By: Ann Onymous
Part 1 – Introduction
Being a vegan in a non-vegan society makes me feel like I’m surrounded by kiddie porn watchers everywhere I go. I know that on the one hand these non-vegans are innocent, because they grew up in a culture which brainwashed them into thinking the imprisonment and murder of animals is ok. And so I forgive them, for they know not what they do. But on the other hand I know they are guilty, because of their compassionless complicity in horrible crimes (such as what you see in the 12 minute “Meet Your Meat” video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIjanhKqVC4 ).
So even as I forgive them, even as I count some of them as my loved ones, even as I am awed and inspired by some of them for their otherwise compassionate hearts and ethical enlightenment, I nonetheless fear them, distrust them, and am saddened to the core by them – just as you would be if 99% of the people you knew watched child pornography.
That’s right; I said what you thought I said. Kiddie porn. Child pornography. That horrible thing. In my view, eating meat or food that comes from the bodies of farmed animals is like watching child pornography. When a person consumes child porn, they don’t abuse children directly but they contribute to the economic demand which drives that abuse to occur ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography ). So it is with eating animal products. When a person consumes dairy or meat or eggs, they don’t abuse animals directly but they contribute to the economic demand which drives that abuse to occur. Neither ‘food’ from animals nor child porn would be available to purchase if there weren’t people out there willing to pay for them.
A harsh analogy? Perhaps. But only because most non-vegans are oblivious of certain facts. Fact 1: The lives of farmed animals are as horrible as the mainstream conception of hell. Fact 2: Farmed animals are very similar to us emotionally (see the film “The Emotional World of Farm Animals”: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8312987796490958256 ). Fact 3: Each of these individual animals has its own personality. (People with dogs know that no two dogs are alike. People with cats know that no two cats are alike. But few people realize that the same is true for cows, etc.) So despite that the eating habits of non-vegans help to cause grotesque suffering, the fact of their ignorance makes their hearts somewhat innocent. This is unlike a child porn watcher, who knows that what he/she does is wrong, but just doesn’t care enough to stop.
And so even though I would say that unnecessarily choosing to eat animal products is as great a crime as watching child porn, I would not say that an ignorant non-vegan is as unethical a human being as a child porn watcher. But once a non-vegan knows the horrors that farmed animals suffer and continues to choose to be non-vegan, it’s hard for me to see them as any better than a child porn watcher. Yes, the desire to masturbate to images of children is itself an inherently sick desire, whereas the desire to eat things you find tasty is not sick, but I’m not comparing kiddie porn watchers and informed non-vegans in terms of how sick their desires are. I’m comparing them in terms of their lack of compassion and their degree of responsibility for the existence of horrific abuse. Perhaps we can call this a sickness of the heart.
But how dare I compare mere animal abuse to the sexual abuse of human children!? I dare to because I was a sexually abused child for over five years. It’s my experience, and so it’s my prerogative to use it to make this comparison. (Yet it should be noted that this child porn analogy is only directed at people who can feasibly choose veganism. There are those for whom veganism is not an accessible choice. I’ll discuss this later on.)
I believe that I as a sexually abused child had it far better than a typical farmed animal does. Because at least for me there was good mixed with the bad. Besides abuse and neglect, my childhood had more love and fun and cuddles and play and happiness than the average child. And despite the abuse in early life, I was able to grow up, move away from the abusive situation, get some therapy, and have a chance at healing, happiness, and life. But for farmed animals, torture, pain, and misery fill their lives minute by minute, day by day, until it all ends in painful terrifying murder. They never get a chance to heal, to be happy, or to live an existence worthy of the term ‘life’.
Part 2 – My story
For the most part I’ve been able to ‘get over’ what happened to me. I actually enjoy life now. The typical day for me is a good day, and even my bad days are not all that bad. Not only am I no longer suicidal, but I even hope to live to about 100 because there is so much in life I want to accomplish and enjoy. Yet despite all the healing I’ve done, I still verbally abuse myself. In the running monologue within our minds, we all say negative things towards ourselves at times. But the things I say to myself seem to be much more abusive than what others say to themselves. Things like “I hate you”, “You’re the worst person alive”, “I’m going to fucking kill you”.
