{"id":51589,"date":"2013-10-23T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T17:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=51589"},"modified":"2013-10-11T13:10:38","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T18:10:38","slug":"heteronormativity-in-halloween-costumes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/10\/23\/heteronormativity-in-halloween-costumes\/","title":{"rendered":"Heteronormativity in Halloween Costumes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The word “heteronormativity” refers to a persistent privileging of “opposite”-sex couples and the relative invisibility of people who partner with others of their “same” sex. \u00a0Halloween costumes are a great example of the phenomenon. \u00a0Costumes designed for couples nearly always assume that they need to outfit a man and a woman, not two men or two women.<\/p>\n

As an example, here is the main page for couples costumes at Party City<\/a>. \u00a0Notice that all couples represented are heterosexual:<\/p>\n

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Occasionally the costumes even have heterosexualized themes that metaphorically refer to penile-vaginal intercourse, like this plug and socket costume at Buy Costumes<\/a>…<\/p>\n

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…and this updated usb and dock costume:<\/p>\n

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It’s a simple point, but worth observing. \u00a0For people who aren’t heterosexual, these Halloween costumes are just one more example of how they aren’t recognized or validated by our society. \u00a0We are increasingly accepting of gay people, yet they remain marginal in our collective imagination.<\/p>\n

Originally posted in 2012.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The word “heteronormativity” refers to a persistent privileging of “opposite”-sex couples and the relative invisibility of people who partner with others of their “same” sex. \u00a0Halloween costumes are a great example of the phenomenon. \u00a0Costumes designed for couples nearly always assume that they need to outfit a man and a woman, not two men or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":57571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[254,283,54,293],"class_list":["post-51589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-holidays","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-sexual-orientation","tag-social-construction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/10\/130.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51589"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57573,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51589\/revisions\/57573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}