JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es vice pres­i­dent, Bish­op Mau­rice Jones, has warned that the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of “sex­u­al­ly ex­plic­it sym­bol­ism” in the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions risks con­se­quences that can­not eas­i­ly be re­versed.

“When in­ti­mate im­agery and ob­jects are in­tro­duced in­to civic cel­e­bra­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in spaces shared by chil­dren and fam­i­lies, the con­se­quences ex­tend be­yond in­di­vid­ual choice. So­ci­eties are formed by what they tol­er­ate pub­licly,” Jones said in a press re­lease yes­ter­day.

“The nor­mal­i­sa­tion of sex­u­al triv­i­al­i­sa­tion erodes com­mu­nal stan­dards of dig­ni­ty, weak­ens rev­er­ence for the body, and re­shapes moral ex­pec­ta­tions in ways that can de­sen­si­tise younger gen­er­a­tions and dis­tort their un­der­stand­ing of iden­ti­ty, worth, and re­la­tion­al re­spect.”

Bish­op Jones was mak­ing he com­ment in the wake the call by Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don for fur­ther reg­u­la­tion of the Car­ni­val, af­ter mas band Tribe dis­trib­uted sex toys in their gift pack­ages to fe­male mas­quer­aders this sea­son.

Dur­ing a homi­ly on Mon­day, Gor­don said if Tribe could not “di­al it back,” the state may have to step in to reg­u­late as­pects of Car­ni­val.

Bish­op John added that cul­tur­al vi­bran­cy must not come at the ex­pense of moral­i­ty, as cel­e­bra­tion can up­lift rather than de­grade.

Mean­while, pro­gramme leader in the Acad­e­my of Arts, Let­ters, Cul­ture and Pub­lic Af­fairs at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T, Dr Kela Fran­cis, says Car­ni­val does not need to be reg­u­lat­ed.

She said the neg­a­tive views of sex­u­al­i­ty dur­ing Car­ni­val comes from a Judeo-Chris­t­ian van­tage point and not the his­tor­i­cal African con­text.

“When I say Car­ni­val shouldn’t be reg­u­lat­ed, I don’t mean it’s no holds barred, do any­thing. It’s not the purge; that’s not what we’re talk­ing about. But the idea of this dis­re­spect­ful be­hav­iour some­how be­ing cur­tailed and sani­tised, that’s what we tend to fo­cus on when we talk about reg­u­la­tions. And that in­cludes sex­u­al­i­ty,” Fran­cis said.

She said Car­ni­val in the African sense is a fer­til­i­ty rit­u­al that start­ed with a har­vest cel­e­bra­tion, both in agri­cul­ture and hu­man fer­til­i­ty. Fran­cis be­lieves the con­ver­sa­tion about Car­ni­val be­ing sex­u­alised is a sign that sex ed­u­ca­tion is need­ed.

“I think, at least for me, the up­roar isn’t ac­knowl­edg­ing that there is sex in Car­ni­val. I think the up­roar is more about bal­ance, more about the fact that we are cen­tring it as the ex­clu­sive sto­ry of Car­ni­val. It is a part of the sto­ry. It’s not the sto­ry. And I think whether we are fo­cus­ing from a Judeo-Chris­t­ian lens or an Afro­cen­tric lens, the idea of bal­ance and the full sto­ry not be­ing told.”

Fran­cis said Gor­don’s com­ments that Car­ni­val is be­ing com­mer­cialised, with a shift­ing from the tra­di­tion­al and oth­er as­pects of Car­ni­val, is not the full pic­ture. While she agrees there is more fo­cus on the mas­quer­ade, she said it should not be a case of ei­ther or but a merg­ing of both.

Mean­while, Diego Mar­tin North/East Colm Im­bert says the ques­tion of moral­i­ty and the lack there­of in Car­ni­val is best left for the church. Speak­ing dur­ing a PNM me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Im­bert said what he found in­ter­est­ing was the pos­si­bil­i­ty that chil­dren could have been giv­en the sex toy in their pack­ages.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Tribe Group CEO Dean Ackin for a com­ment on the mat­ter, but up to press time re­ceived no re­sponse.