Because why else would those who love you fail to protect you even as you screamed in fear and pain again and again everyday? Only if you were the worst person in the world would something like this make sense. And what does the worst person in the world deserve? To be hated; to be killed.
Sadism. When you encounter this in your life you learn a sick secret about humanity that you wish you could forget. To know that there are people out there who get pleasure from your pain, who will enjoy causing it and witnessing it, is one of the biggest mindfucks possible. It doesn’t matter if the pleasure they get from it is emotional or sexual – a sadist is a sadist. It’s all equally terrifying and mind-breakingly bewildering. That anyone could react to your screams of fear and pain and your pleas for mercy by smiling in satisfaction, laughing in amusement, or cumming in orgasm – any of these will stab a knife into and disfigure your view on humanity, the world, life. Seen up close, it becomes so clear that sadism is sick; frighteningly, dangerously sick. It becomes so clear, even to a child, that a sadist is just the complete opposite of what we need human beings to be if we want the species to survive – beings who respond to the pain of others with compassion rather than glee. To encounter a sadist is to learn that some people’s hearts are upside down.
Knowing this hurts. Knowing this so young makes you feel like your mind is bleeding, bleeding so profusely that you nearly drown in it and are in a constant state of exhaustion from treading to keep your head afloat. And then there’s the fear of having to live with a sadist who is disguised as a regular human being. Like being haunted by a ghost only you can see and that nobody else believes in. Seeing how he blends in during social situations you might start to wonder how many other human beings are secretly like him. It is chilling to contemplate.
And you’re left screaming. Screaming and screaming. And yelling, begging: “Don’t!” “No!” “Stop!” “Leave me alone!” Or, to be more accurate: “DOOOOON’T!!!” “NOOOOOOOO!!!” “STOOOOOP!!!” “LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!” For hours. Hours. Multiple screams per minute. Multiple pleas per mercy. There are adults within earshot. They hear you. They don’t come. They don’t help. They used to try to, but gave up on that years ago. Sometimes they yell up the stairs, “Stop playing so rough with your sister!” But just as often they yell, “Ann, stop screaming! I can’t hear myself think!”
Don’t scream.
Don’t play so rough.
Oh, is that what we’re doing? Playing? Because I thought this was torture. But I guess I’m wrong. It’s only play. It’s only a game. Nothing to scream about. You fucking pathetic whining crybaby. Smile shut the fuck up and play along.
He uses his hands to cause pain to any and every conceivable spot on your body, including your pressure points and sexual areas. It makes you scream. It makes you beg for mercy. It makes you fall to the ground and roll into a self-protecting ball as tightly as you can. Makes you thrash around on the floor in agony like a fish out of water or a person having a seizure. Makes you struggle and punch and kick with all your might. Makes you feel like you can’t breathe, can’t catch your breath for even a second, feeling like you might suffocate. At other times it makes you hold your breath in silence trying desperately not to feel.
He is standing behind you. Both your arms behind your back being twisted by him into a painful position that makes it impossible to struggle for freedom without it hurting even more. Your two options: more pain or cooperation with captivity. His hands are big enough that he only needs to use one to bind your wrists helplessly together, leaving his other hand free to do its work. As he attacks you he laughs; amused and entertained. You are his favorite toy.
He tells you how cute you sound when you scream and beg, how cute you look when you’re helpless and struggling. He drags you across the room to a wall with a full length mirror. He’s a head and a neck above you and you can see from his reflection that he is smiling, his eyes glowing and his face radiant with twisted joy. Nothing is more terrifying about any of this than his face when he hurts you.
Both your arms still held at the wrists and twisted behind you by one of his hands, he uses his other hand to hurt and violate you. You scream and beg and struggle and screeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam. You hear a parent yell up the stairs:
“Stop playing so rough with your sister! And Ann, keep the noise down!”
