Sex on the streets

Jerome Teelucksingh

ON THE night of March 2 there was the Dimanche Gras in Port-of-Spain and in the US there was the Academy Awards. Which one captured the global audience? Is our Carnival still "the greatest show on earth?" What makes it great? Maybe it’s the exciting fetes, melodious music, costumes and wonderful steelbands.

Carnival has its fair share of bacchanal. The public’s image of Carnival is often a sensual one in which the female and male revellers are adept at dancing and wining/gyrating. In 2000, Jay-Z, a rap star from the US, taped segments of TT’s Carnival for his video Big Pimpin’. The scenes from the video focused on women’s posteriors and this created a furore among certain sections of the TT public.

Two questions arise: should bandleaders be blamed for creating costume designs which are skimpy, tight-fitting and revealing? Seems as if masqueraders are conned into parading almost nude in the belief that less is better and the costumes are beautiful and exquisite. This reminds me of the story, The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Are bandleaders and the media partly responsible for propagating Carnival stereotypes? The design of costumes is not a cause for concern among some bands. In January 1999, Michael Headley, chairman of the Poison Committee, defended his band’s costumes: “We cater to the demand of those people who spend the time before Carnival in the gyms.”

The skimpiness of costumes in Caribana (in Toronto, Canada) was also highlighted by columnist Raynier Maharaj. Russel Foote, an academic and researcher, examined the public’s perceptions of morality and freedom among female revellers who are considered indecent. He felt such revellers possess a relatively strong value system: “Given the amount of people thus exposed, levels of tolerance increase. The likelihood of restoring previous standards of civility is reduced and we begin to expose ourselves openly in thoughts, words and deeds.”

Undoubtedly, the issue of anonymity in a crowd allows for a certain degree of liberation.

In 2000, in two interviews with the Express, legendary masman Peter Minshall harshly condemned the country’s mas as “making our Caribbean girls look like blonde bimbos…the dregs of Western culture….” Minshall also claimed that the country’s Carnival had descended into “trashy Las Vegas.”

A few years earlier, in 1997, Conrad O’Brien, a Trinidadian and former business executive residing in the US, felt Carnival had regressed, “…except for a few exceptions it seems to have degenerated into an orgy of gay abandonment and sexuality.”

What is the religious stance of some citizens? Twenty-five years ago, in 2000, Fr Clive Griffith of the Anglican Church in TT expressed concern over the nakedness of the revellers. In 2019, Apostle Terrence Honore, a respected Christian, penned an article in the Newsday, entitled “Christians and Carnival,” which mentioned Ash Wednesday, “People pious with ashen faces, all creeds and races, trying to wash away the sin that stained their skin.”

In February 2023, The Catholic News published an article by Fr Clement Paul, vicar-general, Diocese of Bridgetown (in Barbados), who praised our annual festival. Fr Paul believed, “and thank God, many, if not most, Christians do get involved in Carnival.” In 2003, Mushtaq Sulaimani, an imam of the ASJA mosque in San Fernando, publicly stated that Carnival was the “work of the Devil.”

Others had differing views. LeRoy Clarke, in a Sunday Guardian interview in 1997, referred to our beloved Carnival as “public sex on the streets.” A few months later, in September, Clarke, in a panel discussion, also made the claim that “many women’s sexual urges increase tremendously and they become more fertile.” Indeed, Carnival is sometimes associated with liberation of actions, inhibitions and forbidden desires.

There have been enlightening views such as Minshall in “To Play Mas,” in the Caribbean Quarterly journal, in 1999. He described Carnival as a “cathartic ritual.” Earlier in 1997 he claimed, “Mas is not about escapism. Mas is really about attaining the highest self.” Probably Minshall made the assumptions that everyone would experience this feeling.

It is difficult to criticise or condemn the many carnivals that are celebrated by millions of people in different countries and at different times. Some of us do not publicly express any views that seems anti-Carnival for fear of being mocked as branded prudish, conservative or "old school."

Then there are those who regularly complain of the noise pollution, are victims of crime or are injured during Carnival and patiently wait for our greatest show on earth to end.