<em>This story originally appeared in the Saturday, October 21, 2006 edition of The Kansas City Star</em></p><p>Halloween hasn’t changed much for boys: Gory getups and monster masks still sell.</p><p>But in the last few years costumes for girls have traded silly and sweet for skimpy and sexy.</p><p>It has gotten so bad, one mother on an Internet bulletin board suggested renaming the holiday Dress Like a Prostitute Day. "That’s an awful thing to say," the woman wrote. "But that’s what some of these costumes look like to me."</p><p>Look in costume shops and you’ll see what she means. They don’t sell scary witches so much as saucy witches. Costumes that once were merely daring now look more at home on Vegas showgirls. Outfits that were once "cool" are now "Hot! Hot! Hot!"</p><p>Many blame pop culture. Racy television shows and music videos teem with images of teenage girls. Child beauty pageants feature questionable costumes, while corporations make billions selling sexy products to girls too young to understand their significance.</p><p>Experts are concerned. But not everyone’s bothered.</p><p>This summer on "America’s Got Talent," when celebrity judge Brandy told young singers they had dressed too provocatively for their age, the audience shouted her down. Last season Shopping.com noted a 30 percent jump in searches for "sexy Halloween costumes." So are marketers really to blame, or are they just giving people what they want?</p><p>"Both are true," said Tomi-Ann Roberts, a psychology professor at Colorado College. "We learn what we want from the culture, then demand more of it."</p><p>A 16-year-old female from Shawnee is looking for a "hot costume" to wear to a friend’s party. "Adults worry too much," she said. "You can’t just wear a sheet. People dress up more today, and the costumes are way hotter. But it’s still just fun."</p><p>Christy Jahnke, assistant manager of Party City in Overland Park, said her store carries a bevy of sexy Halloween costumes for girls. "That’s the trend we’re going with this year," she said. "Hot! Hot! costumes." She knows many by heart.</p><p>"Miss Red Riding Hood, that’s sexy," Jahnke said. "And we have Dorothy (from "The Wizard of Oz"), but it’s a sexy Dorothy." This year the store also will offer costumes made by Playboy.</p><p>"They’re geared more for adults, but a lot of younger girls get them."</p><p>Sometimes, Jahnke said, mothers balk at the sexiness of the outfits. But other moms pick them out for their daughters.</p><p>Linda Cosgrove of Stilwell in Johnson County, whose 15-year-old daughter, Mandy, is wearing a skimpy "naughty nurse" outfit bought online, isn’t worried.</p><p>"Mandy knows who she is," she said. "And so do I. This is just her having some fun. For people to make any more out of it than that ... I mean, is this really such a big problem?"</p><p>Ask the American Psychological Association. In 2005 it appointed a task force to study the sexualization of girls. Roberts is one of six members of the task force, which will release its report in February. Roberts calls the trend "alarming." Even well-meaning efforts such as Take Your Daughter to Work Day don’t stand a chance against the pressure to be sexy.</p><p>"Afterward they come home, turn on the TV and every show is ‘America’s Top Model’ and ‘Desperate Housewives,’ and it’s like, ‘I want a rock star boyfriend and a smokin’ bod.’ "</p><p>In research for her upcoming book So Sexy So Soon, Diane Levin of Wheelock College in Boston points to deregulation of children’s television shows in the 1980s as a big cause of early sexualization.</p><p>"It became possible to use TV shows as ads to market products," she said. "Within a year, most of the best-selling toys had TV shows. He-Man, Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles for boys; Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony for girls."