Leave it to PETA to take a perfectly calm, serene occasion like the Beijing Olympics and turn it into a media circus.
Well … on second thought, maybe even PETA won’t get much attention this week. They’re pushing swimming gold-medalist Amanda Beard out in front of the media as part of the I’d-rather-go-naked-than-wear-fur campaign. You know, because Amanda stripped it all off for Playboy last year (NSFW link).
Very clever, you PETA rascals. She’s getting naked. Again. Yawn.
Here’s what Beard says in the PETA press release:
“Seeing animals slaughtered to be worn as fashion is awful to me, so I’m definitely against wearing fur … I’d much rather go naked than ever put a dead animal on my body.“
No dead animals in her wardrobe? Against slaughter for fashion? I’m not buying it. Neither should you.
Here’s what Amanda told shoe blogger Meghan Cleary last year when asked, “What pair of shoes would you want to be buried in?”:
“Something that just screams ‘me.’ All of my friends would agree that it would be this pair of leather sandals that I wear all the time. I wear them on the pool deck, at the beach, and even sneak them into my wardrobe for dinners.”
Want more? Oh, yeah — I got a lotta more. Here’s Amanda in Smart Money magazine last September:
[D]on’t let Beard’s conservative portfolio fool you. She still has her indulgences. The daredevil athlete is into extreme sports such as bungee jumping, scuba diving, snowboarding, motorcycles and dirt bike racing. In her mind, she mitigates the risk of a bad spill by buying the best equipment. “You don’t take 50% off the leather jacket you use to ride on your motorcycle,” she says. “When you’re skidding across the highway you want something that fits.”
And at right, courtesy of the good people at UGGS, is a photo of Amanda trying on some genuine UGGS Australian sheepskin boots (and looking pretty happy about it).
Honestly, you’d think PETA would be better at vetting their olympians. It took our merry band of pranksters about ten minutes to find out that Amanda Beard isn’t really a radical animal-rights wingnut. (Thank God for that!) She wears animal products just like a regular person.
Color me shocked.
Hey — I bet Amanda hangs her gold medals from a mink stole when nobody’s looking.
UPDATE: Amanda explains herself, sort of …
And a special Deceiver welcome to Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times blog readers. Apparently Amanda Beard has some ’splaining to do to her hometown readers …
And howdy to Dan Steinberg’s readers at the Washington Post too. Nice of Amanda Beard to confirm that she didn’t bring any leather goods with her to China. But unless she’s embracing the whole PETA enchilada — and that means opposing lab-rat-aided AIDS and cancer research, too, by the way — she’d better be prepared for targeting by bigger guns than this humble blog.
It’s just too easy…
The Olympics haven’t even started yet, and I can’t wait for them to be over.
Remember when the Olympics was about sports? (Or wait… maybe it was always a big promo game. “Sillius wears Lambda Sandals when he roams… why don’t you?”
(Okay, admittedly not my best parody. But you get the point!)
I couldn’t care less what some bubbleheaded Olympian says about PETA. Please note in the attached link the leather straps on her suspenders:
http://www.getoutdoors.com/goblog/index.php?/archives/2033-Amanda-Beards-Vanishing-Talent.html
Her career will have peaked once her picture is on a box of Wheaties. After that she’ll be selling tampons and telling how fresh and clean she is.
Those folks at PETA just love hiring these leather-clad celebrities to try and spread their name to us animal murderers, don’t they?
Maybe the lack of protein is going to their heads. Let’s send them all some cheeseburgers.
Someone needs to come up with a logo that denotes Hypocrite so it can be put on pictures, buttons, stickers, labels, etc.
As for leather, hell half my closet contains dead animals not to mention the 15 pair of boots I own, lets counter with celebrities wearing all leather fashion stating we are honoring the fallen animals sacrifice.
So typical of P.E.T.A. I wouldn’t miss sleep over eating meat.
She’s lovely. So, every 7 years she has to mate with Spock or die, right?
Good one Simon, though I thought all the Female Vulcans were more busty?
Why don’t these spokespeople make the connection between leather and animal products? It’s like they think that as long as they’re not wearing a chinchilla coat with a mink stole and a coonskin cap they can take some sort of moral high ground.
Has anyone ever accused PETA of sexism? Every time they roll out one of these I’d Rather Go Naked… ads it’s a hot chick (not that I mind) but I remember when people were pissed at beer companies using bikini clad babes to boost their brews. How come NOW isn’t all over this organization for objectifying women to promote their agenda?
