(LifeSiteNews) — The sexualized edition of a candy brand designed for adults is sparking controversy in the United Kingdom as concerned citizens warn that children could easily be exposed to the product’s inappropriate marketing.
Candy Kittens, a brand of vegan candies based in the U.K., recently unveiled a line of candies to promote the fourth and final season of a Netflix show titled “Sex Education,” which normalizes sexual perversion among teenagers.
In a video circulating on social media, a woman walks viewers through a Tesco store – the largest grocery retailer in the U.K. – and shows the edition of the Candy Kittens product, the packaging of which includes images of condoms and messages about casual sexual relations.
While the brand says on its website that its target audience is adults, the woman in the video and those she asks about it note the reality that “sweets are where children go,” pointing out that minors have access to the “sex education” candies.
“Sweets and sex. They go hand in hand, obviously,” the woman says, reading the product description printed on the back of each bag of “sex education” Candy Kittens. “After all, they both aim to make you feel good, right?”
“So, we’ve teamed up with the hit Netflix show Sex Education to celebrate sex—the fun times, the awkward times, and the downright dirty times. No judgement here, just a whole lot of love.”
The description adds a note encouraging consumers to “unleash your wild side” and promotes the “condom shaped sweets in each pack to spice things up.”
The woman filming the video stated that the product and its promotion of perversion is “the beginning of sexualizing your children” and wondered, “why would a child need to see that?” After sharing the appalling description with viewers, the woman asked other Tesco shoppers about their thoughts on the product.
One 77-year-old woman said it was “not at all” permissible that minors are exposed to the sexualized message bluntly posted on the packaging. Another woman said it’s “disgraceful” and the candies “shouldn’t be in the sweet section” but rather “in an adult section [so] children can’t even see it.”
Her companion added that the highly sexualized message “shouldn’t be on the package.” Both women, who verified that they are both mothers and whose faces are not shown in the video, can be heard further describing it as “disgusting” and “inappropriate.”
At the end of the video, the woman filming asks a manager if she is “aware” of the “sex education” candies, to which the manager replies that she is and explains that the candies are “not necessarily” for children.
In a September 23 Instagram post, Candy Kittens founder Jamie Laing announced the “sex education” edition of the candies in collaboration with Netflix, emphasizing “some sweet surprises inside the packs” and telling his follower not to “forget the essentials.” The post includes a video advertisement for the product, in which Laing and his wife are seen in a bed.
According to the Candy Kittens website, the brand intentionally “create[d] a sweet especially for adults” when it launched in 2012. Their products are “stocked in Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Tesco, ASDA, Boots, Morrisons, Selfridges, Harrods, Superdrug and WHSmiths.”