JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don is con­demn­ing mas band Tribe for dis­trib­ut­ing sex toys in good­ie bags to its fe­male mas­quer­aders. And he says if Car­ni­val con­tin­ues to slip in­to this type of “he­do­nism,” the Gov­ern­ment should step in and reg­u­late, par­tic­u­lar­ly Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, if mas bands fail to do so.

Arch­bish­op Gor­don made the com­ment dur­ing his homi­ly on Sun­day, say­ing while he loves Car­ni­val and many as­pects of it, is­su­ing sex toys was go­ing too far.

“We have to stop. We have to di­al it back, and we have to bring Car­ni­val back to what it has al­ways been, a cel­e­bra­tion of the life, vi­tal­i­ty, and cre­ativ­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. What­ev­er hap­pens in Trinidad Car­ni­val goes to Bar­ba­dos, it goes to Grena­da, it goes to St Vin­cent, it goes all up the is­lands. We can­not be the peo­ple ex­port­ing this lev­el. What we now reach there is he­do­nism. That’s where we are. We have to di­al this back.”

He was re­spond­ing to re­ports on the week­end that Tribe has be­gun putting the sex toys in good­ie bags dur­ing the cos­tume dis­tri­b­u­tion phase of its op­er­a­tions.

Gor­don said if the Tribe Group does not “di­al it back,” then the pub­lic should push back against the move.

“If the com­pa­ny is un­will­ing to di­al it back, then the cit­i­zens have to ask the Gov­ern­ment to put reg­u­la­tions. One way or the oth­er, we have to do some­thing dif­fer­ent,” he said.

“We’ve been head­ing down the wrong road here. Now, let’s pull back. Let’s get back to safe­ty for our young peo­ple who want to play Car­ni­val. Safe­ty for our young peo­ple who want to en­joy this great fes­tiv­i­ty that we have.”

He added that just as he called for reg­u­la­tions for the use of so­cial me­dia, pri­mar­i­ly for chil­dren, he be­lieves he may have to call on Gov­ern­ment again to ad­dress this is­sue.

“If Tribe can­not pull back on its own, I think the Gov­ern­ment will have to reg­u­late it. Hash­tag ‘Tribe Gone Too Far.’ If you think Tribe has gone too far, you know where their Face­book is, and you know where their web­site is. Please, hand­ing an adult sex toy to every fe­male buy­ing a cos­tume!”

While Gor­don was crit­i­cal of some as­pects of Car­ni­val, he main­tained his love for cul­ture.

“I love Car­ni­val. Last week I was in Rene­gades. I love Car­ni­val! I go to all the pan sides. There’s so much beau­ty about this Car­ni­val that has come from the bow­els and bel­ly of our na­tion,” he said.

“But what we’re see­ing here is big busi­ness, like what hap­pened in the news­pa­pers, where you have to sen­sa­tion­alise to get peo­ple to come back again and again, and you have to take that sen­sa­tion up and up and up. Hash­tag Tribe gone too far. We have to stop. We have to stop this. We have to di­al it back.”

Gor­don al­so re­ceived sup­port from fel­low priest Fa­ther David Khan, who, in a state­ment, said the adult toys re­flect a trou­bling shift in how pub­lic cel­e­bra­tion is be­ing de­fined and mar­ket­ed.

“Car­ni­val has al­ways car­ried el­e­ments of free­dom and ex­pres­sion, how­ev­er, it was al­so root­ed in shared cul­tur­al joy that al­lowed fam­i­lies, el­ders, and young peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate with­out cross­ing in­to ex­plic­it sex­u­al­i­sa­tion. In­clud­ing an adult sex toy in a mass-mar­ket­ed Car­ni­val prod­uct nor­malis­es pri­vate sex­u­al be­hav­iour in a pub­lic, na­tion­al space. That blurs im­por­tant bound­aries and cheap­ens a fes­ti­val that once bal­anced rev­el­ry with cre­ativ­i­ty, mu­sic, cos­tume, and wit. It sig­nals that shock val­ue now out­weighs cul­tur­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

He added that the de­ci­sion does not ex­pand free­dom but nar­rows it by re­defin­ing fun in in­creas­ing­ly crude terms and mar­gin­alis­es those who val­ue de­cen­cy, tra­di­tion, and in­clu­siv­i­ty.

“When cul­tur­al lead­ers and ma­jor bands aban­don re­straint, the wider so­ci­ety ab­sorbs the mes­sage that noth­ing is sa­cred, noth­ing re­quires dis­cre­tion, and ex­cess is the high­est virtue. Car­ni­val should chal­lenge pow­er, cel­e­brate iden­ti­ty, and re­lease joy. When it in­stead mar­kets ex­plic­it sex­u­al ob­jects as en­ter­tain­ment, it risks erod­ing the very com­mu­nal spir­it that made it worth pro­tect­ing in the first place.”