Can We Also Blame Bush for the (Possible) Decline in Sexy Halloween Costumes?

After 1,000 years of economic torpor and a thousand hours of Hurricane Sandy coverage, here's an even more disturbing story that surely charts an empire in decline:

After a dozen years of sexy nuns, sexy cats and even sexy hamburgers, Halloween this year is looking decidedly more demure.

Sexy costumes are still selling, of course; about half of the women who dress up will do so as something "attractive," according to a national survey by Savers secondhand stores.

But sexy just isn't sizzling quite like it used to.

While a record 45 percent of all adults will dress for Halloween this year, according to the National Retail Federation, Yahoo searches for the phrase "sexy Halloween costumes" have dropped 47 percent since 2010.

Writing for Slate, Amanda Hess notes that the above trend story (which appears in the Arizona Republic), is filled with all the classic "to be sures" and other qualifiers that provide plausible deniablity to the imaginative (and possibly drunk or at-least-strung-out writer on deadline). Hess observes:

When I see women dressed as sexualized fast food sauces, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. In the new Sexy Halloween economy, the line between sexy and ironic appears to have evaporated. There's something hopeful about that—this new permutation of the trend rejects plastic corporate packaging and values a woman's cleverness instead. As long as she still looks hot.

Read the whole thing at Slate.

Read Reason's Halloween coverage over the years. If you dare!