PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the animal rights campaign group are reportedly planning to launch a porn site when they acquire their .xxx domain name. The first indications came earlier this week when, buried in a Reuters article about the new .xxx top-level domain, PETA spokesperson Lindsay Rajt reportedly said that instead of blocking its .xxx name, PETA plans to launch a pornography site that draws attention to the plight of animals.
PETA has become well known for its long-running “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign featuring celebrities like Eva Mendes who have stripped off for photos for campaign ads. However more recently, with the public becoming relatively desensitised to pictures naked women, PETA has got more hard-core. In 2010 they produced a TV ad intended for ad space during the American superbowl which was banned by the TV networks. The advert showed semi-naked women in sexually suggestive situations and poses while the message “studies show vegetarians have better sex” appears on the screen.
However, it should be made clear that PETA’s publicity tactics are not about simple nudity or even mild sexual suggestion, they have increasingly employed the use of hard-core pornographic imagery with no regard for the negative effects of such tactics for women.
This year PETA went a step further by producing an advert, again for the superbowl, out of what they claim are out-takes from the casting sessions for the 2010 advert. This new advert is in fact highly pornographic in its framing, imagery and tone. Women in high-heels and bikinis are shown to walk in and gives their names and pose as if in a well-known ‘Casting Couch’ style porn scenario. Women are then shown fellating carrots and cucumbers and doing various other poses and actions with other vegetables. This may sound stupid but some of the scenes are highly pornographic and the whole set-up is an obvious allusion to hard-core porn.
In recent advertising they have used Sasha Grey – a well-known porn actor whose rise to fame is partly due to how hard-core and violent the porn is that she has appeared in. Brooke Hogan (daughter of Hulk), has also recently posed naked and caged for an exhibition to benefit PETA, a tactic the campaign group have actually used themselves in their own direct action. In Sydney in 2008 they had three young women wearing nothing but lacy knickers and nipple tape in a cage with the sign “Chicks Agree: Boycott KFC“.
I wonder how many people miss the irony of PETA’s plans to launch a pornography site that draws attention to the plight of animals, when while watching porn it is often not difficult to feel for the plight of the women involved. There is nothing remotely ethical about the manner in which women are routinely debased in porn. PETA constantly endorse the pornographic ideals of women as objects, as sums of body-parts that are there to be used for another’s ends. 
In fact, PETA have been quite obvious about displaying such attitudes. In Vancouver last year they had two young women wearing almost nothing except paint depicting butchers’ cuts of meat. Women portrayed as meat is a huge issue in the media’s cultural contribution to attitudes that are conducive to violence and discrimination against women. Treating women like sexual objects and/or lumps of meat dehumanises women and this is a massive part of sexism. The more it becomes acceptable to dehumanise women and view them as a sum of body parts, the easier it becomes to disrespect, to mistreat and to act out violence towards women as a group.
PETA’s statement about their plans is almost certainly just a publicity stunt despite their claims that “there will be a lot of girl and boy next door content, but we haven’t ruled out celebrities on the site as well… people who are extraordinarily dedicated to helping animals and who are willing to do whatever it takes to draw attention to the suffering they endure.” This just looks like an attempt to keep the media interest alive for as long as possible and in this respect it has worked, but to what end exactly? “We live in a 24 hour news cycle world, and we learn the racy things we do are sometimes the most effective way that we can reach particular individuals” says the group’s spokesperson, but who are these individuals? and do such stunts make anyone more interested in animal rights?
The tactics are quite clearly “Hey look at us! Boobs! And by the way, battery farming is bad!” but does the last part of that message actually get through? My guess would be no. Do protests with nearly naked young women make people more likely to stop eating meat? A poll here says no, but i’m not sure we need a poll to tell us this – common sense says that when the protest is too far removed from the issue people remember the protest but seem to forget the issue. These stunts don’t do a blind bit of good for animal rights, vegetarianism or whatever else PETA are campaigning for at that moment. If anything, it serves to legitimise the use of women as sexual objects for one’s cause, tells women that they’re greatest campaigning tool is their body rather than intelligent discussion about the issues – or indeed wittier publicity stunts – and as Ann Friedman insightfully says, it tells men: “it’s OK to buck the stereotype of ‘real men eat red meat’, because here are some naked ladies to reassure you that you’re still a superhetero manly man!”
No related posts.
The world is insane . . . Great article though
Total truth in it.
I am a Vegan Feminist and I happy that you have chosen to address this issue. How can we fight the exploitation of one animal by exploiting another? Just as animals are commodified and exploited for gratification, the same thing is being done to women, men and children everyday. You can not fight EVIL with EVIL.
here you can see some reactions to PETAs plan http://www.torontosun.com/2011/08/23/peta-porn-plan-sparks-furor
There are a few good comments . . . alot of foolish ones too
Some people are never going to take serious issues “seriously” . . . Thanks for the link though 
While not 100% on topic, there’s an FB group called ‘Real Women Against PETA’ that was set-up in response to an ad campaign by PETA that included a billboard showing a cartoon overweight woman that read, “Save the Whales, Lose the Blubber, Go Vegetarian.”
Take a look here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Real-Women-Against-PETA/126680116695?sk=info
While not 100% on topic, there’s an FB group called ‘Real Women Against PETA’ that was set-up in response to an ad campaign by PETA that included a billboard showing a cartoon overweight woman that read, “Save the Whales, Lose the Blubber, Go Vegetarian.”
Take a look here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Real-Women-Against-PETA/126680116695?sk=info
Thank you again kind sir . . I have “liked” that page as well – it’s great to see others who object to this type of advertising meant to control our thoughts and behaviors
There is an AWESOME post the iblamethepatriarchy blog, where Twisty suggests that people who are into porn are not the kind of people who will care for animal rights, because porn is abusive in nature & appeals to unethical people. Check it out here:
http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2011/08/24/ditwuss-award-de-la-semaine-peta/
There’s a lot of people out there using porn who wish they could stop. Are they unethical or just trapped? I don’t think black-and-white generalisations of this nature are particularly helpful.
