sexy” Halloween costumes.

“Women wear revealing costumes for many reasons, and these reasons are more important than the chosen costumes,” they wrote in a joint e-mail. “A woman wearing a revealing costume because she feels empowered, beautiful, and self-fulfilled is very different from a woman wearing a revealing costume because she wants to please a specific guy or look sexy not for herself, but for others.”

Justin-Jinich and Logvinenko felt that women’s feelings of security about their sexuality were more important than the actual costumes they chose to wear.

“It is very important for women to be able to wear what they feel is appropriate according to their own standards, even if that happens to be a sexy and revealing Halloween costume,” Justin-Jinich and Logvinenko said. “It’s usually very empowering to take your sexuality into your own hands and do with it what you wish — for yourself, not for others.”

Stephanie Calvert ’08 emphasized that dressing up in sexy costumes was just part of Halloween.

“It’s the nature of the holiday,” she said. “It’s the one day you can wear anything…or not wear anything at all. And I think that if a girl wants to wear nothing but her panties, she can do that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that if that’s what you want to do.”

For a freshman female who wished to remain anonymous, Halloween was a chance to try wearing something new and different. She wore a tight-fitting gothic dress.

“I decided to wear it because it’s a radically different style than my own, so I thought it would be fun,” she said.

Many girls agreed that it is fun to dress up a little more provocatively than usual.

“Who doesn’t like the attention?” Calvert said.

“[Halloween] is kind of everyone’s opportunity to dress up sexily and not be judged,” said Tony Dhani ’10. “I’m not going to lie; it’s hot.”

Many boys conceded that they liked it when girls dressed up revealingly for Halloween. As one freshman male gave as an example, a girl could dress up as Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” and wear a full-length dress, or she could shorten the length of the dress and tighten the area around the bust, wearing high-heeled red shoes to top off the outfit. The group of boys with him agreed that the second “Dorothy” would be much more appealing.

Although students have differing reasons and opinions regarding female Halloween costume choices, most agreed that all costumes at the University, including the skimpy ones, tend to be more interesting than the average Halloween fare.

“People at Wesleyan wear costumes that you can’t find in a store,” said Lyz Nardo ’08. “They’re really creative.”