In Honor of Spooky Season, Let's Not Body Shame

Halloween is a fun season to get excited for. Everyone gets creative and dresses up in whatever their heart desires. It's the time in the year where you can be a kid again and play dress up for the fun of it.

But one thing that has bothered me the most is the body shaming that comes along with it. No matter the gender.

People, let people feel confident in their bodies. If it's not your gig and you wouldn't dress up like that, great. Then you don't and that's cool. If they want to and they do, that's cool too. Why put someone else down that is feeling confident and good in their body.

There has been a trend going around Twitter saying "$100 to any girl..." and then follows different costume ideas with the words "slut," "hoe," "bitch," and so on.

This tweet went viral on twitter, with over 10.4K retweets and 44.2K likes on twitter. He later deleted this off his twitter account.

katie shannon // screenshots from twitter (tweets written by @ tag)

To all my people out there feeling self-conscious, I say to you: Flaunt what you got babe. Man, woman, trans, non-binary, however, you identify. Be confident in your body and wear whatever the hell you want. Let's hype each other up and be supportive of one another. Wearing what you wear does not make you "this" or "that." You are who you are, no matter what you wear. It's like going up to someone and being like "Your hair is brown, so you're a brunette and that's the only thing you are." That would sound insane, right? How does this make it any different? Why do we tell people they dress like a hoe and that they are one because of it?

The reason I feel the need to speak up about this topic is because "body image" and "self-image" has been constantly a topic that I have personally struggled with, and I have an issue with people blatantly putting other people down the way people have put me down in the past.

For the longest time, I was super hesitant to ever wear something that was -somewhat- revealing because guys at my high school used to make perverted comments about my boobs to my face all the time because I had a bigger chest at the time. I would always wear high necklines to avoid comments and I would constantly try to hide away my body in any way that I could. I would wear big jackets, high necklines, scarfs, and at least two-three layers to make sure I was covered up. Women also made comments to me about how I looked. I would hear comments from friends saying, "Oh Katie? She's so nice AND she has huge tits." I didn't know that my body had anything to do about my personality, but it constantly was in the conversation.

Words have a lasting effect on people. This is something I feel the need to emphasize. You have to be careful what you say to people because you don't know what comments they will hold on to and remember. Words that were said to me I will always remember because it made me feel so ashamed of my body, as if it was something I needed to hide. I would kindly decline swim parties I was invited to just out of fear of things that would be said to me or how people would look at me.

It was up until about freshman year in college that I fully began to feel comfortable again in my body. I didn't choose my outfits out of fear what classmates will say or look at me. Sure, there are things that can be here and there revealing, but that is because it's for me. It's for me feeling like I can celebrate my self-confidence and feel pretty and bold in what I wear and how I wear it. So sure, call me slutty. Call what I can wear "hoe-ish."

But for once, I am confident and happy in my body. And that's something you can never take away from me.