When
celebrating the spirit of the Valentine’s Day season, many people like to
indulge in the chalky little conversation hearts everyone loves to hate. But what
if those sugary confections that children come to know and love in grade school
suddenly weren’t so innocent?
That’s
what little 12-year-old Ciara Bush of North Highlands, California discovered
when she discovered a candy in her bag that declared the recipient had “Nice
Tits”. The racy candy was pulled from a bag of hearts bought by her mother at a
local discount store. However, Bush was hardly flattered by the heart’s
sentiment, and showed it to her parents, who were understandably shocked that
something so mature had been packaged in a Valentine’s Day treat made for kids.
Derrick
Deanda, Bush’s father, was so concerned by the heart’s message that he
contacted the distributor of the candy, Sweethearts. Because of the racy nature
of Deanda’s allegation, that Sweethearts answered his email quickly and requested
that he mail the entire bag back to them so they could trace the source of the
naughty heart.
Luckily
for Sweethearts, Deanda does not plan to sue; he simply wanted to make sure
parents were watching what their children were getting: “I wanted to bring it
to everybody’s attention,” said Deanda. Sweethearts believes this was an
isolated incident, since no other similar cases have been reported in the area.
So
the question remains: how did a single racy conversation heart find its way
into the waves of kid-friendly hearts that Sweethearts churns out every
Valentine’s Day? The cause of the scandal may have been a simple mistake, as
Sweethearts also manufactures a line of candy hearts aimed towards adult
customers. It’s likely that the offending heart simply got mixed in with the
candy hearts made for all audiences instead of just the adult ones by accident.
Despite
the company acknowledging the mix-up as a mistake, Sweethearts stands by the
claim that they are a company that provides a seasonal favourite for
celebrators of all ages. Starting in late February through mid-January of the
next year, about 100,000 pounds of conversation hearts are made a day, which
then sell out in a little over six weeks.
Candy
hearts have been around for quite some time, as is the case with the
distributor of the offending heart. Sweethearts has been providing customers
with cheekily printed hearts since 1847, but a simple “Be Mine” doesn’t go as far
as it used to. During the 1990s, technology inspired new messages for hearts,
such as “Fax Me” and “Email Me”. In recent years, Sweethearts has updated their
hearts, with messages like “Text Me” and “Tweet Me”.
Although
the Sweethearts candy heart debacle was on a relatively small scale, over the
years, many other scandals have come to the public’s attention involving
products marketed to children that were seen to be inappropriate.
In
2009, a “toy” called the Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit was discovered in a Tesco
store, one of Britain’s biggest department stores. It included a collapsible
metal pole, play money for “tips”, and “sexy dance garter”. The toy was listed
under the Toys & Games section of Tesco’s website, but was moved to the
Fitness section of the website after complaints from customers.
La
Senza, a company best known for lingerie and intimate apparel, has also come
under criticism for a line of underwear aimed at girls younger than ten. The
line includes lacy crop tops and underwear made to resemble their adult lines. At
the time, David Davies, a Conservative MP, claimed La Senza was "willing
to make profits at the expense of public morality.” He explained, “[England]
currently [has] the highest level of teenage pregnancy in the whole of Europe
and the last thing we need is to encourage further sexual experimentation in
young children."
//Victoria Fawkes, staff writer
//Graphics by Rachel Gamboa
//Victoria Fawkes, staff writer
//Graphics by Rachel Gamboa
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