This year’s best selling Halloween costumes for the ladies have a common theme. Whether it’s Lady Gaga or Jersey Shore’s Snooki, popular costumes involve young, provocative women.

Sondra Santos Drahos says Halloween has become a holiday for adults and very young children, while teens and tweens are left stuck in the middle, unsure whose lead to follow. Halloween, she says, might be a time to have a larger discussion about our sexualized American culture and why women feel the need to dress suggestively at all.