“Look what you did,” he says. And he tells you, as he always does when he has the opportunity, about how your screaming is upsetting your parents, is causing rifts in the family, is evidence of your weakness, is pathetic whining over nothing more than a game.
And you know he’s right. You did scream too loud. You are making them upset. You are whining over nothing. He tells you not to scream and that’s one game you are willing to play along with. That’s one game you can win – sometimes. The more quietly you can take it, the more you can feel proud and strong and somewhat in control. You hold your breath.
“Look at you,” he says, nodding towards your reflection in the mirror. He mentions features of your face and body and makes degrading comments about each. He likes to hurt each part of your body as he talks about it. A preteen’s (non)developing body has plenty to make fun of.
He wants you to agree with him. To say you agree that you’re as hideous as he claims. You refuse. He hurts your body. You still refuse. He hurts your body again, again, again. You refuse and refuse and refuse! It continues like this. Minutes. Minutes. Minutes. How can each minute be this long? So exhausted. So much pain. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Trying not to scream but eventually you scream anyways because it’s too fucking much, it’s just too fucking much. The game lost. The pain crushing. Ok, ok. I’m hideous. I’m hideous. I’m hideous. Please stop, please just stop.
And he does stop. Satisfied with his victory, he leaves you alone for about an hour and a half. Plays some videogames. Then he’s back at you again. To smile at your pain, to laugh at your feeble attempts at self-defense, to have his eyes light up at your screams. You were his favorite toy. A toy he played with everyday for an hour or two or six. More fun than any videogame.
You were lying to him, of course. You don’t really think you’re hideous. You just know that saying that about yourself was the quickest way to get him to leave you alone. But then again, maybe you are hideous. Then again, maybe you absolutely must be hideous. Because who else would be treated this way? Who else would be left ignored and unprotected while screaming in pain this way? Who else but someone hideous? Someone so much worse than everyone else in this world. Someone who should be hated. Someone who should be dead. Perhaps your death, like your pain, would be a source of joy or utter indifference. That’s the kind of person you are.
And so by 7 th grade you already want to die. You take various types of over-the-counter painkillers found in the kitchen cabinet, about 100 in total. But your stomach isn’t having it, and you involuntarily puke several times before the pills have a chance to digest enough to poison you. Your first serious suicide attempt but not your last.
“I hate you”, “You’re the worst person alive”, “I’m going to fucking kill you”.
Part 3 – Animal suffering and human indifference
I think sometimes about what it would mean to be a good ally to the animals. I know it would entail way more than what I do now. If animals in the factory farms and laboratories suddenly gained the consciousness and capacity to have an uprising, and had one, not only would I not think it unfair of them if they tried to commit genocide on humanity, but I’d also not think it unfair if they deemed me unworthy of having my life spared, despite that I have been a vegan since I was 20. After all, I don’t scream in the face of, or even calmly confront, every single non-vegan person I know. I don’t spend my life blowing up factory farms or assassinating those who own them. I’m a shitty, cowardly ally who only speaks up when she has nothing to lose, who would rather avoid the awkward tension of confronting other humans than speak up for the greater good. My efforts to help are no better than my parents yelling up the stairs at my brother to stop playing so rough. And now it’s me who tells myself not to scream too loud.
What these animals go through is far, far worse than what I did. The reason I described details of my abuse experience is to help you understand the implications of this point. I don’t think it trivializes my suffering to have it compared to animal suffering. Quite the opposite – I think it minimizes animal suffering. It is offensive and trivializing to their pain to compare it to mine. I have never been forced to live in a cage more crowded than a rush hour subway. I have never had my genitals cut off without anesthetic. I have never been dangled upside down by my ankles to have my throat slit and the blood drained out of me. I would go through every year of what I went through again and again and again rather than spend one lifetime as one of these tortured creatures. Their bodies always in pain. Exhausted by the pain. Having no control. Being trapped. No rest. No relief. It never stops. Every moment of life an agony. No way to make the pain stop, or even ease. At least most of the 24 hours of my days were abuse free.
