Vegan strippers
Portland, Oregon's Casa Diablo Gentlemen's Club is a strip joint where only vegetarian food is served and the look is pleather and lace. Today's New York Times looks at ways sexuality is now used by some as a marketing gimmick for veganism and animal rights. As you might expect, some vegans are not too pleased about that. From the NYT:
UPDATE: In the comments, GBV23 points to an item in the Willamette Week reporting that the Casa Diablo is up for sale. Link
Casa Diablo is just the latest example of selling veganism with a “Girls Gone Wild” aesthetic to draw the ire of vegans who complain that such tactics may get people to pay attention to animal cruelty, but for the wrong reasons. In Los Angeles, some frown at the scantily clad Vegan Vixens — a kind of animal-loving Pussycat Dolls — who perform songs like “Real Men Don’t Hunt” at fund-raisers for animal welfare groups.Link (Thanks, Carlo Longino!)
And many vegans who want to publicize cruelty within the fur industry are nonetheless dismayed by the new “Ink, Not Mink” advertising campaign from peta2, the youth arm of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. It features members of the Internet-based pinup group the Suicide Girls, sporting little more than tattoos and body piercings.
UPDATE: In the comments, GBV23 points to an item in the Willamette Week reporting that the Casa Diablo is up for sale. Link
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The business is up for sale if anyone wants to take it over --at least according to our local weekly
This is another instance where the perfect is the enemy of the good. Because this strip club exists, more people will be vegans than if it didn't exist. Vegan feminists must decide which movement they favor more, but it's perfectly legitimate for Johnny Diablo to have the priorities he does.
Wow...
it went from a poorly reviewed Pirate-themed vegan restaurant, to a poorly reviewed strip-club themed vegan restaurant.
Maybe he should have just done pirate vegan strippers, with no food?
I love eating vegetarians.(they taste better?) I love vegan food. But people that preach the way of life crack me up. I can understand eating that way for health reasons...but honestly, the cruelty to animals argument does not hold any water whatsoever. Tell a Veggie or Vegan to go spend a week on a farm. They will see how many animals are killed in the planting, cultivation, and harvesting of vegetables. Is a deer's life worth any less than a cows? Is a rabbits life worth less? A snake, a mouse, hedgehog, caterpillar, ant, whathaveyou, worth any less? Literally gabillions and gabillions of animals are killed in the production of fruits and vegetables. The cruelty argument is hogwash. In fact, the less vegetables you eat, the less animals you are indirectly responsible for killing.
Yours Truly,
Cletus Bartholomew Hogwallup
Speaking of the perfect being the enemy of the good, thanks, Qozmiq.
People upset about this need to purge. The pretensious, snotty, holier-than-thou attitudes of some veggies/vegans are the real problem - not people choosing to advocate for more humane eating using T & A as a tool.
Suicide Girls + PETA = perfect match of self-aggrandizing pretentiousness.
The funny thing is that before the SGs became the corporate thang it is now, friends of mine performed with them in Pittsburgh.
After the gig, we all went to Pamani's for cheesesteaks.
Vegans my shiny, metal ass...
Vegan Strip Clubs, its actually refreshing to live in a world with choice. I eat meat myself, but if people don't wanna, they don't have to and being in a place where they can indulge in non animal debauchery, hey thats cool. Reminds me of a woman who I used to volunteer with in Toronto who made the first (that she or I knew of) Vegan Porn video, named g-sprout.
People that have issues with sex work say it is exploitative. This is really a potential issue with with just about *any* kind of work. Otherwise people are just operating on their sexual hang ups and not dealing with the real problems.
#7 - Are you thinking of "Primanti's?"
Also, while not vegan, I've heard that it can be a tough time to find ink/a tattoo artist who uses or knows about vegan ink.
But how do you expect me to curb my animal instincts for meat, when you pump my animal instincts with another kind of meat ?
When you wave something in someone's face, it tends to piss them off, even if they're on your side. Please write this down Christians, gun owners, gun prohibitionists, and vegetarians.
