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Her.meneutics is edited by associate editor Katelyn Beaty and online editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

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August 31, 2011

PETA to Launch Porn Site

The group's newest and wholly misguided campaign overshadows a kernel of truth about animal suffering.

Sharon Hodde Miller

Shock and disgust. Those words best describe the public’s reaction to PETA’s most recent campaign. In a decision that can only be described as true to form, the 31-year-old Virginia nonprofit has once again chosen a campaign method that overshadows its own cause.

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Continuing its by-any-means-necessary approach to animal advocacy, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced the launch of its own porn site. Peta.xxx will include pornographic material mixed with graphic images of animal abuse. Spokeswoman Lindsay Rajt justified the tactic explaining, “The racy things we do are sometimes the most effective way that we can reach particular individuals.”

Perhaps my favorite response to the misguided idea came from a Feministe writer who sarcastically speculated, “Definitely sounds like an effective way to get people to go vegan — associate animal cruelty with sexual arousal. I see absolutely no potential downsides.”

Jokes aside, PETA’s new campaign marks an escalating pattern of misogyny. Most of us are familiar with PETA’s “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign, in which celebrities pose nude. PETA has also employed numerous body-shaming tactics that included a billboard picturing a fat woman with the caption “Save the Whale, Lose the Blubber. Go Vegetarian.” In another ad that numerous airports banned from the walls of their security lines, a woman’s body was pictured through the lens of a body scan with the following words printed across her lingerie: “Be proud of your body scan: Go Vegan.” It should also be noted that neither ad pictured the woman’s face.

Animal rights and women’s rights are by no means mutually exclusive, which is one of the most unfortunate things about PETA’s strategy. We do not have to choose one cause over another, but PETA clearly has. If the objectification of women somehow promotes its agenda, then so be it.

But perhaps even more unfortunate is that PETA’s methods obscure their own message, a message that Christians need to hear. No, I am not talking about the importance of caring for animals, for which there is ample scriptural support and Christians have long supported. Instead, I am referring to the theological component of animal cruelty, an issue that Christians are less likely to consider but has entirely captivated PETA, whether they recognize it or not.

PETA’s work, as misguided as it frequently is, strives to accentuate the evil of innocent suffering. For Christians, this concept is a theological one and it is deeply connected to the center of our faith. For PETA, it is the center. Both groups would hold to the idea that the innocent should not suffer, so when an animal suffers and dies at the hands of humanity for no reason at all, many viscerally understand the wrongness of it.

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This reaction is quite possibly a God-given one. In fact, it sheds an important light on the history of our faith as it relates to animals. More specifically, it helps us to understand the practice of atoning sacrifices that we find throughout the Old Testament.

It is easy to read Old Testament accounts of sacrifice and assume it was an easy, commonplace practice. Perhaps it was for some people. But I suspect the sacrifice of animals was meant to entail more than a dispassionate, forensic exchange. There is a reason Israelites did not atone for their sins through sterile monetary payment or the neat sacrifice of corn. Animal sacrifice, in addition to satisfying the punishment for our sin, was a horrific visual. It forced the Israelites to see the ugliness of their sins. They witnessed the evil of their transgressions and learned that sin has real and tragic consequences.

Whether the Israelites recognized it or not, those animals did not deserve to die. It was not fair that they should bear the punishment of their owners’ sins. When an Israelite offered a goat or a lamb to be sacrificed, a part of him should have been sickened by the act. Animal sacrifice was a theological portrait.

Of course, the death of an innocent animal is nothing compared with the death of an innocent God. Jesus, the perfect Lamb, satisfied the punishment for our sins once and for all. Whenever we feel disgust at the suffering of an innocent animal, it is but a taste of the despicableness of the Crucifixion.

With this salvation history in mind, our approach to animal suffering should be situated within the larger story of Christian sacrifice. When we recoil at the thought of animal cruelty, our spirits remind us of the tragedy of sin and the suffering that has been endured on our behalf, not only by animals but more importantly in Christ. That is why I sympathize in some small part with PETA’s work: They are responding to a divine revulsion against the brokenness of the world as it is manifested in our treatment of animals.

