Customer Reviews

Pornography of Meat

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This more easily digestible offering from Carol J. Adams, furthers the provocative argument put forward in "The Sexual Politics of Meat" -- that meat eating is an intrinsic part of a patriarchal society.

Adam's tells us,

"Before someone can be consumed or used, she has to be seen as consumable, as usable, as a something instead of a someone."

In other words, in order to enjoy pornography, we must forget that the body we are watching is that of a full person who might want to be somewhere other than in front of the camera, naked. And in order to enjoy meat, we must not think of the life of the animal who would rather be out in a field guarding her offspring, than on our plate. Rather, we must think of both as consumable objects.

The book is full of visual images that make that link for us. For example, on page 14, we see a roasted chicken, photographed from above, wings crossed behind what should be the head but is the severed neck. A bikini has been painted on the carcass, so we have the impression of a sunbathing woman, roasting in the sun. A link is clearly being drawn between two consumable objects.

Adams shares many fascinating images from popular culture in which animals are feminized and women are animalized. Sometimes the analogies are clear, sometimes I find them too much of a stretch. But the pictures and arguments are all thought-provoking. 'The Pornography of Meat' is short and easy to read. It would make a great holiday gift for anybody with an interest in feminism.

"The Pornography of Meat" seems largely to be a condensed version of Adams's earlier volume, "The Sexual Politics of Meat". The general premise is the same, as are many of her arguments; however, "Pornography" is much shorter and easier to wade through.

With its informal writing style, "Pornography" reminds me of a journal-slash-scrapbook as opposed to a more scholarly piece of literature. Adams's writing style can be somewhat disconcerting; she shifts gears rapidly, leaving the reader with the feeling that she's jumping from topic to topic without fully resolving (many of) them. Her arguments are sometimes so abstract and theoretical that they seem enigmatic. Additionally, Adams does provide references, but not in an especially organized manner; as a result, it's hard to tell what information she pulled from which sources.

Don't get me wrong, "Pornography" is not without its redeeming qualities. Every few pages, Adams does hit the reader w/an excellent point, making all the other jargon worthwhile. The pictures (and there are many!) are the book's single best feature - but unfortunately they're all reproduced in black and white, many of them shrunk down to a fraction of their normal size so that the critical details are obscured.

One more minor gripe: as one of the leading AR organizations, PETA bears the brunt of anti-ARA criticisms, not all of them invalid. Though Adams does mention PETA's "exploitation" of women in their ads, the discussion is unfortunately very brief. As PETA is seen as the Church of the AR movement (and leader Newkirk as its Pope), I thought a more detailed discussion would have been appropriate (after all, what's more ironic than sexism in an organization designed to eradicate "ism"s?).

Adams is one of the few feminist writers that tackles the topic of "parallel oppressions" (speciesism, sexism, racism, etc.). There are painfully few books that deal with such issues, so "Pornography" is a must for anyone interested in the subject. If you'd like to learn more about feminism in relation to animal rights, this book is certainly worth the price - and is actually one of the few options out there.

As a vegetarian, and as someone who is interested in media and the use of it, I had high hopes for this book. They were sadly not met. The idea is good, but the writing is horrible. Adams is all over the place. Paragraphs jump from one subject to another making no sense at all. It is very hard to follow. And there are few references - instead of foot or end notes Adams uses 'citations' at the back of the book and the reader is left to guess what exactly was cited on the page.
There is such a wealth of material available on this topic, and in the hands of a better writer this book would have been truly amazing.
Don't buy it.

This is an interesting book. The theory behind it no doubt has a place in our society. However, the evidence used to support this theory is ad hoc at best. As a result there is no limit on the range that Adams attempts to apply her world view. The chapters lack focus as jumps from topic to topic. I would have like a little bit more unity and building up to the individual chapter focus. The other issue is the books lack of theory that works towards etiology. She does not describe an explanation behind her theory and somewhat bashes evolutionary psychologist David Buss who would provide an underlying theory. To be concise, the book is interesting but it is chaotic and appears to regress feminism back to the negative stereotype of the anger femiminst. There are better choices out there on both feminism and animal rights.

In my review of the The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-vegetarian Critical Theory, 20th Anniversary Edition, I expressed annoyance that Adams, like so many feminists, ties her other causes to feminism (i.e., anyone who is a real feminist ought to be a vegetarian) and wondered if she does the reverse and ties feminism to her vegetarian cause (i.e., is a vegan who doesn't support women's right a real vegetarian?) Well, more or less. Less in that she only obliquely argues that vegetarians ought to espouse feminist viewpoints, but she does take PETA to task for using pornography to sell animal rights. (I have no idea if Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA, considers herself to be a feminist.)

