Sexy pizza? Winnipeg woman shames risque Halloween costumes online

A Winnipeg woman is using Facebook to shame the growing trend of "unnecessarily sexy" Halloween costumes, particularly those that put a racy twist on childhood.

Kate Schellenberg said she decided to post the images so people can "see just how stupid some of these costumes are." She first did it in October 2015, leading up to Halloween, and decided to take it up again this year.

Schellenberg, 33, said she wants to bring attention to how bizarre and borderline concerning some of them are.

While sexy taco, sexy pizza or sexy corn-on-the-cob costumes are just ridiculous excuses for high skirts and low shirts, ones that give a sexy treatment to kids' toys and cartoon characters are distressing, Schellenberg said.

"It's really disheartening to see things from our childhood, that children are playing with, become sexualized to this degree," she said. "To me, those are sacred."

The "sexy" versions of toys, dolls and characters geared toward children take away the innocence of the characters, and kids see them "used in this way," Shellenberg said.

"They're just unnecessarily sexy. It's too much."

She's also concerned about sexism, since most of the sexy costumes are designed for women.

She noted a Scooby-Doo costume that, for men, is a full-body outfit topped with a goofy Scooby plush head. The version for women is not much more than a bathing suit with a paw print on the breast.

Schellenberg doesn't have children, but she has friends with young girls and wouldn't want them thinking of Strawberry Shortcake or Scooby-Doo as sexy.

"I just want to be clear, I'm not shaming the people that wear these costumes, I'm shaming the costumes themselves," Schellenberg said.

If you want to go as Scooby-Doo, just go as the Scooby-Doo everyone knows, she suggested, adding "wear the onesie because it's going to be cold."