And every painful emotion you’ve ever known, they feel it too. The rage. The grief. The insane terror. The smell of death, the sounds of murder. For those animals kept in individual pens, loneliness. For those crammed in cages or sheds with others, severe social discord. Their hearts broken by this. Their minds shattered by it. And by the endless stress and boredom, the utter emptiness and pointlessness of their imprisoned lives. They’re driven literally insane by it all. It’s why the teeth of pigs are removed (without anesthetic) while they are babies – if not, they chew off pieces of their own and each other’s flesh. It’s why the beaks of chicks are seared off with a heated blade (also without anesthetic) – if not, the chickens peck each other to the point of flesh wounds or death. Anyone who doubts that animals experience emotional pain need only reflect on the fact that these are not behaviors that pigs and chickens normally display. They are behaviors they display when they have been emotionally traumatized or driven insane.
And this is all they’ve ever known of life. And all they ever will know. Never knowing what it’s like to breathe with ease. Never knowing what it’s like to feel the muscles in their body relax. Never knowing what it’s like to be touched with love, to be touched in a way that doesn’t cause pain. Never knowing what it’s like to feel pleasure or even peace in their body – the grass, the earth; warm sun, cool water. Never getting to play. Never getting to form bonds of companionship or love with other animals. Robbed of the joys they could have experienced if they had a free life. And people who have lived with a cat or dog know that animals are capable of experiencing joy in life if given a chance. But not these animals. And the grand prize at the end of all of this is brutal, terrifying murder. A fitting end to a life in hell.
They, too, cry and scream in fear and pain. In the Meet Your Meat video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIjanhKqVC4 ), you can hear them crying and screaming when they’re mutilated, when they’re burned, when they’re dangled upside down from their legs by a machine taking them to their deaths, when they are finally slaughtered. They cry and scream for their lives, for their freedom, for their babies and for their mothers who are separated less than a week after birth. And we ignore them. We go on eating their eggs and their milk and their bodies – and we ignore them and their pain. Utter indifference.
This devastates me. To see people’s indifference and failure to protect animals hits too close to home for me. It is similar to, yet so much worse than, my parents’ seeming indifference to my pain and their failure to protect me from abuse. And so I have a huge problem with those who choose to be non-vegan. My heart aches because of them, and although my love for others is unconditional, frankly I am quite bitter. I think it’s despicable to choose to be non-vegan. I think it’s a horribly unethical choice to make.
It’s not like being vegan requires a sacrifice or a reduction in your quality of life. I’ve been vegan for over six years. It took a little extra time at first to learn new recipes, but within a few weeks being vegan became second nature and took no extra time or planning at all. The inconvenience was small and temporary.
The food I eat now that I’m vegan is more delicious than what I ate when I was non-vegan. I save money. I feel healthier. I’ll probably live longer than I would have as a non-vegan. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a coalition of medical professionals who advocate veganism on grounds of health and ethics. Their website will show you that veganism (done right) is the healthier choice ( http://www.pcrm.org/ ). And Vegan Fitness is a website which shows that veganism is compatible even with a highly athletic lifestyle in which you burn lots of calories and require extra protein ( http://www.veganfitness.net/ ).
It seems there are two main reasons people choose to be non-vegan. One is an unwillingness to make the effort it initially takes to research vegan nutrition and to change their grocery shopping and cooking habits. The other is an unwillingness to give up the pleasures that certain foods give to their taste buds. This also hits too close to home for me, that an innocent creature be sacrificed to abuse in order to allow for someone else’s convenience or trivial pleasure. It’s just wrong.