Unfortunately, in this book, she is, to a lesser extent, doing the same thing with ecological concerns that she did with feminism in the previous book. In general, I think it is simplistic to assume that vegetarianism is automatically more environmentally friendly: crop farming can have serious ecological consequences and have many of the same ethicial issues regarding species considered as vermin. I would hate to have ecological decisions made on such a shallow basis.

I will try to be fair: Adams hasn't convinced me, but I'll admit that I'd be a hard sell, so I wouldn't declare the book to be universally unconvincing. Adams seems to have aimed her book, intentionally or not, at the college crowd. After searching the statewide database of public libraries with which Maryland is blessed, I found that I had to drive to the University to read the book, unless I wanted to order it. Moreover, the writing is rather academic. This is not a criticism, Adams has the right to choose her audience, and perhaps this is the sector of the public to go after. It is just not likely to cross the paths of meat-eaters in general.

Adams argues that there is an "A-List", e.g. white, male, human, whose members dominate the "non-A-List", e.g. non-white, female, nonhuman. She is quite aware that it is possible to be on both lists, but argues that being female trumps being white and moves white women to the "non-A-List", as least with regard to white men, and and argues that us "non-As" should stick together. She sees pornography as reducing women to "things", whose feelings need not be considered, or who are eager to be used as objects, and that similar tactics are applied to meat animals. I shall reflect carefully on this argument; as any statistician knows, arguments from corelations are extremely tricky. The person who wants support for vegetarianism will doubtless find this a good support for their views. I'm not sure that it makes the absolute authoritarian argument that Adams intends.

Some cultures exploited animals without reducing them to unregarded things: the Puritan objection to bull-baiting has been distorted to an objection to fun, but in fact it was an argument that inflicting pain on animals for food and clothing was acceptable, but finding amusement in the infliction of pain, or inflicting simply as an amusement, was not. Many Native Americans had the same ethic: hunting was acceptable for supplying daily needs, but not simply as an amusement. If Adams were simply attempting to persuade us that we who can should avoid exploiting animals for work or products, now that industrialization and global trade have made it much easier to do so, I would have no quarrel with her.

The arguments gets slightly confused, as these arguments tend to, by Adams' discussions of the treatment of farm animals. That would seem to imply that if animals were raised under more humane conditions, her objections to meat-eating would be reduced, and I don't believe that's the case. Her illustrations include an advertisement from someone who raises organic, free-range chickens, and I presume that is there as another example of unacceptable behavior. She argues that cows are a reverse-protein machine, i.e. they consume more protein than they produce, but this neglects the fact herbivores can eat foods that we cannot and convert it to food that we can. Yes, they are sometimes fed food that people could eat, but since Adams apparently wouldn't approve of eating purely grass-fed cows, their diet is more or less irrelevant to her premise.

She also adds a few other issues, like gay pornography, health, and animal snuff movies for masochistic men that I presume are intended to rebuke animal exploitation by association, but which also undermine the central argument. This doesn't even get into the arguments about the fate of domestic species if we cease to exploit them, let alone the question of whether animals would be our wards or our equals.

Once again, Adams' ethnography leaves a bit to be desired; in The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-vegetarian Critical Theory, 20th Anniversary Edition, she foolishly attempted to link meat-eating to white racism, in this book she attempts to link it to pornography. Modern pornography, she argues, grows directly out of black slavery, which a dubious argument since pornography is not limited to either the present USA since 1600, nor is it limited to African-Americans. Had she attempted to link it to slavery in general it might have been a better argument. She also cites the arguments that whites needed black slaves in order to feel free. Outside of the historical fact that many colonies banned slavery, although, not, alas racism, does she really want to argue that no-one can feel free unless they have a slave class to look down on?

Further, she apparently believes the common fallacy that societies that live by gathering are vegetarian. I don't see any particular moral merit in not eating meat purely because it it not as readily available. It might be healthier, but that's another side issue. Adams argues that gatherers often consume insect protein, but is that o.k.? One ad that she includes seems to argue that killing insects is wrong. Moreover, shellfish are considered part of gathering, not hunting. (I don't know where fishing falls into the picture.) Is it o.k. to eat animals in climates where vegetarianism isn't possible, or should people never have moved to such places?

I admire the intended kindness behind the arguments without accepting them as a universal moral imperative, or granting Adams the right to rebuke me that she claimed in her earlier book.

