Non-Heteronormative Couples Costumes

Lisa Wade, PhD on October 28, 2012

Yesterday I posted about how “couples costumes” seemed to inevitably include a man and a woman. Since then I found one top listed online costume seller that doesn’t follow this heteronormative trend, PartyCity. While most are male/female, here are four of the couples costumes they feature:

Interestingly, I didn’t see any costumes for two women, which is consistent with the lesser visibility of lesbians relative to gay men (if, of course, that’s part of Party City’s logic for offering guy-guy costumes in the first place).

UPDATE: Sara P. found an online flyer for iparty that had both guy/guy and one girl/girl “double the fun” costumes:

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Comments 27

hopeless shade — October 28, 2012

Half of these say bros and half of these say lazy gay men so who knows who they thought they were appealing to...

Saba — October 28, 2012

Isn't party City the same retailer you used as an example of heteronormative marketing just yesterday?

Alison — October 28, 2012

Isn't "the lesser visibility of lesbians relative to gay men" consistent with the lower number of lesbian women compared to gay men? I've seen sources that claim anywhere from 2 to 4 gay men for every lesbian woman http://igfculturewatch.com/1999/11/30/more-gays-than-lesbians/

This isn't meant to be an excuse, however. There is no reason that the angry birds couples costume couldn't have been two women, I just think it would be unfair to expect the same number of same sex male and female couples when the demographic data shows that one is much rarer than the other

Shannon — October 28, 2012

I don't think of 'couples' costumes as connoting a romantic relationship per se. To me it denotes costumes that work best as a pair, and is something you could do with a partner but also with friends.

mimimur — October 28, 2012

Also a compelling illustration of the importance of activism. We've had what, some 50 years of high profile gay activism? And all these years gay has equaled gay men, to the point where gay women have a separate letter in the LGBTQ, and in some places where they don't have it, it's been propagated for because gay or even homosexual is assumed to not include women. It's very clear that the rights gained are only as good as the movement fighting for them.

Elsajeni — October 28, 2012

I mentioned this in the thread yesterday, but I did find one "couple's costume" featuring two women on the Party City site: "Batgirl and Sexy Robin," under the "Superhero" category. That did seem to be the only one, though.

Nodomama — October 28, 2012

I was hoping to find an evaluation of the Lena Dunham voting ad on your site. But, it was more costumes. Maybe tomorrow?

Alex51324 — October 28, 2012

Even if these costumes *are* more likely to appeal to/be intended for friends rather than romantic couples, the fact that Party City apparently doesn't fear that the word "couple" will scare straight guys away from the costumes is significant.

YourName — October 29, 2012

I thought that men would be very happy to see two women with costumes, which imply sexual activity between them. Maybe these costumes would also imply romantic relationship and we all know that "hetero" men's pride would be hurt if they see another man sexually engaged, never mind all of their porn is like that, but would be also hurt if they don't see a man in a romantic relationship, which includes a woman, maybe because this is perceived as more serious than sex.

I see how strict this "interest" in lesbians is, but still I can't understand if men are stupid or if they lie. Men said women would be more satisfied with another women, but they don't believe it, if this was true, the would hate it. However they say that sexual and emotional attraction are not connected in women(bs), but think that if a woman is "emotionally straight", she would want to have sex with men more than with women, so something so scary for them as lesbianism is ok and cool only if it is sexual, and feared if it is a real relationship. Split personality.....

oofstar — October 30, 2012

another reason there aren't woman/woman couples costumes = there aren't a lot of 2 woman teams in pop culture?

Effie Trinket Does Yoga, and other Halloweenery | rosiesaysblog — October 30, 2012

[...] it’s Halloween. Cue spasms of horror at sexualized children’s costumes, cue hurrahs at non-hetero couples costumes (even if they’re still pretty lame), cue spasms of slut-shaming and victim-blaming about [...]