That said, I don't think this is one of those times.
Question: How many vegans does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!
#10: Yep. (Gosh darned auto-correcting spellcheck!)
The Pirate's Tavern had pretty terrible food and the restaurant is way way way out of town. It makes more sense to get a vegan meal at Paradox and then go to Sassys.
mmmmm, i can't imagine alot of veegans are into strip teese! bad idea.
#4, all of those things might be true in a literal or philosophical way for you, but being tender-hearted toward critters isn't the only reason people choose vegan or veggie lifestyles.
Some do it for health reasons, others because they want to eat lower on the food chain. A lot of vegans are already lactose-intolerant and simply enjoy vegetables more than meat, so it's not really a preachy lifestyle shift so much as just the way they like to cook.
But when it comes down to it, most vegans I know just feel better about themselves because they're eating food without guilt attached to it. I never understand why that makes other people so upset.
#16, Yes, that is why I said in my post, I can understand why people do it for health reasons! And I take issue with the notion that is not preachy, nor holier than thou. I have no issue with anyone eating anyway they want. But, to suggest that anyone should or does do it on a 'cruelty to animals' platform, just makes no sense.
It’s always ironic to me that people who are supposedly opposed to oppression try to tell others what they can and can’t do with their bodies.
Vegan strippers? Cool!
I don't see how a vegan strip joint is any more offensive than a strip joint that serves meat.
What's the problem?
Should all strip joints should serve meat?
@#4, Ooh, I've got this one! Many, many pounds of grain go into raising each animal that you eat.
Look at it this way: if you eat corn, you're responsible for the number of animal deaths caused by producing that corn.
If you eat a cow, you're responsible for (obviously) the death of the cow itself, but also the number of animal deaths caused by the harvesting of like 10x the cow's weight of corn.
Now, I don't know the stats exactly, so don't hold me to it, but the point is that every pound of animal meat is the equivalent of /many/ more pounds of farmed crops like corn, soy, etc. So eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is also a way to reduce the number of "collateral" deaths in the agricultural process by eating more efficiently.
This is the reason I avoid meat, not because I care about the animals, but because it's a far more efficient diet, requiring less natural resources, carbon emissions, pesticides, etc to be ultimately used to nourish me.
It's just nasty to contemplate eating ANYTHING in a strip club. (I guess it's somehow related to the old saying "don't shit where you eat.") Maybe *that's* why the business is failing.
That said, show me a vegan/pirate-themed restaurant and I'm there!
This would be an interesting concept if it was associated with some sort of study or claim on whether specific diets encouraged specific body types or something (beyond fat and skinny).
If it was a brothel then the claim that "vegetarians taste better" could really be put to the test! Now that would be interesting.
Human beings are omnivores. Are intestines are meant to digest both meat and plants. Another reason Europeans are taller than Americans now I guess.
I used to be a vegetarian, conincidentally it was while I was dating a vegetarian. I think I could eat as a vegetarian would for a night to see some vegan strippers.
As long as said strippers shave, cause a lot of times Veganism and not shaving go hand in hand.
I'm always kind of puzzled about PETA's holier-than-thouness about exploiting animals, but obliviousness to exploiting women..."bikini-clad hottie outside McDonalds" is one of their staple events.
Anyway, nothing against a vegan stripper as long as she doesn't fart during a lap dance.
@#20 posted by zikzak
Score:
zikzak - 1
World - 0
Nice one!
I have no sympathy for the branch of feminism that views anything sex-related as inherently oppressive to women. As a philosophy student, I have actually had to read a fair amount of feminist thought, and I can fairly say that not all of it is created equal (I'm actually quite fond of Donna Haraway's science-friendly "Cyborg Manifesto" feminism), but it's this particular type which gives "feminists" a bad name in some circles.
I also happen to be a vegetarian, and I would much rather be associated with the Suicide Girls than with those humorless feminists who believe that any woman who would choose to go into some kind of sex work must be laboring under some kind of false consciousness.
