by Carol J. Adams - [email protected]
from The Animals' Agenda - Volume 21 * No. 4
Here's a "hot" topic: Why is meat sexy? Is it just
because sex sells products, that to any meat eater, meat is a product,
and so sex is used to sell meat? Some would argue that it is as simple
as this: Sex sells, so meat producers use it
.
When sex sells, say, cigarettes or alcohol, an implication exists. For
heterosexual men, the implication is "If I use this product, I will have
women." But with meat eating, a more complex relationship to sex is
going on. I explored it in The Sexual Politics of Meat, but it is time
to revisit the issue. Back in 1989, when I finished writing The Sexual
Politics of Meat, I thought I was done with this subject. Much to my
surprise, I was not. Readers started sending me examples of the sexual
politics of meat that they found in advertisements, on billboards,
T-shirts, matchbook covers, etc. And I realized it was getting worse,
not better. In the tenth anniversary edition of the book I describe this
realization. Traveling around and showing the slide show that I created
based on these images, I have become more pessimistic about the problem.
While sexist institutions topple around us, meat eating
is one of the bastions of sexism that seems to be growing in strength
Sexist acts such as harassment and discrimination can be legally
challenged, but meat eating is a safe arena for the expression of
sexism; contempt for women is one of the messages that accompanies these
ads.
It is not just that meat eating is positioned to appeal
to the idea that men (not women) eat meat. Of course it does that. It is
not just that species of animals that become "meat" are depicted in
pornographic poses. We have to understand that pornography, like meat
eating, is repetitive behavior; it is a highly structured product, cued
to arousal. Sometimes when meat is sexualized, animals whose species are
consumed -- cows, pigs, chickens -- are depicted in pornographic poses
that would not be publishable if a woman were being shown. My friend
Annie Hamlin has suggested the word "anthropornography" for this.
The pornographic cues announce that sexual
objectification is happening, but no one is held accountable because
women are not being looked at -- animals are. With most sexist ads, an
implication exists. With the sexualization of meat, an unspoken equation
exists. Women are to men as animals are to humans -- consumable beings.
This is a dangerous equation. We know that meat eating's strength is
related in large part to the objectification of animals, the denial of
their own individuality. People do not have to deal consciously with the
fact that they are eating an animal; they are eating a "piece of meat."
A similar objectification occurs often before women are attacked, raped,
or battered. They, too, are seen as pieces of meat. The sexualization of
meat exploits this equation. (To the question "What about men? Aren't
men cast as 'meat' too?" I would say, men are usually the possessors of
their meat, whereas women are depicted as meat.)
Something else is going on as well. Meat eating will
cause people an attack of conscience. At some point they might think,
"Gee, I am eating a dead animal. Should I continue?" They might feel
uneasy. But feeling uneasy is an uncomfortable feeling. Most of us don't
like feeling uncomfortable. Most of us want uncomfortable feelings to go
away. In our culture, men are still less likely to know what to do with
uncomfortable feelings. Where can feelings of uneasiness about meat
eating go? They can go outward, in anger towards a vegetarian. Or they
can be sexualized. When meat is sexualized there is somewhere for that
energy to go -- it gets transformed into a sexual feeling. Now that is
something our culture says is OK.
We animal activists proclaim, "Look, we are animals,
too! Animals are like us in so many ways. They have feelings. They have
social relationships. They have consciousness. Anthropornography
undercuts these claims. It takes the sensibility that animals are like
us, a sensibility that is disturbing if you benefit from animal
exploitation, and lodges it safely within a sexual economy. These
uncomfortable feelings find a release. The cues have their desired
effect and nothing changes.
Carol J. Adams is the author of The Sexual Politics of
Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, the series The Inner Art of
Vegetarianism: Spiritual practices for Body and Soul, and Living Among
Meat Eaters, which will be released on November 6.
"Reprinted with permission from The Animals' Agenda,
P.O. Box 25881,
Baltimore, MD 21224, (410) 675-4566,
www.animalsagenda.org ."
Email:
[email protected]
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