Parents are threatening to sue the town of Vilasar de Mar, a municipality in the Barcelona region governed by the leftist-independentist party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, over an activity organized by the town hall that turned out to be full of explicit sexual content.
When parents picked their children up on July 22nd, they were shocked to hear from their pre-teens that they had spent the event putting condoms on bananas with their mouths, moulding penises and vulvas out of play-doh, and imitating sexual positions from the Kama-sutra with kids of the opposite sex.
“I almost crashed the car,” one mother told the Spanish media outlet that broke the story about her reaction when daughter explained the details of the event.
The city’s youth department had organised the “gincana,” a typical Spanish game involving completing a series of challenges, for 12 to 30 years old and promoted it as “for all audiences.” In all, 52 people participated.
The same mother described her daughter’s confusion and embarrassment.
“There was no fun, just nerves, because she didn’t know what to do, and fear,” the same mother said. “They thought they were going to play and they found this. I don’t want to imagine the adult (participants) seeing the children doing those things. I would not have allowed it.”
Parents were also horrified that pictures of youth holding up cards with images of positions from the Kama-sutra were uploaded to Instagram, according to one parent a picture of her 11-year-old posted without permission.
With the cards, participants as young as 12 had to assume the position with a partner—at least in one case, with the opposite sex—and use pressure from their bodies to pop a balloon placed between them.
In addition to the sexually explicit activities at an event for both minors and adults, participants were quizzed on drug use, such as whether certain drugs were inhaled or injected. If they answered wrong, they got doused with water and flour.
Response from the City
The City Council of Vilasar de Mar issued a statement arguing that the local Adolescent Council had expressed their interest in sexuality issues and stated that they “have detected” that “adolescents of 11, 12, 13 years old watch pornographic content.” It argued that the youth department designed the activity to “prevent the construction of a sexual imagination with macho, violent and unhealthy attitudes.”
At a press conference on Friday, August 8th, Montse Gual, the council person who leads the youth department, called the uproar an “error in communication.” She apologised for not advising parents of the content of the event but defended it as sexual education and said that the participants had been divided into homogenous age groups. She also said that two participants had declined to do some of the activities. She added that the pictures had been taken down from social media.
It’s doubtful her explanation has calmed parent’s outrage.
“What they have done is, in an environment of trust, sneak in something that didn’t belong there,” another mother said.
She added that it leaves citizens feeling unprotected, since “these people have done what they wanted, crossing the line.”
