Is this strip club feminist?

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Thought you might like to see this:


The Carrot Some Vegans Deplore
Lisa Bauso for The New York Times

VEGANS GONE WILD The Casa Diablo Club offers cruelty-free stripping.
By KARA JESELLA
Published: March 27, 2008

TWO things that you can find a lot of in Portland, Ore., are vegans
and strip clubs. Johnny Diablo decided to open a business to combine
both. At his Casa Diablo Gentlemen's Club, soy protein replaces beef
in the tacos and chimichangas; the dancers wear pleather, not leather.
Many are vegans or vegetarians themselves.


Natasha Calzatti for The New York Times

FOR THE CAUSE The Vegan Vixens see their performances as educational.

But Portland is also home to a lot of young feminists, and some are
not happy with Mr. Diablo's venture. Since he opened the strip club
last month, their complaints have been "all over the Internet," he
said. "One of them came in here once. I could tell she had an attitude
right when she came in. She was all hostile."

Mr. Diablo isn't concerned with the "feminazis," as he calls them. As
a vegan himself, he says he hasn't worn or eaten animal products in 24
years and is worried about cruelty to animals. "My sole purpose in
this universe is to save every possible creature from pain and
suffering," he said.

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.

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.

This isn't the first time animal rights activists have been accused of
sexism. Many vegans have long criticized PETA for using naked
celebrities in its advertising campaigns and for staging stunts like
naked protests.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, a cookbook author, is among those who believe
such images twist the vegan message. "As a feminist, I'm not keen on
the idea of using women's bodies to sell veganism, and I'm not into
the idea of using veganism to sell women's bodies," she said.

Ms. Moskowitz is the host of an online forum, Post Punk Kitchen
(www.www.theppk.com), some of whose members are debating Mr. Diablo's
vegan strip club. (Last week Mr. Diablo put the club up for sale,
although not because of the criticism, he said. He may have
underestimated the appeal of stripping to vegans, or of vegan cuisine
to striptease fans; an earlier vegan restaurant he ran was poorly
received.)

The issue of sexism in vegan circles is "extremely polarizing," said
Bob Torres, an author of "Vegan Freak," a guide to living a vegan
lifestyle, which generally means avoiding the use of animals for food,
clothing or other purposes. Mr. Torres, like many vegans, disavows the
"essential idea at the heart of some animal rights activism that any
means justifies the ends," he said. Certain activists, he added, care
only about "animal suffering and ignore the suffering of humans," a
category into which he would put women who are exploited.

According to a 2006 Harris poll commissioned by the Vegetarian
Resource Group, which publishes The Vegetarian Journal, only about 2.3
percent of the adult population of the United States is vegetarian. At
most, half of those are practicing vegans. But the vegan philosophy
has achieved a prominence greater than those small numbers would
indicate. There are many celebrity acolytes, including Natalie
Portman, who recently introduced a line of nonleather shoes. The best-
selling diet book "Skinny Bitch" and a follow-up cookbook, "Skinny
Bitch in the Kitch," promote veganism. Both have been accused of
sexist undertones.

People adopt a diet free of animal products for a variety of reasons.
They may believe it is healthier or more environmentally friendly.
They may support animal rights. In addition, veganism is often part of
a larger progressive agenda, which makes many particularly sensitive
to sexism charges.

Carol J. Adams, the author of "The Sexual Politics of Meat," a bible
of the vegan community, said that women's rights and the rights of
animals have often been aligned. She traces the relationship to the
1890s. "A lot of feminist suffragists also became vegetarian," said
Ms. Adams, who gave up meat in 1974 while living in a feminist
community in Cambridge, Mass. She noted that Susan B. Anthony attended
a dinner at which the toast was for "Total Abstinence, Women's Rights
and Vegetarianism." (An unrepentant omnivore, Ms. Anthony had a
predilection for porterhouse steak.)

Ms. Adams added that feminists were early adopters of vegetarianism.
"Back in the '70s, lots of women were saying, 'I don't want to be a
piece of meat. I'm not going to eat a piece of meat,' " she said.

Vegans who use sexuality to promote the cause say it is a good way to
convert carnivores -- in particular, men. Sky Valencia, the founder of
the Vegan Vixens, said her group targets "the people who buy Playboy
and Maxim and watch talk shows like Jerry Springer. Those are the
people we want to educate because they don't know anything about the
environment or animal rights issues or health."

The Vixens have a cookbook in the works and will appear on a new
television show, "30 Days" with Morgan Spurlock, in an episode about a
hunter who has to live with a group of PETA activists for a month. Ms.
Valencia said that she has taken a lot of flak from "the stricter
women vegans -- they are sometimes a little tough on using sex appeal
to sell an idea, but sex appeal is everywhere."

And, she said, men have told her that it works. "We've gotten a lot of
men eating vegetarian, if not vegan."



In a culture where hamburgers and steak are considered emblems of
masculinity, this may be no small feat. Most men have never even tried
vegetarian food, Mr. Diablo of Portland said. "It's as if it's going
to threaten their manhood." He said that introducing veganism to them
at a strip club makes the notion more, well, palatable, even if the
formula didn't seem to work as well as he had hoped.
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A member of the Suicide Girls, tattoo-clad for a controversial PETA
campaign.

Elaine Vigneault, 32, a vegan and former women's studies major who
lives in New York, doesn't have a problem with a vegan strip club or a
recent PETA protest in London in which a pregnant woman got into a
cage in her underwear to draw attention to the treatment of pregnant
pigs. "I think it's really important that when reviewing and analyzing
images of women, we take into account their perspective of what
they're trying to say," Ms. Vigneault said.

Rory Freedman, an author of the "Skinny Bitch" books, which promote
veganism in the guise of a diet, said women who are taking part in
demonstrations and stripping off their clothes "are choosing to do so
of their own free will." The issues they are exposing, she said, "are
the torture of animals that don't have free will."

Contributors to the popular feminist blog Feministing have criticized
the emphasis of the "Skinny Bitch" books on weight loss, noting that
some women with eating disorders use vegan diets to restrict their
food intake. Ms. Freedman isn't buying that critique. "It's not
politically correct to suggest women should be thin," she said. "But
it is healthier."

Missy Suicide, a founder of the Suicide Girls, a Web site whose
hundreds of alt-girl models post erotic pictures of themselves, has
been a vegetarian since she was 6. She views her group's participation
in peta2's "Ink, Not Mink" anti-fur campaign as both pro-animal and
pro-woman. "We're redefining beauty," she said. "These aren't the
types of girls you'd see in most mainstream media as being beautiful."

"Sexuality is what society will turn its head for more than anything
else," said Ingrid Newkirk, the president of PETA, who added that the
recent advertisements were just one of the group's strategies. "We try
to reach everybody in different ways." She noted that the group has
also shown naked men in ads.

Plus, she said, using female sexuality to draw attention to veganism
is just one of many issues being discussed in the outspoken vegan
community. "It's not civil war," she said. "It's just a difference of
opinion