Of course, PETA also exemplifies the danger of divorcing that innate recognition from the gospel. For PETA, animal rights is an idol to which all other agendas must bow, including human flourishing. While Christians, unequivocally, cannot abide cruelty against animals, neither can we abide the objectification of women or any other movement that belittles or abuses God’s creation. PETA’s original intent may have been noble, but their methods ultimately remind us that freedom and justice for all is to be had in Christ alone.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty on August 31, 2011 10:39 AM

Comments

Oh Dear God. And yes, that's a prayer. All their website is going to do is encourage animal abuse! If people are getting aroused while seeing pictures of animal abuse then they will eventually get desensitized to the abuse and start seeing the abuse as what's triggering the arousal!

But of course the world doesn't understand that when people start down the path that their flesh then starts hungering for more and more and worse and worse. That's how we end up with sites where people pay to see children tortured and and and.

I'm gonna loose my lunch and I haven't even eaten it yet.

I'm all for stopping animal cruelty but PETA is just too messed up in the head. You nailed it though - they've set it up as an idol. Saving animals has become their religion.

Posted By: Leslie | August 31, 2011 12:28 PM

Sharon,

Great article. You're right; PETA is onto something with desiring the ethicial treatment of animals. But, they've "sacrificed" human beings to make their point. Thank you for taking a short but good theological look at this topic. How we treat animals (for example, factory farming) is something more Christians need to consider without making visceral knee-jerk reactions.

Posted By: Marlena | August 31, 2011 1:40 PM

Recall also, that in a poor agrarian society an animal sacrifice was very costly - those were highly valuable livestock to subsistance level farmers.

Posted By: doc | August 31, 2011 1:46 PM

PETA's latest campaign device also seems to ignore the fact that animal cruelty is already used in one extreme form of pornography - animal fetish films. This campaign is not about animal rights any longer; the animals are going to be degraded along with the even greater degradation suffered by the people in the pornography. As for that human degradation, it is suffered by both the men and women in the films since they are both reduced to the function of their genitalia. Very sad.

PETA's effort would be laughable if it weren't so disgusting.

Tim

P.S. "He Reigns" by the Newsboys just came on the radio. Amen. It's a timely reminder.

Posted By: Tim | August 31, 2011 2:11 PM

This is stunning news. I will not quickly forget the PETA people petitioning right on the front lawn of the Holocaust memorial museum in DC. I'm 100% for fair animal treatment, but it seemed a dishonor and sacrilege to be so consumed with animal rights after walking through history's crimes about humanity, and seeing the sanctity of human life so desecrated.

Posted By: Stephanie S. Smith | August 31, 2011 2:26 PM

Thank you for the reminder of Christ's sacrifice. In my mind, your post is right on. Fighting for animal rights at the expense of human rights is hypocritical and ineffective.

Some questions that I have that went unanswered by your article are these:

Has PETA always had a history of shock value as a marketing strategy, or is this pairing of sex and animal rights advocacy (with the I-would-rather-go-naked-than-wear-fur campaign) a recent development? If so, who made the call?

Does the PETA marketing team realize that their advertising looks like a tasteless and desperate attempt to draw people to their cause? Or do they genuinely think that publishing porn will have lasting and evident benefit for the meat industry and for animal rights advocates?

I also want to know if it was necessary for PETA to obtain a .xxx domain in order to post graphic videos of animal cruelty. Could they have done it without the .xxx domain?

Posted By: Lyndsey | August 31, 2011 2:42 PM

PETA and porn seems most appropriate to me.

The objectifying of females is what porn is mostly about - the belief that a woman is simply a "thing" to be used for someone else's personal satisfaction.

PETA by using naked women of all sizes in its advertising is already indulging in pornography. They can get away with this because in the USA porn is big business, since for years the naked female body has been used to sell almost everything.

