PETA porn: what values?

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the notorious animal rights group, has announced its intentions to launch a pornography website as an extension of its explicit campaign against animal cruelty. PETA's advertisements, which include phrases such as "We'd rather go naked than wear fur" and "Bare skin, not bearskin," have featured countless successful adult film stars like Pamela Anderson, Jenna Jameson and Sasha Grey. Do these publications contradict PETA's dogma, or is it just a group of liberal individuals embracing their bodies? Is it using sex to manipulate people into accepting their beliefs? Is it merely interested in money? Why is bare skin the only alternative to wearing bearskin?

According to familysafemedia.com, every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being made in the United States, and $3.64 billion is being spent on pornography every second. All this time and money is flowing toward a line of work that, according to Gail Dines, professor of sociology at Wheelock College, "desensitizes" men to violent sexual imagery. She explains, "I have found that the earlier men use porn, the more likely they are to have trouble developing close, intimate relationships with real women. Some of these men prefer porn to sex with an actual human being. They are bewildered, even angry, when real women don't want or enjoy porn sex."

PETA defends the nudity in its campaigns by arguing that it is necessary in order for them to advertise effectively. The FAQ on the website, www.peta.org, reads: "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 website will be designed to entice viewers as a way of luring them in, where they will eventually encounter visuals of animals being mistreated among links to other websites promoting vegan and vegetarian diets. It's true that PETA is a non-profit organization seeking publicity, but I have to wonder how an organization vehemently opposing the exploitation of animals in the food industry has no problem perpetuating the pornography industry, which exploits human beings all the time. PETA argues that the women to be featured on the website are "willing participants," but this doesn't change the fact that they're endorsing an industry that engages in exploitation solely for profit; in no way are pornographic performers  being utilized for anything else. Even if they approach the career with some sort of self-proclaimed integrity, their employers are not interested in any part of them that isn't making them money, which would be everything except their sex appeal. They're not the least bit concerned about who they are as sentient human beings, and neither are their viewers. Dines also states, "The more porn images filter into mainstream culture, the more girls and women are stripped of full human status and reduced to sex objects."  How is this type of work not reminiscent of the way animals are exploited and mistreated in the name of lucrative benefit? These people may not be subjected to this treatment against their own will, but ultimately, all moral soundness is disregarded for human gratification. They sound like one in the same to me.

If the members of PETA are honestly looking to increase their number of followers, you'd figure they'd make their campaigns appealing to more than one, ostensibly sex-crazed demographic. Their risque efforts have turned them into a circus sideshow that is rarely taken seriously, even by the activists they pretend to identify with. It's not easy to respect an organization that seems to think sex will somehow help save animals.

PETA makes it difficult for us to believe in its professed ethical standards. Are carnivorous porn lovers looking to make their diet more animal-friendly? Is their conscience really going to be susceptible to these efforts? Last I knew, it was widely accepted that "sex sells," but not so much that manipulating human sexuality results in positive effects within the realms of ethical and moral sensibility. In any case, you're probably just glad I told you about a new porn website.

Megan Hirner can be reached by email at hirner.record@live.com.