Per Rocko:
The only ad of theirs that I ever remember seeing with a nekkid sell-eb was with “Steve-O.” As a straight female with fairly mainstream tastes, it didn’t do anything for me. Except maybe explain some of his poorer life choices as a result of malnutrition.
As for NOW, maybe it’s because some of their core members are still busy being bitter about Hill not getting the nom.
I love that Amanda and PETA are trying to do something positive. If you all read up a little on the differences of where fur comes from and where leather comes from you’d understand why Amanda and PETA make the decisions they do. Your criticisms are uneducated at best.
Exactly. One comes from dead animals, and the other one grows on trees. Duh.
And HHLL, PETA has done dozens of similar ads with naked celebrities, mostly female. My personal favorite is the Charlotte Ross one. I like to look at it while dining on some nice rabbit stew! Or anytime, really.
You know, Beard should have said “I can’t stomach wearing fur, but I love my leather sandals and my UGG boots. Deal with it.” I could respect that. It would be honest. But then it wouldn’t make much of a PETA sound bite.
:O
OMG LEATHER IS PEOPLE
amen chronic! i’m so sick of these stupid PETA tarts thinking theres some huge difference between fur and leather when they’re both skin. this is getting so old!
I thought Soylent Green was people.
point well made, but those aren’t UGGS–they’re Koolaburras.
You are all missing the point. Amanda Beard is HOT!! Who cares what she’s saying. If her picture is on the page the text looks like this to me…”ljsaoih8y43h2kd09iwj3m.’sdajw0oeijf”
“And HHLL, PETA has done dozens of similar ads with naked celebrities, mostly female. My personal favorite is the Charlotte Ross one. I like to look at it while dining on some nice rabbit stew! Or anytime, really.”
Correction, I meant “naked MALE.” Sorry. Your point is totally valid.
That’s a man, baby!
ORLY? The UGGS website captions the photo:
“Amanda Beard trying on a pair of Classic Tall ugg boots with the print at the back.”
carlo - LOLOL made me laugh out loud!!
A pattern I’ve noticed amongst all these bimbos saying they’d rather go naked than wear fur, is that they’d rather go naked anyway.
They just want another excuse to take their clothes off. And PETA, as I’ve said, is mysogynistic and fundamentally retarded. Whether it’s consentual or not, for a lefty organization, PETA has no issues with getting attractive women to pose nude to get their point across. It’s not okay to use a chimpanzee to market a product or idea, but it’s totally acceptable to employ “beautiful” women to market a product or idea. Like I said, it’s that the wackjobs of PETA actually SUPPORT this marketing strategy, and it doesn’t matter who consents to it or not— they’re still exploiting the human body.
I figured that PETA demanded social reform, since they’re perpetually on a soapbox about the moral conditions of our society, but I see what’s more important to them— getting some eager attention whore to show the world her tits as a petty endeavor to attract/delude horny men onto their cause because they believe they’ll get laid. Sex sells, and that’s all that matters to PETA. If they REALLY wanted to save the animals they would find more adequate advertising plots.
You want this world to be a better place, PETA activists? Well, you can stop with plenty of things, beginning with the sexism of which your propaganda consists anymore.
You want this world to be a better place?
…another useful fool for Peta. Why doesn’t Peta protest themselves for all the animals they kill? People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a group that complains bitterly when animals die accidentally in horse races or intentionally in slaughterhouses, killed more than 90 percent of the adoptable animals in its care during 2007.
Maybe these useful fools should do some research into an organization before they join?
1) PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has described her group’s overall goal as “total animal liberation.” This means no meat, no milk, no zoos, no circuses, no wool, no leather, no hunting, no fishing, and no pets (not even seeing-eye dogs). PETA is also against all medical research that requires the use of animals.
2) Despite its constant moralizing about the “unethical” treatment of animals by restaurant owners, grocers, farmers, scientists, anglers, and countless other Americans, PETA has killed over 14,400 dogs and cats at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. During 2005, PETA put to death over 90 percent of the animals it collected from members of the public.
3) PETA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals. This includes a 2001 donation of $1,500 to the North American Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an FBI-certified “domestic terrorist” group responsible for dozens of firebombs and death threats. During the 1990s, PETA paid $70,200 to an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) activist convicted of burning down a Michigan State University research laboratory. In his sentencing recommendation, a federal prosecutor implicated PETA president Ingrid Newkirk in that crime. And PETA vegetarian campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich told an animal rights convention in 2001 that “blowing stuff up and smashing windows” is “a great way to bring about animal liberation.”