In the wild world of porn, abuse is the name of the game. So I would agree with "Feministe" that PETA has probably hit paydirt with this one. I can just imagine the number of men who, when asked to explian why they are watching a porn channel, will simply sigh and remark "those poor animals".

The same, I suppose, could be said about the benighted people at PETA, of course.

Posted By: Steve Skeete | August 31, 2011 3:37 PM

As far as animal sacrifices in the OT is concerned, I still think that a lot of people can (and do) have a problem with our God that does not condone meaningless pain to institute a system of killing animals. However, I wanted to add an interesting note from Leviticus.

Leviticus 17:3-4, "If any one of the house of Israel kills an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp, or kills it outside the camp, and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it as a gift to the LORD in front of the tabernacle of the LORD, bloodguilt shall be imputed to that man."

If I'm reading that right, the Law literally forbade the Israelites from killing any animals *at al* unless it was done in sacrificial reverance and thanks to God. One should also note that only certain special sacrifices were not partaken of for eating by the people who sacrificed it. It was indeed part of the system that this is how they went about sacrificing, and then eating their animals.

Moreover, even in hunting for food.

Leviticus 17:13, ""Any one also of the people of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among them, who takes in hunting any beast or bird that may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth."

Again, the Israelites were not to kill animals without respecting the life that God proivded for them.

Posted By: Amos Paul | September 1, 2011 4:02 PM

They are making a point knowing that what they are doing is wholly offensive to many people; anyone remember the 'Benetton' ads that appeared around the world?; that was the same thing really.

In this case, they are missing the wood for the trees. Two wrongs don't make a right; and although cruelty to animals is plain wrong and nasty, it can't and shouldn't be equated with cruelty to human beings.

Porn is BIG business in the West in general. Just go to any newsagents or supermarket and check out their magazine racks; full of the stuff; it's everywhere! And, I firmly believe that using porn for sexual gratification can be, and usually is, a slippery slope; in just the same way an alcoholic or junkie needs more and more to get the same fix, a porn addict might need harder and more extreme material to get their 'fix'. There is in general, a definite divide where pornography is involved; many men regard it as harmless fun, whereas most women seem genuinely shocked and even sickened by it.

As Christians, I feel that God does not want men to use pornography, nor does He want women to be used by the industry either; we need to remember just what it is that God wants from us, and how to remain clean and fit for God's divine purpose.

Posted By: Tim Childs | September 1, 2011 4:42 PM

I am concerned that this campaign will have the opposite affect than what PETA intends, which I assume is to shock and disgust the porn site users as well as the general public. People who enjoy pornography often objectify animals as well as people. They porn site users may enjoy PETA’s images of animal abuse and look for more.

The people of PETA may be motivated by a God-given understanding that the suffering of innocents is wrong, but they seem to have looked to the Devil for ways to respond.

Posted By: Dianne | September 5, 2011 1:47 AM

I'm pretty sure that all of this can be traced to belief in evolution, which teaches that humans & animals are related, rather than as separate and distinct creations of God. From that starting point, it is possible to go off into all sorts of directions, including Social Darwinism (of the kind which led to two world wars), abortion, and even homosexuality.

Posted By: John G. | September 5, 2011 3:01 PM

"All their website is going to do is encourage animal abuse! If people are getting aroused while seeing pictures of animal abuse then they will eventually get desensitized to the abuse and start seeing the abuse as what's triggering the arousal!" This is EXACTLY what my husband said when I brought up this story to him.

I honestly don't have anything else to say, because this publicity stunt is just so crazy. Peta is INSANE, and that is super sad, because it's sick the way animals are treated. Good cause, totally perverted catalyst. I recommend watching documentaries like Food, INC. to become slightly more aware of what's going on in the food industry.

Thankfully, I think the media were confused/shocked by this move too. Again, I repeat: Peta is INSANE.

Posted By: Anonymous | September 7, 2011 8:59 AM

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