Vegans Gone Wild!

by Jarrett Martineau | March 27, 2008 at 10:00 am | 430 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Using sex to sell vegetarian and vegan lifestyles and animal rights issues has long been a source of controversy.

Is there a distinction to be made between vegan strip clubs and PETA campaigns featuring Suicide Girls? And should either be used to promote a meat-free diet or animal rights?

Two things that you can find a lot of in Portland, Oregon, are vegans and strip clubs.
Johnny Diablo decided to open a business to combine both. At his Casa Diablo Gentlemen's Club, soy protein replaces beef in the tacos and chimichangas; the dancers wear pleather, not leather. Many are vegans or vegetarians themselves.

Casa Diablo is just the latest example of selling veganism with a "Girls Gone Wild" aesthetic to draw the ire of vegans who complain that such tactics may get people to pay attention to animal cruelty, but for the wrong reasons. In Los Angeles, some frown at the scantily clad Vegan Vixens - a kind of animal-loving Pussycat Dolls - who perform songs like "Real Men Don't Hunt" at fund-raisers for animal welfare groups.

One of the issues with using sex to sell something is that it is, inevitably, the sex that is being sold. The high-minded political cause is a poorly-remembered afterthought, and not the objectified focus of attention.

Many vegans have long criticized PETA for using naked celebrities in its advertising campaigns and for staging stunts like naked protests.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, a cookbook author, is among those who believe such images twist the vegan message. "As a feminist, I'm not keen on the idea of using women's bodies to sell veganism, and I'm not into the idea of using veganism to sell women's bodies," she said.

According to a 2006 Harris poll commissioned by the Vegetarian Resource Group, which publishes The Vegetarian Journal, only about 2.3 percent of the adult population of the United States is vegetarian. At most, half of those are practicing vegans.

Nevertheless, despite the passionate and polarizing nature of thisdebate, the percentage of the American population that is vegetarian(and therefore directly affected by this issue) is, proportionately,still very small -- though this controversy has generated enoughdiscussion and PR that even the most ardent meat-eaters are hearing about veganism, albeit in strange ways.

Could that be a good thing?