Child's costume pulled from Wal-Mart shelves

Would you allow your child to wear this costume?



Halloween has always been an excuse for adults to dress up as sexy pirates, sexy nurses, sexy whatever....but what about our children?  This 'Naughty Leopard' costume was recently pulled off of Wal-Mart shelves due to many parent complaints.  Many parents felt that this costume name sexualized children.

Two British supermarket chains recently pulled 'mental patient' costumes off of their shelves.  This costume included a blood covered straight-jacket and a bloody meat cleaver. 

Still, the leopard costume was more a victim of its description than the clothing itself, since the dress features a fairly traditional girl's frock, with a set of cat ears to add a feline dimension. It's hardly titillating or shocking, but the negative reaction may be due to the strange dichotomy of Halloween.
 
How did this all come about? Maybe it was Elvira's sexy vampire look back in the 1980s, or the notoriously line-crossing Greenwich Village Halloween parade, as Slate notes. And of course, the holiday has always been about pushing boundaries, given that it was once believed to be the day when the spirits of the dead revisited their homes.

Still, it shouldn't require a psychic to know that sexy toddler costumes and outfits equating mental illness with violence are going to fly as well as the Great Pumpkin.