I honestly think this tactic, often employed by intellectuals overly enamored of Marx or Freud, is grossly unfair to individuals. Claiming to know a person better than she knows herself is precisely the kind of disrespectful treatment that women have been subjected to for ages and which (other) feminists rightly decry.
Now, I'm not a libertarian so I recognize that "choice" is not as unproblematic as it is often made out to be. Women who end up in sex work would often rather not be there. Nevertheless, not all sex work is the same, and some of it is far less exploitative than others.
The "Ink not Mink" program seems very low on the exploitation scale; here a woman could sensibly choose to use her body in a way that promotes a cause she strongly believes in. Far from being duped by the "White Capitalist Patriarchy", such women are acting intelligently and their choices ought to be respected.
Being able to have a casual attitude about sex and viewing sex work as any other kind of work is, I would argue, an ideal not unlike viewing race as unimportant and aiming for a 'color-blind' way of life. While not pretending that there aren't problem of race, gender, class, and so forth in the world, one can still recognize that these problems don't necessarily manifest in every sphere of life. Some progress has certainly been made.
A smarter feminism would do a better job of picking its battles. Otherwise feminists end up creating the kind of resentment that only hinders their cause.
That's funny, because my first reaction was, "Wow, veganism and animal rights being used as a marketing gimmick to sell sex."
@#27 Spinobobot
The other problem with these feminist critiques is that they are heterosexist. For Gay Men, adult videos were (at least one point before this awful bareback trend) a vital tool in teaching and socializing safer sex practices in the middle of a deadly crisis.
In my own adult videos I only wear fake leather - and in interviews I make a point that I'm vegetarian. Working against the stereotypes, I've built a great physique without drugs or meat.
As a result, lots of guys have written asking how they can go meat free and still body build. By being a different kind of vegetarian - one that makes vegetarianism fun, sexy and attractive, I've done more for the cause than a lot of shrill ranting has ever done.
I'm hoping these women's experiences as vegan strippers have been equally positive.
Why isn't PETA upset over the cruelty to beavers? (Sorry, insert appropriate Hot-Shot- Part-Deux joke here)
Can I get some clarity here? Are the dancers Vegan? Or is it just the food they serve?
Whoever said they couldn't eat at a strip club, here in Denver one of the premiere topless bars serves one of the best steaks in the city. Oh, yeah, I forgot this was about meat-free strip clubs.... heh. I really didn't put that one together until I had typed it.
I actually know enough uncranky, unranty vegans and feminists to know that:
A. They do exist
B. It's possible to uncouple one from the other.
So I feel pretty confident in also asserting that there are some people out there who seem like they would be genuinely unhappy if they didn't have something to protest or rush the fences over.
But has anyone ever decided to go vegan because of Pam Anderson's lettuce-clad boobs? If the answer, as I strongly suspect, is no, then all feminist arguments aside, it's just a stupid fucking waste of time and energy.
That being said, I find the idea of eating ANYTHING served by/in the presence of naked women repellant, for purely hygienic reasons.
And the Suicide Girls are stupid because they say they're promoting an alternative ideal of beauty. If 99% of them are white, skinny, and young, all the Hot Topic clearance bin underwear in the world doesn't magically make them "alternative". Sorry, try again.
I don't see anything wrong with showing beautiful women to promote veganism. It's all about advertising and the more we can get the image of vegans out to the masses as something cool and sexy, the more people we'll be able to reach and then talk about the deeper issues at stake.
@10 Bubbledragon
Check out scapegoattattoo.com, the first vegan Tattoo shop here in Portland =D
Oh, Portland. It's so nice living in the strip club capitol of the U.S.
Not that I've actually been to any.
All this crap about feminism, PETA, vegans etc. What really matters is that they employ a 19y.o. HOTTIE. She has to sit at the minors table though so you can't buy her drinks. Oregon shuns all things Victorian and repressed and allows for full nudity and ETOH, however there is absolutely no touching. If you're in PDX and looking for a real strip club with more steeze than Vegas get thee to Mary's Club.
