Scary, Sexy Sarah?

If you put in some minimal effort, there is a good chance you can make out with Sarah Palin this week. You might not even intend to do it. And it probably doesn't matter what your sexual preference is. Straight boys, hot bi-girls, divorces, whoever you are, you can be sure of one thing: There are going to be Sarah Palins at your Halloween party.

Everyone thinks it's funny and hot. They might even make out with each other. For years, Halloween has become a festival more and more identified with the selling of sex and sex appeal. Oddly, with the arrival of Barack-my-world-Obama and the proud-to-be-a-hottie Sarah Palin, so has our presidential election.

I'm not making this up. Check out the online retailers, like www.brandsonsale.com, which stocks an assortment of sexy Palin outfits. The Dallas Morning News quoted sales associates at costume stores testifying to the high demand for Sarah Palin costumes. Of course, there are always complications: When announcing the city's annual Halloween high-heel race, the local Washington LGBT newspaper read, "If you're planning to dress as vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin . . . Please don't come toting a rifle."

I suppose we could theorize that Halloween has gradually transformed itself into the day — one hates to do violence to the word "holiday" by applying it here — when we gratify our desires. As children, this means candy, and the price is a sweaty face under an uncomfortable plastic Spiderman mask, held on by a thin, ready-to-snap rubberband. As tweens and teenagers, it often means dressing up in an "adult" fashion. As Lindsay Lohan's character in Mean Girls memorably put it: "Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it." Meanwhile, adults have begun dressing less for their neighborhood children and more for themselves, their friends, and partners.

This less-innocent, more adamantly adult Halloween mixes wild self-expression with mischief. It is as if we've adopted a new liturgical calendar. Our "holiday season" of Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas is our time for penance. It is then we must "make up for time" lost with our families. And we slave in kitchens, contend with the futility of life at the mall, sit in traffic, or wait on on a tarmac. We sit through grandma's preferred church service. It is all so dutiful, solemn, and purportedly uplifting — our secular Lenten season. Halloween is the new Fat Tuesday. And on the other end is the New Year.

Naturally, some conservative Catholics have proposed Halloween alternatives for their children, like All Saints Parties — in commemoration of their actual feast day. This sounds good in theory, but I can imagine it getting screwy in practice. Little Bobby, 9, says, "I'm King Louis IX of France, a model of the Christian Knight." (Sounds like a blast, already) Then Mary Grace, 11, "I'm Saint Agatha, my breasts were cut off by Quintian. And now they are on this plate. Look!" Good luck with that.

Meanwhile, this political season has added a new dimension to Halloween. Yes, Obama has been somewhat sexualized — Obama girl too. But the Palin selection was a kind of politico-sexual earthquake. It made MILF, and its too-clever political variation VPILF, into mainstream acronyms. The one-in-a-million combination of her political power, fecundity, and youthful shapeliness made for an explosive entrance onto the political scene. More important to her sexual power was her conservatism — which promises comfort for her ideological companions, and allows for (sometimes disturbing) transgressive fantasies among progressives, hence the gay paper's no-guns notice.

And that is why drag queens, cheerleaders, and even some jocks are getting out their moose-hunting rifles, beauty pageant sashes, and beehive hairdos. The sexualization of our politics was natural once politicians became celebrities. Fantasies about the president go back to JFK — the first television-friendly president. We allow ourselves to make up "lists" of celebrities whose interest in us would immediately null our vows of fidelity - why not include the stars we've been seeing on television more than anyone else — our suddenly attractive politicians. Barack is no Barbara Boxer. Sarah Palin is not Denny Hassert.

Is the weird sexualization of our politicians a natural extension of our collective political fantasies? A large number of people truly believe Barack Obama is going to fundamentally change the way Washington works. It's really not any less fantastic than the idea that Barack would find them interesting dinner companions, or think their shoes are really sexy. Likewise, people really believe Sarah Palin is the future of the Republican party, that she embodies authentic, timelessly American values, that she can tame Congress, the Middle East and her toddlers too. Yeah, and maybe Todd Palin will be ravaged to death by huskies, and Sarah will meet you at CPAC and you'll say you love babies and before you know it she's tearing at her 1,400 YSL jacket to get at you. Just think about and think about it until you get to your Halloween party — and then settle for the fake Sarah Palin who's getting tipsy by the red-dyed beer and candy corn. Trick or treat!

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a contributing editor to Culture11.