Archbishop condemns Tribe over sex toy giveaway

Jensen La Vende

With Valen­tine’s Day ap­proach­ing, Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don be­lieves the on­ly ros­es women should be re­ceiv­ing should be plant-based.

The Arch­bish­op is con­demn­ing the de­ci­sion by mas band Tribe to is­sue women sex toys to its fe­male pa­trons.

Dur­ing his homi­ly on Sun­day, Gor­don said the idea leads to he­do­nism.

“We have to stop. We have to stop this. 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.”

Gor­don says if the com­pa­ny 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. 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 adds that just as he called for reg­u­la­tions for the use of so­cial me­dia, pri­mar­i­ly for chil­dren, he be­lieves he may have to call on the gov­ern­ment again to ad­dress this is­sue.

“Just as I’ve asked the gov­ern­ment to reg­u­late so­cial me­dia for the sake of our chil­dren, 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!”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to CEO of Tribe Group, Dean Ackin, and is await­ing his re­sponse.