Speaking of Pervasive Sexualisation…

Cross-posted at Vegans Against PETA

A recurrent theme in animal-rights rhetoric is an attempt to connect with other struggles against oppression, to present the abuse of animals as similar to the abuse of different sorts of humans.

Now, for many people, the leftist revolutionaries of Latin America, from Fidel Castro to Evo Morales to Salvador Allende, are a key example of that struggle against oppression. So if you were an animal rights group and you found that the granddaughter of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara was a vegetarian and was willing to work with you, it would seem that you have a campaign ready made.

You might, for example, have her in an outfit and posture that echoes famous poses that Che Guevara often held. You could use a slogan like “Join the vegetarian revolution”. It’s a brilliant plan. It’s got a striking image with a lot of resonance, and it’s also got a point that can be backed up (the connections between different forms of oppression, the need for revolutionary change in human-animal relations, the willingness to endorse militant tactics, etc.)

It’s controversial, sure – Guevara is a controversial figure, hated by some and loved by others. But let’s suppose you have no problem taking controversial stances. And perhaps your main plan is to run the campaign in Latin America, where Guevara’s very popular.

But now, imagine that you’re also PETA. Now a problem emerges. There’s a woman in your poster, but there’s nothing sexual about it. Nobody’s going to get a boner out of simply seeing someone in an inspiring pose of resolute defiance. What can you do?

I guess you’ll just have to make her semi-naked. Get her tits out, yeah? Cover them with an ammo belt of carrots, sure, but make sure that she’s clearly in a state of undress. After all, she’d rather go naked than wear fur, amiright?

Never mind that there’s absolutely no reason for a sexualised image in a poster themed around Che Guevara and revolution. He is hardly famous for having posed nude while storming Havana.

And never mind that it introduces a completely conflicting message that is liable to undermine the actual point – that will encourage viewers to look and think ‘I’d like to do her’ rather than ‘I’d like to aid her in doing something revolutionary’.

Never mind that you’re sending the message that women must always be sexual, even when the subject at issue – political relatives – has nothing to do with sex at all. Never mind that you’re encouraging a culture where every bit of the media features soft-core porn and women are pervasively judged in sexual terms.

That’s all beside the point. This campaign might get more attention now, and that’s all that matters. Nice one PETA.

Part 8: Liberalism and Commodification

In my last post I argued that the ideology typical of those with the most to lose, those dominant within the dominant class, was some version of conservatism, which is in psychological terms ‘ascetic’ by replacing actual life-based enjoyments with the sadistic enjoyment of conquering one’s own ‘lower nature’, whether in the name of purity, religion, or the nation.

I now want to argue that the ideology typical of those who are within the dominant class but not well-off within it, i.e. those who are male/bourgeois but ‘poor’ in the resource those classes seek (sexual conquest of women, private ownership of capital), is liberalism.

‘Liberalism’ has a number of meanings, and whereas I see almost nothing admirable in conservative ideology, things are different for liberalism, which can be understood in a broad way, a narrow way, or an American way (which I will set aside, because if the US don’t want to speak English properly then that’s up to them).

In the broad sense, ‘liberalism’ means simply that philosophy which takes personal freedom as the highest value and personal equality as the most basic premise. It’s ideological dominance since the enlightenment (though mainly in words more than actions) shouldn’t blind us to how progressive it is and how many ideologies there are which directly contradict it. In this sense, socialism, communism, anarchism and feminism are all varieties of liberalism.

But it’s in the narrow sense that liberalism becomes an ideology specifically fit to cloak the interests of an exploiting class. As would-be exploiters, such people face two sorts of restriction – those thrown up by the established elites to protect their privileges, and those established by the exploited to give them some measure of self-defense. Broad liberalism would attack only the former, while supporting the latter in the name of the freedom of the exploited, while narrow liberalism attacks both.