The "vegan" food is poma frites, quesadillas and the 5 other crappy things required by the OLCC. It's not a highlight at all.
Enjoy the show, tip a dollar per song and quit bitching about all these non applicable trivialities.
"Don't call me dude..."
-sourbasil
Not every vegetarian is a jerk about it. And I've had plenty of meat-eaters interrogate me about my eating habits: I've even had meat waved in my face. But enough about my personal life...
In all seriousness, I try to live by the Golden Rule: don't be a dick to me, I won't be a dick to you... or something like that.
Nah, I'm a very passionate vegan - in all ways it has been a religious experience for me, from rebirth on - and I think any mode that raises an often latent capacity to question and challenge one's own belief system is a good thing. Good for everyone's team. Nice win.
And by the way, it seems more like the veganism is the gimmick for the sexuality, not the other way around, as presented, because it's more likely that the sexuality is what's ultimately making the place its money.
For #20, and anybody else talking about the sustainability of eating meat, peak oil, etc, I hate to burst your bubble, but if you think vegan/vegetarianism is the most sustainable/efficient way of eating, you've fallen into the trap of thinking that because something is currently a certain way, that therefore it must necessarily be that way, by definition.
Yes, our current way of raising meat is horribly inefficient. 70 kg of grain for every kg of beef, right? And don't get me started on feeding corn to cows.
However, if you were going to set up your food production system to make the most efficient production per acre of arable land, the diet you would pick is a _mostly_ vegetarian diet, but you'd still eat meat. About 1/4-1/2 of what the average north american eats, but you'd still eat meat.
It has to do with the fact that when you let fields go fallow, you can use them for grazing livestock, you can feed livestock parts of plants that are indigestible to humans, and you can use them for milk production.
Am I the only one who's ever heard the theory that the reason cows are 'sacred' in some cultures is because, given pre-industrial farming techniques and a high population density, the cow is more useful as a "milk and fertilizer factory" than a "meat factory"?
#4 QOZMIQ,
zikzak already answered you but let me add some. Your very lame argument has been used as bad excuse for harming, exploiting and killing animals so many times that there's even a special journal article that refutes it. Go read it.
Matheny, Gaverick "least harm: a defense of vegetarianism from steven davis’s omnivorous proposal", Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 16: 505–511, 2003
Yakta
My 'argument' was neither lame, nor, an argument at all. I am all for people eating how they choose. I stated that twice. But the holier than thou vegans and vegetarians who do not eat meat for on a 'cruelty to animals' platform, are simply ignoring the fact that the very fruits and vegetables that they are eating caused the deaths of animals in their production. This is not an argument. This is a fact. I am sorry if you find 'facts' to be lame. Yes, eating meat does indeed require extraneous amounts of food to produce it. ..and that is ridiculous.
So, my very lame 'argument' as you perceive it is thus:
-Eating meat causes animals to die
-Not eating meat still causes animals to die.
Hurling insults is not part of a discussion. Thats what leads to an argument. Maybe you will one day learn the difference.
The article you posted is also so full of holes - on both sides of the fence.
@ QOZMIQ #42
You objected to what you called an argument and tried to give reasons for that objection. That's giving an argument by standard definition. It was in this case also a lame argument and has been proven wrong so many times for so long but still gets thrown around as a bad excuse by meat eaters all the time.
You seem to misunderstand the reasoning that animal ethical vegans found their stance upon. We "holier than thou vegans" do not believe veganism (or any other human activity on earth for that matter) does not cause any animal deaths even indirectly. But as zikzak pointed out, and the referenced article elaborates, meat eating causes an enourmous amount of ADDITIONAL suffering, exploitation, deprivation and harmful death. That additional killing of animals for meat is also a practice that is direct, intentional and unneccessary (you don't need meat to survive). These features, not any supposed "death vacuum", provide reasons for veganism. Ask yourself: why knowingly cause (by own action or by paying the meat industry) much more harm when you do not need to to lead a flourishing human life?
