The Horny History of Halloween

In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it... And as it turns out, there’s actual academic research (and a long and kinky history) to back that up!

In this episode of Kinky History, sex historian Dr Esmé Louise James investigates the surprisingly complicated history of Halloween, from the Gaelic festival of Samhain and its supernatural folklore to the Christian calendar, Victorian fancy dress and Hollywood’s glamorous Halloween starlets.

Raise your spirits, put on your best resting witch face, and join me for the horny history of Halloween.

You can find a written transcript of this episode on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/DrEsmeLouiseJames

Instagram: @esme.louisee

TikTok: @dr.esme.louise

YouTube: @dr.esme.louise

Video edited by Connor Fantasia-Serve

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

02:20 Samhain

04:57 Spirits for Spirits

08:45 History is Kinky

12:51 Dress-up and Dating

16:16 How Did We Get Here?

17:42 Having a Ball20:31 Hollywood Gets Spooky

22:11 Putting the Queer into Fear

26:17 Conclusion

Reading list:

• Hutton, Ronald. “The Celtic New Year and Feast of the Dead.” Folklore 135, no. 1 (2024): 69–86.
• Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Lennon, Sharron J., Zhiying Zheng, and Aziz Fatnassi. “Women’s Revealing Halloween Costumes: Other-Objectification and Sexualization.” Fashion and Textiles 3, article 21 (2016).
• National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin. Dúchas: The Schools’ Collection.
• Markale, Jean. The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween: Celebrating the Dark Half of the Year. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2001.
• Keating, Geoffrey. Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (The History of Ireland). Written in the seventeenth century.
• San Francisco Planning Department. Eureka Valley Historic Context Statement. 2017.