4) PETA activists regularly target children as young as six years old with anti-meat and anti-milk propaganda, often waiting outside their schools to intercept them as they walk to and from class-without notifying parents. One piece of kid-targeted PETA literature tells small children: “Your Mommy Kills Animals!” PETA brags that its messages reach over 2 million children every year, including thousands reached by e-mail without the permission of their parents. One PETA vice president told the Fox News Channel’s audience: “Our campaigns are always geared towards children, and they always will be.”
5) PETA has used a related organization, the PETA Foundation, to fund the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a deceptive animal rights group that promotes itself as an unbiased source of medical and nutritional information. PCRM’s president also serves as president of the PETA Foundation.
6) PETA runs campaigns seemingly calculated to offend religious believers. One entire PETA website is devoted to the claim-despite ample evidence to the contrary-that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian. PETA holds protests at houses of worship, even suing one church that tried to protect its members from Sunday-morning harassment. Its billboards taunt Christians with the message that hogs “died for their sins.” PETA insists, contrary to centuries of rabbinical teaching, that the Jewish ritual of kosher slaughter shouldn’t be allowed. And its infamous “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign crassly compares the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide with farm animals.
7) PETA has repeatedly attacked research foundations like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, because they support animal-based research that might uncover cures for birth defects and life-threatening diseases. PETA president Ingrid Newkirk has said that “even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we would be against it.”
Christina X, you’ve hit upon it again. I can’t even add anything to that.
I wonder how many fish died because of the standing water she’s in.
And to “badbrains”…the differences between fur and leather are very few. The number one difference being what animals they come from. Fur from mink, rabbit, fox…etc. Leather from cows, sheep…etc. Fur is the only thing harvested when those cute little furry creatures are clubbed for their pelts. While leather is often times the byproduct from slaughterhouses that produce beef (from cattle, obviously). So is leather ok because it’s the byproduct of a slaughterhouse? Does that mean that PETA is going to start sanctioning things like pork rinds? “Amanda Beard’s Pork Rinds…now PETA approved.”
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t PETA against meat of ANY shape or form? From what I recall, and I’m getting old so my memory is starting to get shady, but PETA is totally against all types of animal killing for ANY reason. So, it really doesn’t make a damn difference if it’s fur or leather that Amanda Beard is wearing during her free time when she’s not getting naked and posing for Hypocrites-R-Us. If Amanda Beard and PETA were true to their word about trying to make this world ‘more’ animal friendly, she wouldn’t be donning her leather sandals wherever she goes, and PETA certainly wouldn’t be calling on Beard to get naked for their cause. I’m all for having a cause, even if I don’t agree with it, however, get your facts straight, stick to your story, your cause, and be firm without wavering in those beliefs.
PETA - Pharisees* Effecting Typical Assholeness
Pharisee - hypocrite.
/applauds Christina X
I could never wrap my mind around how all the ultra-feminists who rail against Maxim and Budweiser for objectifying women could all-so happily and willingly hand out these anti-fur PETA flyers.
Generally speaking, reducing women to whores and sex objects, no matter the reason or institution behind it, has had the opposite effect of liberating and empowering females.
i applaud christina x and austin as well.. and whats really bad is PETA gets cheap, tacky women. like pamela anderson and jenna jameson.. um, ew.
Truer words have never been spoken.
“A pattern I’ve noticed amongst all these bimbos saying they’d rather go naked than wear fur, is that they’d rather go naked anyway. They just want another excuse to take their clothes off.”
PETA: Take your clothes off at the door, if you please, before you enter the studio where your Playboy-lite snaps will be taken.
Attention slut: Gladly!
Wow. Some anonymous internet pinhead that doesn’t understand the difference between being a vegan, and being anti-fur.
Color me shocked.
Cue casual misogyny and studied ignorance in 3…2…1…
Please, enlighten us.
Ok…so according to some Vegan website…being a Vegan is defined as thus….
“Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, or poultry. Vegans, in addition to being vegetarian, do not use other animal products and by-products such as eggs, dairy products, honey, leather, fur, silk, wool, cosmetics, and soaps derived from animal products.” (http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/vegan.htm#what)
So…what is the difference between being Vegan and being anti-fur?
Nothing.
Ok…so for some reason deceiver ate my post….
Some Vegan website defines being Vegan as this….
Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, or poultry. Vegans, in addition to being vegetarian, do not use other animal products and by-products such as eggs, dairy products, honey, leather, fur, silk, wool, cosmetics, and soaps derived from animal products.