Taking pleasure in hurting someone you’re not angry at (sadism) or in sexually exploiting a child is inherently sick, whereas taking pleasure in eating something tasty is not. But valuing your taste-buds more than you value preventing the torture of animals is just as selfish and unethical. As for convenience, the choice to contribute to the torture of animals so you can avoid the temporary inconvenience of figuring out how to be vegan is at least as selfish and unethical as the choice to sacrifice your children’s wellbeing so you can avoid the inconvenience of dealing with their problems. It doesn’t take too long to research nutrition, learn recipes, and experiment until you figure out healthy and tasty eating habits. As for those who tried being vegan but went back due to health and energy issues, they chose to give up instead of being temporarily inconvenienced by the small amount of work it would take to figure out how to make veganism work for them (e.g. take vitamin/mineral pills, do more research on nutrition).
I have often heard non-vegans say: “I care about animals, but I like meat/cheese/etc. too much to stop eating it.” Or: “I care about animals, but I don’t have the time to figure out how to become vegan.” Are these valid excuses? Consider these parallel examples: “I care about children, but I like child porn too much to stop using it.” Or: “I care about children, but I don’t have the time to get therapy to heal from whatever it is that compels me to watch child porn.”
My parents had excuses, too, for not protecting me from my brother and getting him the professional help he so clearly needed. They came home from work feeling tired. They had projects to work on. Chores to do. They had marital problems. They were depressed. They were stressed out. And they didn’t want any more stress. They didn’t want to expend energy and time they felt they didn’t have on dealing with our problems. They intended to deal with them eventually, but not yet; soon, when they had the time and energy. What’s your excuse?
I accuse every person who chooses to be non-vegan of being complicit in crimes which in my view are worse than the sexual abuse of children. And it breaks my heart that so few people get what a big fucking deal torture is – even when the victims of that torture are not human. If you have even a decent capacity for compassion you will stop making excuses and start making the transition to veganism now.
Part 4 – Veganism
We can’t currently all be vegans in this world. First and foremost, Indigenous peoples who live as gatherers/hunters, or as herders of sheep or goats or cattle, would have to give these practices up to go vegan. This would drastically alter their cultures and societies as they currently exist; and so veganism should not be imposed on foragers or herders from the outside. As for the rest of humanity, we should all be vegan. But some people don’t have the choice to go vegan under the present circumstances. Some people are extremely impoverished and living in nations devastated by capitalist-imperialism. These people tend to eat vegan almost all of the time, by default, because in most countries meat and other animal products are more expensive than vegan food, and growing crops is cheaper than owning animals. But if someone is so poor that they are struggling to get enough food day-to-day, who the hell am I to tell them what to eat? If they can somehow get their hands on eggs or meat or dairy, then bon appetite.
For these people, veganism won’t be an accessible choice until they are no longer so desperately poor. In ‘Western’ nations a vegan diet is comparable in price to an omnivore diet, and so veganism is not inaccessible for most poor people. Many of my vegan friends live below the poverty line and report spending less money on groceries as a vegan than they did as an omnivore. But for extremely poor people who rely on soup-kitchens, food banks, and shelters for their meals, veganism is not an accessible choice. And for people living in a ghetto where the only place in their neighborhood to buy groceries after their eleven hour work day is a convenience store, veganism would not be impossible but would be genuinely difficult (as if these people’s lives weren’t difficult enough already).
Animal rights activists should therefore care about abolishing poverty. To do so, we’ll need to replace capitalism with an anarchist-socialist economy (such as Parecon); it’s the only way we’ll ever end poverty and make veganism accessible to all. A decent life for humans and animals depends on this. On the flip side, anyone who cares about global poverty should care about animal rights. It’s funny how veganism is slandered as a privileged lifestyle choice when a diet centered on meat and other animal products is a key feature of ‘Western’ privilege which most people in this world don’t have. And these eating patterns contribute to hunger for hundreds of millions of people:
“In all, the raising of livestock takes up more than two-thirds of agricultural land, and one third of the total land area. [… L]ivestock are increasingly being fed with grains and cereals that could have been directly consumed by humans or were grown on land that could have been used to grow food rather than [livestock] feed. The developing world’s undernourished millions are now in direct competition with the developed world’s livestock – and they are losing.” (Vegan Society. “The Environment: Land”. 06 Aug 09. http://www.vegansociety.com/environment/land )
And let’s not forget that the United Nations stated that factory farming is a bigger contributor to climate change than automobiles (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. “Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options”. Rome, 2006).
