Quick Hit: PETA Strikes Again

On Sunday, The Telegraph confirmed that PETA—the animal rights campaign infamous for the exploitation of women in its advertising—is gearing up to launch a pornography site. Yep, that’s right, that’s no typo—PORN.

It appears that PETA’s newest strategy to attract a fresh crowd of supporters is enticing browsers of the triple-X domain in order to promote veganism and animal rights. The Telegraph reports that, “The non-profit organisation, whose controversial campaigns draw criticism from women’s rights groups, said it hopes to raise awareness of veganism through a mix of pornography and graphic footage of animal suffering.” Because that’s not a bizarre, disturbing combination of images…

As blogger BlondeRedhead emphasized in her February post, “PETA: Respect Animals, Not Women,” PETA’s use of exploitation has grown increasingly degrading and increasingly bold in recent years. But, somehow, it seems that PETA fails to recognize this exploitation at all. As the Telegraph article reports, Lindsay Rajt, associate director of PETA campaigns, says, “Our demonstrators, the models, all chose to participate in our campaigns … It’s not a very feminist thing to do to turn to women and tell them whether or not they can use their voices, their bodies to express their voice.” FACEPALM. I think we can all agree that it is not a very “feminist thing” to tell women whether or not they can use their voices, but, I have yet to hear a woman actually use her voice in a PETA ad. In fact, the only thing I can see being “expressed” by the women in PETA’s ads is that they clearly lack awareness about how their bodies are being taken advantage of.

Opposition to PETA’s advertising has begun cropping up all over the Internet. Facebook groups such as “Real Women Against PETA” and “Vegans and Vegetarians Against PETA” have both established a united front against PETA’s methods of advertising. According to The Telegraph, even the director of the program in gender and sexuality studies at Princeton University, Jill Dolan, says in response to PETA’s recent promotion decisions, “Come on, PETA. Don’t be Neanderthals.”

As an animal lover and a newly vegetarian-curious woman, I am ashamed of PETA on many levels. Their method of publicizing their message is sensationalism at its most debasing—and is absolutely foul. I certainly hope that their supporters begin to catch on.

-Lauranium