So…why is a raven like a writing desk?
There is no difference between being Vegan and anti-fur.
Too bad PETA is a worthless organization.
Support the humane society.
Ohhh…sorry about the double post guys. User fail.
I’d rather wear clothes than support PETA.
I wonder what all the anti-porno groups think of PETA making naked women readily available to the youth of this world.
Let’s make a flow chart…shall we?
PETA makes advertising line of…”I’d rather go naked than wear fur.”
14 year old Billy finds said ad in any glossy magazine that his parents may have kicking around the house some Saturday afternoon when he’s bored.
Billy gets turned on by seeing Amanda Beard, Pamela Anderson, Jenna Jameson, Charlotte Ross naked…maybe holding some very cuddly creature to her bust.
Billy jerks off. Billy kills thousands of potential children.
Pro-Life fail.
Billy then decides to google search these PETA celebrities…more Pro-Life fail.
Billy is so horny at this point that he absolutely must see some real life nakedness…cons some 14 year old girl into getting naked rather than wearing fur.
All Sally’s parents have are sheepskin condoms…her mom is allergic to latex.
PETA…fail.
I was making a veremite sammich and my mom got scared And said, “You’re movin’ with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.”I whistled for a cab and when it came near The license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror If anything I could say that this cab was rare But I thought, “Nah, forget it. Yo home to Bel-Air!” I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8and I yelled to the cabby yo holmes smell ya later Looked at my kingdom I was finally there To sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.
Someone asked why NOW isn’t protesting ads like the Beard one…
It’s because NOW and Ms Magazine accept advertising from Animal Rights groups like the misnamed “Compassion in Farming”, HSUS, and others.
I let my subscription to Ms lapse because I couldn’t get past the ads, which are right up front. I dropped my NOW membership, because the ads are in its national newspaper. Gloria Steinem is a PETA proponent, and against biomedical research using animals (source: Americans for Medical Progress, July 2006).
I am unspeakably disappointed with the group, with Gloria, with the magazine …
Maybe it’s ’cause I’m a straight chick, but all these nekkid PETA ads just make me realize how much the group sucks for humans. Even ignoring the hypocrisy of it- PETA wants to take away medical research and service animals, while trumping up images of porn-tastic women and yelling about how it’s a style and moral choice.
The message I get from that? If you’re shallow, PETA has a message for you and will try to win you over. If you’re terminally ill or disabled, PETA actively hates your attempts to live a productive life and will take it away if they can.
The service animal part kills me the most (blind friends, you know…). I would love to see a PETA representative actually have the balls to tell a blind person in public that they want to take their dog away, maybe event try to take the animal away in keeping with their moral code. See how much people donate to these nutjobs after *that*
/applauds Phoenix as well
“The message I get from that? If you’re shallow, PETA has a message for you and will try to win you over. If you’re terminally ill or disabled, PETA actively hates your attempts to live a productive life and will take it away if they can.”
Spot on.
“She’s getting naked. Again. Yawn.”
If you yawn when a woman that hot gets naked then I’m not sure I can trust your opinion on ANYTHING.
“If you yawn when a woman that hot gets naked then I’m not sure I can trust your opinion on ANYTHING.”
Our standards of what’s hot must differ by miles.
The naked human body IS NOT pornographic. Even the FCC was overturned after claiming that 0.5 seconds of Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple constituted a lewd act.
Zorg- good luck having pornography without nekkid people, though.
But seriously, even if it isn’t pornography, a naked woman in an ad purely to get your attention is still sex appeal, which was most of the point everyone was making. And it doesn’t have to be hard core porn to be exploitation of the human body.
I don’t see anything wrong here. She’s stated her opposition to furs, saying she doesn’t want animals killed purely for fashion. Leather comes from animals already slaughtered for food - leather does not come from an animal killed purely for fashion. Many people are anti-fur but they’ll have filet mignon while wearing that cool leather jacket (I’m one of those).
Simon Scowl, Amanda and I actually mate two or three times a day.
It is indeed a slow news day, people are trying to create a story where none exists.
erichansa - good point, i support the humane society as well and not PETA.
and spock, cows are killed purely for fashion
Hey there Spock,
You are half right. The cows that are slaughtered for their meat are also used for their leather. However, that is a lower grade leather. The high end stuff comes from a different kind of cow farm. Where they may still sell the meat, the prime income comes from the leather. Cows raised for leather are treated a lot differently than cows raised for food. For example, leather cows are raised in somewhat (not completely though) better conditions. Just in the fact that their skin has to be untouched because every scar, sore or blemish on the hide is a loss in value for the farmer. The cow in your sandwhich is not likely to be the cow in your $600 shoes.