I also hope you're not really "all for people eating how they choose". I'm all against people choosing cannibalism for instance (I guess that makes me a "holier than thou", "preaching" human rights activist...) Cannibalism is wrong since it would harm and kill others for simple culinary pleasures. The case for veganism is very similar.
Finally, if you've found "holes" in that article then I'd love to hear about them, so please elaborate.
Is 'Yakta' short for "Yak tastes like wet dog fur?" Cuz it does.
@antinous
Your kind of unconstructive comment is functionally equivalent to someone, in a discussion on sexism, throwing out a personal attack comment like "why so angry girl? Haven't gotten any sex in a long time?".
Can we get a bacon-double-cheeseburger for table 45? Hold the tits.
Yakta, you are the last person who should be criticizing anyone for an unconstructive comment. The only thing lame here is your perspective. You seem to be trying to force a point upon me that I am not (and never was) trying to make. You vegan? Great. Your diet causes the death of animals. Yes, less than a meat based diet. But, in the end, animals still die to create your food. You seem to not want to admit to this.
Following your trend of pointless arguments, which have nothing to do with the real discussion at hand..and nothing to do with anything for that matter.....Hitler was a vegetarian.
BTW....I have not eaten meat in about 4 years. For health reasons. But, I find your platform, full of guano.
Actually, I'm usually on the receiving end of that particular comment because everyone knows that it's true.
ah heh! I love the web;
"Guanylate-is this vegan? No way!
I personally do not eat guanylate, also know as disodium Guanylate, it is bat feces collected in caves. I know the bats are well cared for and not mistreated to get the feces, but I have a very delicate stomach for anything gross in my food. I have notices this ingridient in so many products, including Zatarains rice and all flavored chips (I do not eat any packages foods at all) and my friend insists guanylate is vegan. Please settle this argument!
It is not on the Peta list of animal products. Maybe we should add it. I wont eat it for religious reasons(eating feces goes agaist Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, all three major religions. Its unclean! Even if it doesnt hurt the bats, its feces. What next What if dog turds tasted good? Would people eat them? Yuck!"
__________________
@qozmiq,
Repetition is setting in now so I'll post this, read your reply and then move on. I have understood you as claiming this:
1. that vegans/veggies believe that their diet involves no animal deaths (and that some of them, like me, do not want to admit that fact)
2. that "the cruelty to animals argument does not hold any water whatsoever" (#4, #16)
3. that the cruelty argument fails because it was based on the asserted false veggie belief from 1.
If you haven't meant to say 1, 2 & 3 then I'm sorry for misinterpreting you. As a defense I'd like to say that it sure sounded as you were saying those things. Since 1, 2 & 3 are extremely common anti-vegan claims I hope you can understand why I perhaps hastily interpreted you as making them.
If you however have claimed 1, 2 & 3 then let me repeat: you are wrong on all three points.
Re: 1. I have repeatedly "admitted" the fact that even a vegan diet is causally linked to animal deaths (please reread #43). I have known that fact for as long as I can remember. The animal ethics literature also clearly admit it. No vegan that I know or have ever met have disputed that fact. In short, your view about what vegans/veggies believe is false.
Re: 2. & 3. You have misunderstood the basic animal ethical arguments for veganism (and what is commonly meant by the cruelty to animals argument). See any of the basic texts in the animal ethics literature for details, for example Tom Regans "The case for animal rights". The vegan case is not based on the asserted belief in 1.
While some of the historical details are contested, and the definition of "vegetarian" a bit fuzzy, I definitely admit that even the possibility of Hitler being a vegetarian is troubling! It certainly adds to my scepticism against vegetarians (in contrast to us vegans of course). BTW, I get even more sceptical when I consider the even less vegan and even more mass murderous meat lover Stalin...