Well since humans are animals and PETA is for animal rights, PETA obviously doesn’t consider women human.
Hmm, interesting.
I had a quick look at the PETA website and they are clearly an ‘edgy’ organisation; like anyone who works the boundaries their activities are much more likely to backfire than those of mainstream organisations. I haven’t seen the Superbowl ads mentioned in the article but the concept certainly seems ill-advised.
But I see where PETA are going with the near-nudity, the cages, the shrink-wrapping and the women depicted as cuts of meat — which brings me to the image above. Personally, I don’t consider it to be denigrating to women.
Why?
Because when I look at this image, at these two specific women, I find myself asking a question: do they have such low self-esteem that they allowed themselves to be bullied or duped into parading near-naked in public, marked out as cuts of meat — or do they have enough self-esteem that they are comfortable with their bodies and have chosen to take part in this campaign because it’s a cause they believe in? Looking at the picture, particularly the woman on the left with her casual confidence and unforced smile, I’m picking the latter. This makes a crucial difference: these women aren’t lowering themselves to the level of animals; they’re raising animals to their own level. I’m not saying I endorse PETA but I don’t see this as a porn image; it’s in a wholly different emotional register.
It will be interesting to see whether PETA keeps its celebs on board when it has a .xxx site…
i’m vegan, and i don’t like that nude people
I emailed PETA to give my views on their plans to launch a porn website and thought the reply from Allan Hulse might be of interest:-
Dear Rosemary,
Thank you for your email to PETA.
We understand your concerns about a new website PETA US are planning to launch – PETA.xxx – this has been a hot topic for many of our supporters and we hope it will be a topic for discussion for people who may have never heard of PETA before or indeed ever thought about animal rights. We appreciate the chance to respond and do like to hear what people think even when they disagree with us.
PETA US hopes to launch PETA.xxx this fall because they never want to miss out on connecting with such a huge market, and obviously whether they like sex, are total prudes, or are somewhere in between, everyone can be asked to be kind to animals. The PETA.xxx content will be graphic because, while we have nothing against nudity, there are more ways than one to lay bare what animals endure in far less savoury trades, such as the meat, fur, and circus industries. The “Not Safe for Work” site will feature video too explicit to show on TV—stuff that opens people’s eyes wide to the dirty treatment that animals get in human pursuits. We hope that the PETA.xxx domain will be three times as effective in bringing important animal protection issues to a large audience and showing how easy it is to love your body with a vegan diet. PETA US have already worked with many compassionate adult-film industry greats, including Sasha Grey (http://www.PETA.org/features/Sasha-Grey-Animal-Birth-Control.aspx), Ron Jeremy (http://www.PETA.org/features/Ron-Jeremy-too-much-sex-is-a-bad-thing.aspx), and Jenna Jameson (http://www.peta.org/features/jenna-jameson-pleather-yourself.aspx, https://secure.PETA.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2011 and https://secure.PETA.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2631).
Different approaches reach different people, and we try to use every available outlet to speak up for animals whose voices go unheard. For them, it can be the difference between life and death. Our demonstrators and models choose to participate in our campaigns because they, too, want to do whatever it takes to make people stop and pay attention to animal suffering. We believe that everyone should be free to use their own words, talents, actions, and bodies to make social statements and that doing so helps animals.
All the activists who will be featured on PETA.xxx are adults dedicated to helping animals by drawing attention to how foxes are electrocuted and skinned by the millions for the fur industry; calves are torn away from their distraught mothers and slaughtered for the meat industry; elephants are beaten bloody and forced to live in chains year after year in circuses; rats, mice, rabbits, cats, dogs, primates, and other animals are confined to cages and mutilated in laboratories; and billions of animals suffer torture, maddening isolation, starvation, terror, and a violent death for various human amusements and industries. They are also volunteers and will not be paid for their appearances.
In this 24-hour news-cycle world, we have found that our racier actions are sometimes the best way to get people to pay attention to what we are saying about the plight of animals. PETA US anticipated that the availability of .xxx domain names would be a hot topic, and are taking advantage of this to help animals. With tactics like this, PETA is able to initiate discussion, questioning of the status quo, and action. We must make our message impossible to forget, and launching a website with a .xxx domain name helps achieve that goal.
We understand that you find this site objectionable, and we are very sorry to have offended you. Although we disagree on this issue, we hope that you will support our many other more conservative campaigns and projects, such as our free vegetarian/vegan starter kit giveaways.
Kind regards and thank you for everything you do for animals,
Allan Hulse
PETA UK
Thanks a lot for this Rosemary.
They clearly find it impossible to recognise any objection that isn’t due to ‘prudish’ or ‘conservative’ sensibilities.
It also seems they are happy to admit this is just a publicity stunt. But like I said above, I don’t think this works to help the situation of animals, and can only have negative consequences for humans which PETA are forced to ignore for the sake of being talked about.
Article about PETA’s porn plans and veganism: http://lezgetreal.com/2011/09/peta-plans-porn-site-exploit-women-not-animals-is-new-message/
I read about this. Its really kinda pointless. Then again most of their Shock Campaigns have been since the attempted chicken ad.
It’s more than a little pointless. It’s aggravating *sighs*
It’s their plan to make everyone vegetarian and non porn pursuing in one fell swoop. OH MAN SASHA GREY LOOKING GOOD, OH MY GOD WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT TO AN ANIMAL WHY ARE THEY BUTCHERING IT LIKE THAT. Bam, can’t separate the images any more.
Sick