The pornography of meat not only adresses the need for intersectional analysis of dominance cultures but does so gracefully, in a historical context and with a lot litterary style. The arguments are well built-up and Carol shows much knowledge in feminist and post-colonial theory. The book covers much ground and returns to the same firm arguments that make it a complete work. When ze evokes Freud that does it for me though, and on single occastions the analysis is one-sided to the extent that I simply feel that there should be an explanation for why two ideas from the same pool seem to be almost contradicting each-other; you can't have the cake and eat it too! But for the most part the book is magnificent and presents its case very simply and adequate. Probably for those who are very easy on reading books which they don't agree on, and people already feminists and vegetarian; for the latter, it should make perfect sense from my perspective.

Any analysis that examines at the intersections of oppression (in this case speciesism and sexism) is important. Unfortunately, Adams is a scattered, non-linear thinker. Her writing is convoluted and fragmented. If a reader is neither a passionate animal rights advocate nor committed to an anti-pornography perspective, s/he is not likely to be very tolerant of the poor writing. As such, most readers who finish this book are probably already members of the choir. This is unfortunate. I hope Adams finds an articulate co-author for her next book. I give four stars for the ideas in the book, and I give two stars for the writing.

Carol J. Adams is a brilliant thinker. In this book, she takes a complex, emotional subject and breaks it down to basic terms that everyone can understand. The point becomes so painfully obvious that it is irrefutable. We have all been seduced by the pornography of meat, even women and we are the objectified class! When we see other beings (human or animal) as simply "parts", it is easier to use and abuse them. Domination of "others" seems to come from fear.

We are all, in some form, still operating in our sleep -- unaware of the manipulation. It's time to WAKE UP and this book is an amazing tool that can help.

if christopher guest ever set out to do - in a book about intellectuals - what he has done on film to rock bands and dog shows, The Pornography of Meat would be the result. here is a book that is so bizzarely and feverishly "leftist" that it seems to defy all reason. the book is a carnival of anti-meat, anti-porn, and anti-man rhetoric that may or may not be true. but, honestly, i can't tell you whether or not it is, because i can't wade through this text seriously. it looks SO MUCH like it was written to act as a parody, that i have a difficult time approaching it as actual scholarship. the basic idea seems to be something like this: there is a distinct and provable relationship between the consumption of meat (or at least media depictions thereof) and the consumption of pornographic movies/magazines, etc.. this all presumably builds from the logic of her first book The Sexual Politics of Meat, which i do not own.

the unquestionable highlight of the book are the many pictures that are offered up as evidence of this sordid relationship between porn and meat: the adult video cover where the female character is "hunted" by lustful men, the 30 year old ad for turkey where the bird carcass is layed out in what we are assured is a purposefully lurid pose. the whole thing is really sort of - excuse the pun - undigestable from the point of view of the skeptic. of course, if you're already a zealous, fervid, wild eyed supporter of these sorts of ideas, then this book will be very gratifying. girls with hairy armpits at liberal-arts colleges in vermont are going to be carrying this around like it was the Bible. the only thing that's missing (though perhaps it's there and i just missed it) was a way to tie all of this in with good old fashioned socialism. you know, the oppression of the masses by the ruling elite? the great future that is bound to come when the terror of property is destroyed and we all live on a big hug-a-bear commune and make arts and crafts and uncomfortable itchy hemp shirts? well, other than that, this book is an angry liberals wet dream.

look, let me speak honestly: i'm a man. i don't think of myself as a part of a patriarchy, or as an oppressor or rapist, or even as a good speller. and i do eat meat. plus, i'm a libertarian, which means that everyone regards me as a "conservative". so, you know, this book obviously wasn't written for me. i appreciate and identify with feminists, but books like this give them a bad name. maybe a book like this is supposed to be so "revolutionary" that it shocks everyone out of their dogmatic slumbers, but it just comes of as fanatical and - worse - flaky. so, take my ill-informed phallocentric egodriven opinion for what it's worth. read this book. if i'm wrong, WHICH EVEN AS A QUASI-CONSERVATIVE I CAN ADMIT THAT I MIGHT BE, then this book will be very informative. if i'm right, then you're bound to find this as entertaining as i did.

I picked up this book in my library, expecting it to be an interesting cross-study of the use of pornography in conjunction with food. When I read it, I was sorely disappointed.

When Adams isn't busy bombarding us with "offensive" images of pornography and sexualized meat, she's telling us how horrible men are. She can't appreciate beauty, and seems to think if a man likes something, it must be bad. She even identifies the reason that men combine images of sex and food--they crave both of those things on an innate level--but she sarcastically dismisses it.

Her constant talk about how men objectify women cites heterosexual pornography a good deal, but she never, even once, mentions the gay male porn industry, and it's quite easy to see why: If she did, her arguments would fall apart like a house of cards. Nor does she mention the fact that every culture in the history of the world (except those with Judeo-Christian roots) objectifies young boys in the same way as they do women.

On a final note, don't take seriously anybody who cites Andrea Dworkin more than once, except in ridicule.