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.”