Sex Sells…Ahimsa.

Sex! Violence! Why PETA chose obnoxious tactics for their feel-good causes.

Do PETA’s ends justify their means? Compassion through objectification, celebrity & violence.

PETA may be jerky but if you’re nice about vegetarianism no one pays attention. They made a decision to inject sexiness, obnoxiousness, and celebrity into the conversation. And it’s been effective—changing the policies of big chains like KFC and McDonald’s and Burger King.

As someone who writes nice, polite, thoughtful blogs about controversial subjects, and sees those blogs get scant attention, I can’t blame them for their tactics. We’ve posted on PETA many times before. Here and here and here and here and here and here and (deep breath) heeeeere and here and here and here. And every time we do, we get complaints that they’re mean.

Once in awhile, I post something with sexiness or meanness in a title, and I always see it get 10x the traffic as a nice thoughtful blog I do about a complex subject like…Silk Soy going “natural,” or TOMS Shoes making their wares in un-certified third world factories. Instead of screaming bloody murder or hypocrisy, I look at the issues and give folks a chance to improve. But when I do say, Naked Branson or Naked Yoga or whatever, the key is to keep the info in the writeup real, and grounded, even if the title or photo isn’t.

It’s a speedy, crazy world, and you have to go big sometimes to get attention and make change.

*Ironically, however, my biggest break of all time, my defense of Whole Foods against the calls for Boycotts following CEO John Mackey’s Wall Street Journal editorial against Obama’s Healthcare plan, was in the thoughtful vein. That article got picked up by the New York Times, Atlantic, and lived on the home page of Huffington Post for four days, garnering 500 plus comments.

Bonus, via The Onion: