Surprise, surprise: The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is using sex to sell its beliefs. Again. And I’d think vegetarians would be getting pretty sick of it by now.

The organization has come out with a new advertisement to promote vegetarianism. Or is it really that new? The new commercial features a completely bare actress pulling herself out of a pool. Not that innovative.

Lisa Lange, spokeswoman for PETA, says the group has to “keep being creative” about the way it gets its message out. It doesn’t take a lot of creativity to figure out that the general public will watch naked people on television.

Nonetheless, nudity seems to be a thing with PETA. This is far from the first time it has used naked men or women to market its beliefs. All sorts of naked, sunken supermodels have pouted their lips and barely covered themselves – all in the name of animal rights.

On PETA’s Web site, you can see the Botoxed shell that was formerly supermodel Janice Dickinson covering – and not well – some male protestor’s nakedness with her hand. “Survivor” winners Jenna Morasca and Ethan Zohn donned fig leaves in a smutty imitation of Adam and Eve. Other tasteless examples abound.

What does all this have to do with treating animals humanely? I’m stumped.

But who is this naked mystery actress in the new commercial? It’s Alicia Silverstone, a relic from the 1990s who you may remember from movies such as “Clueless” or “Batman and Robin.”

I understand that Silverstone is a big girl now. She can make her own decisions. Fine. To me, the ad seems like a desperate cry for attention on her part. But I’m not worried about her exploiting her own body. I’m worried that PETA, a group that supposedly believes strongly in vegetarian principles, can’t sell those principles without using sex.

Lange claims the ad campaign is working. She says “hundreds of thousands of people have come to [the] Web site.” Yeah, to masturbate.

She also called this commercial “tasteful” in an interview with Bill O’Reilly. No matter what you think of O’Reilly, he has a point when he states what should be obvious about the ad: “It’s working, and it’s working because [PETA is] selling sex.” The group thinks it can’t market vegetarianism based solely on its merits. There’s nothing tasteful about that.

Why do vegetarians put up with this? If I were a vegetarian, I would be angry.

Oh, you should be a vegetarian so you can look like Alicia Silverstone. And because Alicia said to. You should do it because it’s sexy and in right now — not because of the various health benefits any vegetarian could list for you. Oh, and by the way, if you don’t look like a supermodel, you can’t be a vegetarian. That would hurt the image PETA is trying to present.

PETA should actually be creative for once with its advertising, instead of making the same risque, tasteless campaigns time after time. And the people PETA represents should demand that their way of life be given more credit. The group’s beliefs can stand up by themselves without the help of sex appeal. The fact that PETA thinks they can’t is just insulting.

– Bailey Lewis is a sophomore in English from Indianola.