Children News & Commentary

Sesame Street, It’s Not OK To Sexualize Children

"Let’s not forget that Big Bird is six years old and Elmo is only three... but whatever, OK Groomer!"
Mark Powell
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Just because it’s Gay Pride Month—yep, there are so many varieties on the LGBTIQ+ spectrum they couldn’t just have one day—in the United States doesn’t mean that it’s OK to sexualise children. That’s a big call to make I know, but it’s precisely what Sesame Street has done with their latest Twitter post.

Seeing that the characters on Sesame Street are not only male and female but also come from every sphere of the animal kingdom, this certainly expands the boundaries as to what #LoveIsLove now means. Let’s not forget that Big Bird is six years old and Elmo is only three… but whatever, OK Groomer!

It wasn’t long before someone on Twitter took the next logical step of tweaking the image to explicitly link Bert and Ernie. Because a relationship between two men can never be platonic, right?

Remember when they said before the meaning of marriage was redefined that nothing would change? Well, they lied.  As the lesbian political activist, Marsha Gessen, said back in 2012 at the Sydney Writer’s Festival:

“Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there. Because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change. And that is a lie.”