Exploitation All Around
Misogynistic advertising is misogynistic advertising—whether an animal rights organization, a beer company, a retail store or anybody else does it.
This is something that the article “Porn with a Purpose,” published in Vol. 32, Issue 5 of The Link did not seem to understand. Erika Heales writes, “If using sex to sell products like make-up and booze is socially acceptable, it seems ludicrous to me that using the same tactic to promote animal rights is not.”
Well that’s just it. Using not just “sex” but more specifically “female sexuality” to sell products IS socially acceptable, but when critically examining the issue, does it not occur to us that maybe it SHOULDN’T be socially acceptable?
Treating women’s bodies as a commodity and as literal billboards on which to display your message is wrong. Period. It is dehumanizing, blatant, objectification.
It’s unfortunate that PETA has become the face of vegetarianism because they really do not reflect the opinions of the majority of vegetarians—at least when it comes to their choices in advertising.
The hypocrisy of substituting one kind of exploitation (animal) for another (women) is something PETA does not seem to understand.
Furthermore, the whole idea of “porn with a purpose” is ridiculous. Life-altering decisions, like choosing to adopt a vegetarian diet, are not made while viewing pornography.
Does PETA know what they’re competing against? There are MILLIONS of places on the Internet to find pornography, so why on earth would the discerning porn-viewer log on to peta.xxx for a few clips of pornography when they know they will soon after be lectured on the horrors of factory farms?
Speaking of discerning porn-viewing, if the porn site is anything like the many other PETA campaigns featuring naked women, the content will no doubt be of the white, thin, able-bodied, cisgendered, air-brushed, made-for-the-male-gaze and uniformly unexciting kind. What’s the point?Is PETA so unconfident in the intellectual capabilities of its audience that it does not think it can hold its attention without the promise of nudity? Is it trying to make veganism more appealing to men by objectifying women? Do they truly think that conflating images of violence towards animals and sexual images of women is an acceptable thing to do?
I’m not sure. But in any case, they need to stop.
