Halloween means kids, grown-ups and even dogs dressed up as pimps and whores (aka "hos"). Plus "Pimp and Ho Balls" in cultured U.S. cities. I've blogged here before about our leisure society's appropriation of sexual slavery imagery. Even alerted the teeming masses to the Mack Daddy ponzi scheme.

But in the end, we're celebrating vileness, such as that of the "Pimp Mullahs of Iran." Although their slaves are doubtless less gaudily costumed than little Tiffany and her clueless mom, out and about this weekend in their matching, skanky "Ho" togs.

Some folks aren't terribly amused at pimp 'n ho outfits.

...law-enforcement officials and social workers, particularly those whose job it is to arrest real pimps and in many cases actually rescue women and girls from prostitution, find it appalling.

"I don't think any of this is funny at all," said Lois Lee, president and founder of Children of the Night, a Van Nuys, Calif.-based nonprofit that rescues children from prostitution. "What these guys do is not funny at all. There's nothing hip or funny about torturing children, and that's what they do."

Sgt. Joe Delia of the Maryland Heights, Mo., Police Department said he, too, is irked by playful references to pimps and prostitutes.

"When I hear of these pimps and whores balls," he said, "I think it's just ignorance. They don't understand the issue here. Would people find it offensive if they were having slavery parties? Because it's the same thing."

Yeah, how about it? Master and slave outfits, anybody? Gestapo officer and Buchenwald captive? Scarved jihadist and imminent decapitee? The possibilities are myriad. Who's to say what envelope gets pushed?

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at October 30, 2004 12:07 PM

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