But this statement isn’t legitimate, because until all clothes are made from fur or animal byproducts, it’s unnecessary to go naked.
Ask any of these skanks to pose for an advertisement that says “I’d rather wear a burlap potato sack than wear fur”, and see how many of them would actually incline to it. I bet none of them would.
Second of all, there’s a difference between being vegan and being anti-fur, but PETA’s official stance is overall veganism: no meat, no fur, no animal testing, no owning pets, etc. The reason why everyone heckles PETA for the “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign is because these women, aside from wearing fur, has pretty much gone against nearly everything else that PETA stands for. For such a radical organization, PETA is most certainly a fickle one at that.
Actually, I’m going to back up Amanda a bit on this one.
She was specifically saying she’s against the slaughtering of animals FOR FASHION. Most leather sandals and shoes aren’t that bad (most are made from cow, and as a result, are a byproduct for making hamburgers and such), and food is a completely legitimate reason to kill animals. Even animals to do that one.
Further, she’d right about leather doing a better job of protecting you from a bad spill. I know I’ve taken a few tumbles myself. In choosing human safety vs animal safety, the human should generally win out. (And again, leather is often a byproduct of a process of making food).
If anything, I think Amanda is being a bit more responsible than a large number of PETA members. (Many who are which… “Fuzzy things must never die!” while Amanda is more in the direction of moderation). And as others have mentioned, going naked isn’t that big of a deal for her.
On top of that, I fully support nudity in the Olympics. After all, when the Olympics were first created, being in the buff was effectively a requirement (as well as oiling yourself down to help you move that extra bit faster, those sneaky Greeks).
Someone’s been watching Bullshit (hint: Sam)
But really, I agree with mostly everyone here. Her view on fur or leather doesn’t matter. It’s the fact that she’s representing an organization that opposes using animal products for fashion, i.e. LEATHER. See the most obvious problem here?
…And on a side note…does her face not look like an old, rotting pumpkin? She looks like a 60 year old with bad plastic surgery. Just sayin…
I love Peta. But then again some call me an extreme vegetarian
Also, was Amanda Beard born a woman?
I don’t quite understand the appeal, either.
I applaud Beard for “evolving” instead of following the status quo. So what if she “used to” wear leather or animal boots–she’s changing and learning new values. What’s wrong with that? Most of us did not start out vegan but we learn and grow. Its a difficult path but a worthwhile one. Instead of following the crowd, we think about what we do and try to make informed decisions about what’s right. Its a process.
I agree that it is hypocrisy, but learning to change ALL of the wardrobe is part of the evolving process. I started out learning slowly about all the terrible things going and so forth. As my intelligence escalated, so did the awareness to change all aspects of my life to become more compassionate. Maybe she hasn’t reached that level of awareness yet? Hopefully she will continue and do more…
On another note, my issue is with the comment, “…(Thank God for that!) She wears animal products just like a regular person…” My reply to that would be…what is regular/normal?
Well, what a stupid comment that was! FYI: I came across this site by pure accident and usually don’t post but had to. I can’t believe I read that because if one has studied psychology, sociology, and cultures…combined it shows that society/each person only has a perception of what is normal according to what environment they formed/developed in to gain a standpoint. What is normal or accepted to one person or culture may not be to another. I am making a point about this because the “regular/normal” insinuation is not accurate. Actually society hasn’t reached an ideal “Normal” yet since it is still so barbaric and uncivilized. It was pretty ignorant and very stupid…who is to say what normal people do? My belief is that once society evolves to become less barbaric/selfish and more civilized with intelligence, then most people would act and actually BEHAVE ethically “Normal”. In today’s society, everyone should challenge themselves to evolve and think outside the box. Intelligent people THINK and analyze what has been fed to them as “Normal” because it can be wrong! Also, intelligent individuals question what is ethically right/selfishly wrong or barbaric towards animals, others, or the environment…deep down most should know unless there are some serious issues at play.
Actually, I think there is such a thing as “normal.” Feel free to deny it if you wish, but it’s there. I’m not denying that it may change over a few dozen generations, but “normal” is a fact of life. And vegan fashion ain’t it.
There is a group on facebook that has put a twist on the Rather Be Naked campaign. And they include guys in their line up of models.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=23553816450&ref=mf