PETA's Nudity

PETA receives a lot of criticism for their nude or nearly nude campaigns. They explain that they do nude campaigns because they are effective. Here's their rationale:

Our mission is to get the animal rights message to as many people as possible. Unfortunately, this is not always an easy task. Unlike our opposition, which is mostly composed of wealthy industries and corporations, PETA must rely on getting free "advertising" through media coverage. This can be especially difficult with our fur campaign, since newspapers are often reluctant to cover our activities for fear of losing furriers' advertising dollars. But, not surprisingly, colorful and "controversial" demonstrations and campaigns like activists stripping to "go naked instead of wearing fur" consistently grab headlines.

The "Naked" Campaign began several years ago when demonstrators - both male and female - marched behind a huge banner proclaiming that they would "rather go naked than wear fur." More "naked" demonstrations were held all over the world, the idea caught on, and we started receiving offers from celebrities, including Christy Turlington, Marcus Schenkenberg, Kim Basinger, Cindy Crawford, designer Todd Oldham, and Pamela Anderson to participate. Interestingly, we began receiving complaints about this campaign only after professional models and actors joined it, which we conclude to mean, among other things, that celebrity participation helps us reach more people.

The campaign has been hugely successful. It has been featured in nearly every major newspaper, including The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post. And major magazines and television shows such as Us, People, and Entertainment Tonight have been inspired by the campaign to do stories about the anti-fur movement.

History does not look back unkindly on Lady Godiva. It is our hope that people will come to see that our modern-day "Godivas" have motives that are just as honorable.

I've created a website that takes a closer look at these nude campaigns: http://nakedpeta.blogspot.com/

Case Study: Feministe Blog & Crush Video Discussion

My mother-in-law sent me a link about crush videos, small animal snuff films fetishized for sexual pleasure. I forwarded the link to Jill at Feministe, hoping the legal issues and pornography aspect would pique her interests (she's a feminist lawyer, after all). Sure enough, she posted about it.

I refrained from commenting much, given that my reputation (amongst meat-eaters) is in the toilet and people (who like to eat dead animals) tend to disregard what I have to say. So I left only one comment. Luckily, others picked up the slack and made the connections. For example:

preying mantis wrote: "On top of that, the few cases where the producers have been found, investigated, and reported on involved the women in the videos having been coerced into it, so you have that on top of the animal cruelty."

Alderson Warm-Fork says, " if your issue is the slow crushing of small animals - when egg-laying hens reproduce, half their young are male. these males are ‘useless’ for profit. thus, less than a day old, they are disposed of, often by ‘crushing’. "

Jessica says, "Where consent cannot be obtained, a fetish should not be indulged. Simple as that. An animal cannot consent to this and to do it anyway is a kind of rape/murder. These are snuff films, no doubt about it."

puerdixit hit the nail on the head with THE BEST (in my opinion) analysis of all:

"I’m certainly against humans harming other beings for pleasure–sexual, gustatory, aesthetic or other. However, as a queer person, I’m unnerved by sex panics. I personally don’t see crush porn as ethically far from leather fetish (as much as I appreciate leatherqueers as part of my culture) or, heck, even the whole 'fuck-me boots' thing when those boots are made of dead animals. So I’m intrigued by how people think and talk about crush fetish, and what these responses say about larger attitudes towards non-humans, sexuality, and gender."

My conclusions:

• People are often shocked and angered by cruel uses of animals that do not result in their own personal pleasure. The more someone can 'other' the animal abuser, the easier it is for them to condemn the cruelty. But unfortunately, the more 'different' the cruelty, the easier it is for them to overlook their own complicity in similar forms of animal cruelty.
  
• Opening up a discussion of animal cruelty, in circles of people concerned about justice, will often result in at least some discussion about the cruelty inherent in factory farming. For that reason alone, it's worthwhile to attempt to ignite these kinds of discussions in these kinds of groups.
• In discussions of pornography, the notion of consent is virtually always present. It's crucial in feminist theory and also crucial in animal rights theory. Animals can not and do not consent to much of what humans do to them. Thus, when the door is opened to discussions of animals, consent becomes a topic. Animal righters ought to learn how to talk about consent to people who don't want to consider animal's interests.
• Animal cruelty associated with sex (crushing) or violence (dog-fighting, bull-fighting) seems to be more interesting to media producers (of all kinds, bloggers included) than the more routine forms of animal cruelty, like factory farming. Because of this, these kinds of animal cruelty discussions can be gateways to discussions of other forms of animal cruelty. But those discussions must be shaped carefully by animal advocates, otherwise, they will devolve into hatred of the 'othered'.

(crossposted at ElaineVigneault.com)