It is at times such as this that I suspect that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is actually a front organization for Iowa Beef Packers, and has been given the mission of undermining the credibility of the animal rights movement. How else can one explain PETA’s propensity to blur its message by employing such distasteful means of expression? Does anybody else remember PETA’s campaign encouraging college students to drink more beer and less milk? That did the animal rights movement no favors.
PETA’s most recent brain cramp may be seen on a Spokane billboard. It portrays a forlorn Santa Claus looking down the front of his pants. The caption reads, “Santa’s not coming this Christmas. Milk causes impotence. Soy brings joy.”
First of all, the claims made by PETA are scientifically inaccurate - more on that later. And secondly, by corrupting the Christmas season with a sexual double entendre, PETA’s message is lost in its stylistic crudity. Is it really necessary to discomfit parents who’ll be asked by the children about Santa’s advertised absence? How would you like to explain to a six-year old this alternative definitions for “come.” And, from a purely pragmatic standpoint, is it effective to offend the sensibilities of the people PETA wishes to persuade? And, does PETA do itself any good by portraying itself as crude and oafish? I suspect that any message is more digestible when the messenger is respected. And even more importantly, any messenger is more effective when he treats his audience with respect.
If the audience finds the messenger repugnant, then his message is dismissed. This is why attacking the reputation of the messenger is such a common tactic in politics. And if the messenger smears his own reputation, the message is even less credible. Just what sort of reputation does PETA build for itself when it chooses to compose its message using the language of Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt. Other than a few Clintonista types, who pays much attention to the utterings of Larry Flynt? Were Larry Flynt to discover the meaning of life, nobody would pay him the slightest heed.
And, the claim that milk causes sexual dysfunction has absolutely no foundation in science. More than anything, it reminds me of a myth common in less developed Islamic countries that Jews and Americans can cause penises of Islamic men to melt away with a simple hand shake.
And so, we are back to the issue of respect. Does PETA really believe that the citizens of Spokane are as unsophisticated as Sudanese peasants? Apparently those who conceived of this campaign think so. And that betrays a secondary disrespect. A patently dishonest message, that milk causes impotence, is an insult to the intelligence. Only the willfully stupid would believe such nonsense. By paying for this billboard, PETA manages to offend and insult nearly everyone who views it.
And, that brings us to the scientific side of the message on this billboard. It is nonsense. But since they’ve brought it up, the scientific evidence shows clearly that it is soy that manly men need to avoid. Soy is so loaded with phytoestrogens that male children of vegan women are frequently born with genital malformations, making it impossible to distinguish their sex at birth.
To learn more about the effects of soy on male sexual dysfunction, visit: .
I want PETA to fail. I want their message to fall flat. And so, one would think that I should be encouraging them to erect more billboards with messages that do harm to their agenda- like Karl Rove rooting for Howard Dean. But, it is more important to me that standards of decency and civility are upheld. The coarsening of our society is much more threatening than shriveling sex organs.
And speaking of shriveling organs, recent studies have shown that tofu consumption is associated with brain shrinkage. Might it be that the soy milk, tofurkey, and veggie burgers that sustains the vegan culture is taking a toll on the gray matter of those not-so-deep thinkers at PETA?