This seems to be the prevalent message behind PETA’s latest ad campaign. Whether the ad is for not wearing fur, not eating meat or animal abuse, the message coming across is sex. We all know the saying “Sex Sells.” In this case what is it selling? Is the message being lost within the tactic?

 

This ad campaign has gotten a lot of attention. Whether it is the teenage boy who is “reading” the ads instead of Playboy or the feminist vegetarian who supports the message but not at the exploitation of women. Generally, highly discussed, provocative, thought provoking advertising is what a company wants. What is a better way to generate business than to create a frenzy of media attention through public and private channels. This ad campaign proves that even bad press is good press. Though the campaign itself might not be successful in promoting anti-fur or a vegetarian lifestyle, it is getting a lot of people talking about PETA.A lot of people have a problem with pornography. Generally, I don’t. I appreciate good sexual photography and I appreciate the formative role pornography has had in our society both in how we interpret our own sexuality as well as being formative, informational and inspirational. Where pornography has an upside, it is mirrored with a large down side. Despite being relatively pro-porn, I will be the first to admit that more often than not pornography has more of a detrimental affect than beneficial. I recently read an article about a newly successful starlet who is being applauded for her sexy body and beautiful face ran out and got breast implants to “show” the guys in high school who made fun of her for not being well endowed. I would have thought that being highly successful and being praised for your beauty and physique would have accomplished that inherently…but apparently she still felt they would make fun of her until she got the silicon pillows implanted. She commented directly as to wanting to look like the women in Playboy.Where pornography had once been a outlet for sexual fantasy, it has now become a trend setter and a standard for idealized beauty. We have moved very far from “Venus in Furs.” Women are not only wanting their breasts to look like Jenna Jameson or Traci Lords but they are getting vaginoplasty to have their vagina’s sculpted like porn stars. Women are not only being presented with the message that our bodies and breasts aren’t good enough, but now our vagina’s aren’t either.The PETA ads reinforce this message. Many feminists are rebelling against these ads claiming that PETA is not willing to exploit animals but they are perfectly fine with exploiting women. They are reducing women down to sex objects and putting forward unrealistic standards of beauty, while ironically fighting against fur fashion. Their ads are also not surprisingly homogeneous with primarily white, thin and beautiful women. I can see that even the airbrushed DOVE ads of natural beauty have not made it into the PETA repertoire. The rare man used in an ad is not the typical sex symbol. There are no ads with George Clooney, Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom. We don’t see Johnny Depp running to join the activism. If women wear the furs and buy the furs then shouldn’t the ads feature sexy men as well? Or are these ads geared towards men primarily because not only are we comodifying women but we are stepping back to a time when a woman couldn’t afford to buy her own extravagant fur, if she had one, it had to have been bought by a man.

I am not saying go out and slaughter little furry animals to stick a big one to PETA, nor am I saying that I want a resurgence of 18th century protestant values, but what I am saying is that maybe we shouldn’t be too exuberant about jumping out of our clothes. Maybe we should look not only at what we are saying but the vehicle we use in which to say it.

So Go Naked, as PETA so highly recommends, and encourage your man to not subjugate you by buying you expensive furs, instead he can subjugate you by exploiting and comodifying your body. Hey, maybe he will buy you a diamond instead…oh wait, aren’t those problematic as well?

Here are some interesting reads from Victorian sexual writing, to an autobiography of a porn star to a history of sex and the dark side of PETA. They might be worth checking out…