This reminds me of a print ad I once showed my students during our advertisement unit.  The ad was for a car, and the bottom two thirds of the ad featured the typical "this car is driving fast on a curving mountain road" shot.  The top third featured the head and shoulders of a woman seen from behind; she was stroking the back of her own neck, looking sensual.

My students were confused.  They understood each part separately, but not together.  And as best as we could figure out, that's how it was supposed to work: the two components were supposed to catch our attention in different ways, and somehow our puny consumer's brains were supposed to associate the sexiness with the fast, rugged car, even though there was no pictorial logic to hold them together except proximity.

I think this PETA ad is meant to work like that, especially given their history of spuriously linking pro-animal behaviors (don't wear fur, don't eat animals) to sexual female bodies.  The furry wallet (UGH) is eye-catching, and the anti-fur statement is there in all its vainglory and improper use of quotation marks.  There is no logic to hold this piece together: it's just more meaninglessly stirring controversy via the female body.

I'm disappointed, for all that I thought I was done being disappointed with PETA, because they have another fur campaign where they encourage men to grow facial hair to raise awareness about fur.  My friends and I have long wished that they would include women in that campaign, but never really expected them to.  But here we have the opposite.  Oh well.

so... they want us to wear leather?

I think your disgust is misplaced here.

PETA is against animal fur trade.

They really don't care about human body hair.  However, they're SO AGAINST FUR, that they'll partner with anyone who's willing to help them advance their goals of getting rid of the animal fur/skin trade.

Ultimately you could argue that this ad is against PETA's own values, as it suggests leather is fine, as it's skin w/o fur.  However that isn't the case.

PETA is known for shock-ads, and they're known for doing anything and everything to get their message out there.  This is just one more way.  It isn't a judgement for or against pubies.

This isn't the first time PETA has equated wearing fur with having natural pubic hair. I remember another print ad maybe seven years ago that had a picture of a "furry" panty line and made some statement about how it was disgusting, just like wearing animal fur. Like "fur isn't sexy." 

It was around the same time (same campaign, I think) as the PETA ad with a naked woman marked up like an animal carcass for butchering. I guess that one was supposed to be "feminist" becasue we are supposed to find it disgusting to think of women's bodies as meat (so we should think of eating animals as equally disgusting).

Is this an actual ad that PETA is using? it looks/sounds like something from a student's portfolio- something from someone who's *almost* there, but hasn't really finessed the art of "shock" advertising, and it was made as a project or something. it seems slightly amateurish and too "look at meeee!", even for PETA.

There's no convoluted logic here - Ministry of Waxing are merely looking for a gimmicky advertisement for their services, and so have arranged this charity donating deal to promote their wares. The "joke" is - PETA want to get rid of fur - and so do Ministry of Waxing. No I'm not exactly rolling around laughing either - but it is pretty obvious what they're getting at.

The "ad campaign is certainly sending a message that women's bodies are unacceptable as they are" - well no, that's by no means certain - in fact I'd imagine that it's not sending that message at all. Ministry of Waxing make a living out of taking away people's bodily hair - I'd guess most, but not all, of their customers are females, but it's entirely up to each individual whether to take away any or all of their pubic hair. You don't like getting rid of pubic hair ? Fine - don't get a Brazilian. I don't think PETA or anyone else is likely to have a problem with that (and fairly few are likely to know)

It's amazing for something to be at the same time so unsubtle with one layer of meaning (the vulva-like imagery) and so subtle with another that we still don't know the message that they intended to transmit other than hey, it looks like down there.

Seriously, it's incredible.

For goodness sake people, this is NOT A PETA AD! Read the 'fine print'. The voice (the 'we' and the 'us') is the Ministry of Waxing. PETA is not going to donate $2 from every specified waxing service given in-store to itself.

Furthermore and likewise, PETA did not partner with the Ministry of Waxing. The Ministry of Waxing partnered with PETA in that they gave the correct donation amount to claim [buy] the title 'partner' and the right to use the logo on their advertising. In advertising, the partnering (or sponsoring) entity often does not even see the ad (or hear it, if on radio) before it goes public - even though they have their logo [name] on it.

Lisa, does a re-review of the ad make more sense now?

Even knowing what I'm supposed to be seeing in that ad, I still can't unsee my first impression, which was that the wallet most closely resembles the open mouth of a newly hatched chick awaiting food from its parent. So my first thought was, "But birds don't have fur."

I do wear bare skin. It's beneath my "pubies". My pubicles. My pubelots.

...you come up with something better.

I really don't get it. Shouldn't PETA be in favour (Canadian spelling) of women keeping their own "fur?" And not in favour or women being shorn, or agreeing to be shorn, just to help some business prosper or achieve some kind of womanly ideal?    

Gimmick gone terribly wrong. 

As someone who is in strong favor of animal rights, I hate PETA. This ad is a perfect example of PETA helping to assure the general public believes animal rights activists are simply wackos. I have a theory that animal rights would be much farther along if this organization never existed. 

Also, is PETA's proposed porn site up yet? The organization has to finally finish up its goal of equating animal rights with sexism.

I'm confused by the update.  The "PETA Business Friend logo" is something very different than the PETA logo--it's visible at the link in the update.  What appears in the ad isn't that logo; it's the actual PETA logo.

So this isn't just "hi we're PETA-friendly!"; this is a PETA logo with the phrase "Ministry of Waxing has teamed up with PETA" (emphases added) in the ad.  That goes beyond, far beyond, the sort of thing where a company can say "we disclaim any responsibility for how our logo is used"; I feel fairly certain that I wouldn't be allowed to use the PETA logo in an ad saying "for every steak we sell, we'll donate $1 to PETA!".  PETA may not have actively approved this ad, but if they did "team up with" the waxing company, they're part of this promotion.  (And while I'm not a lawyer, I'd be willing to bet they're not allowed to disclaim legal responsibility for it.)

If they accepted a donation from a group making the donation specifically to use their logo, then they do indeed approve of the ad. I do not see it any other way.

Personally, I've always disliked hairy bodies...pubic or not...men and women. I suppose it could be said  that I dislike the obvious reminder that humans are just slightly smarter animals, but in fact I tend to emphasize that homo sapiens is just an animal.

The problem here is quite insidious: the central issue is one of poorly framed messaging, and the long term ramifications of subsuming serious, thoughtful ethics into glib, sexualized iconography for mass consumption. 

Of course, there is no "ethos" here, merely parlaying narcissistic marketing cleverness, commonly known in mainstream marketing as "messaging."  While I resist the idea of messaging, not all messaging is inherently bad, and although it is ubiquitously oversimple, simplicity has a place.  

But objectification and exploitation are presumably the core of PETA's ethical (E) objections, though they have no problems pulling out commodification and objectification when it serves the marketing message, a very shallow approach that neither educates, raises awareness, or adheres to their express ethical concerns. 

I am not referring to morality, which I believe a different intellectual species, but the more sweeping issues of objectification and exploitation as a modus operandi for a group making sweeping claims to ethical concerns.  The ethical considerations raised by empathy and understanding are perverted by this type of message: a bandaid on cancer is a charitable descriptive simile.

I hope that the comments made here make it to PETA's powers-that-be; however, I am not certain that ethical considerations govern much of their decision making, ethics having long ago been abandoned in service to self-serving expediency.  

The Ministry of Waxing is a real thing?  I thought it was a Monty Python skit.