PETA's pornographic publicity

The two week respite between the National Football League’s two conference championship games has been traditionally inundated with the incessant rehashing of player profiles, predictions and previews of halftime, pre- and post-game entertainment. In the past, some other incidents have been splashed on the media’s coverage, redirecting the flow of the stream of national consciousness in an unexpected direction. This week, the rising tide of media coverage that will eventually culminate in the 43^rd Super Bowl in Tampa has been diverted into a seedy crevice known as the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA has recently diversified its portfolio of offensiveness and annoyances to the rest of the country. This novelty ranges beyond the group’s frequent dousing of fur-wearers with red paint and protesting the use of rats in medical tests beneficial to humans. This group’s most recent act of provocation resembles a video that belongs on an “adults’ only” pay-per-view production or in a peep show booth catering to “niche pornography”. Mercifully, NBC, the network broadcasting this year’s game, declined to air PETA’s latest publicity stunt.

Amid the images of scantily clad female models, the statement “Studies show vegetarians have better sex” flashes across the screen. “Sex with whom or what?”, one must ask, based on the images in the commercial. Of course, no mention of which studies support such a provocative yet vaguely stated conclusion appears. Who has time to clutter up an ad with pertinent information? Citing these supposed studies would reduce the amount of time allotted for the models to disrobe before licking vegetables and rubbing them against their bodies.

Interestingly, PETA rails against exploitation of animals. However, the organization showed no reservations regarding exploitation of women or appropriate behavior for a traditionally family-oriented broadcast. This decision betrays PETA’s priority of pushing vegetarianism over exposing an expected audience of tens of millions, including children, to lewd images. Unfortunately, PETA’s ethics only extend to creatures who lack the intelligence to understand or appreciate the group’s misplaced zoophilia.