We have been raised in societies which teach us that because animals are not as smart as humans, that the ordeals they experience are less painful for them than our ordeals are for us. But this is logically inconsistent with our other beliefs. We know that children aren’t as smart as adults, and that babies are the least smart of all. But do we believe they experience less pain from their ordeals? Of course not. Quite the opposite; we realize that traumas experienced by children or babies tend to cause more suffering than for adults, both during the experience and in the years to come. Their lack of intellectual sophistication, and underdeveloped frontal cortex, means they have fewer resources to make sense of their traumas and self-soothe their painful emotions. Why is it that we believe lower intellect means a lower capacity to suffer? Do we think that the ‘mentally retarded’ suffered less in the Nazi’s concentration camps than people of average intelligence? Did geniuses suffer most of all?
Pigs have been shown to be not only smarter than dogs, but about as smart as three year old humans. If lack of intelligence is reason enough to murder a creature for food, then why not eat babies and toddlers? Ok, their adult parents would be upset by this. So why not eat baby orphans?
Another thought experiment: Imagine if aliens with far superior intellectual capacities came to Earth and decided to imprison us in factory farms, murder us for meat, and impregnate women to rob us of milk. All because they believe humans are so dumb that our suffering doesn’t matter. Would they be right? Would this be fair? Would they care?
And regardless of intelligence, keep in mind that farmed animals experience physical pain every bit as intensely as humans do. They also are wired in their brains to experience emotional pain such as fear, depression, rage, loneliness, and to experience emotional pleasure such as happiness, excitement, tranquility, love. Farmed animals live in conditions that impose emotional pain on them and deprive them of emotional pleasure.
Amazingly, many non-vegans are self-proclaimed ‘animal-lovers’. They are morally outraged by things like dog fighting, ‘crush’ pornography (small animals being stomped to death), the killing of certain animals like dolphins or seals, and the abuse of animal companions (like cats or dogs) by individuals. They are not, however, morally outraged by the abuse of animals for ‘food’. But what these people have to realize is that we cannot as a society believe it is ok to imprison and murder certain animals for ‘food’ without numbing our hearts towards all animals. As long as we exploit animals for ‘food’, the mentality that causes other forms of animal abuse will continue.
Feminist point out that the Madonna/whore split, or the good-woman/bitch split, is a pillar of female oppression and puts all girls/women at risk of male-violence. All girls/women have their status degraded by the male perception that some females are whores or bitches and therefore unworthy of the respect that decent girls/women deserve. It’s the same thing for animals. We can’t say that some animals are for eating and some animals are for treating with respect, because all animals have their status impacted by the treatment of farmed animals, laboratory animals, and ‘game’ (sport-hunting) animals.
I have met people who care about animals but are cynical, who believe that there is no point in going vegan because it will not end the farming of them for ‘food’. I have several rebuttals towards this mentality:
• Being an ally means demonstrating solidarity. Refusing to eat the corpses of murdered creatures, or ‘food’ which has been stolen from their tortured bodies, is the bare minimum a human can do to show solidarity with non-human animals. You cannot be an ally to animals if you aren’t at least choosing to do this much.
• By being a vegan, your very existence is animal rights propaganda. This is true even if you are not outspoken. You make visible the invisibility of animal oppression. You challenge the belief that it is ok to harm animals for the purpose of acquiring food. You challenge the belief that animal suffering is unimportant. You demonstrate that life can be healthy and delicious without eating eggs, meat, or dairy. You influence people to rethink what they have been taught since birth. You inspire people to widen their reach of compassion to include animals. In other words, you become part of a movement to change the consciousness of humanity. Slowly but surely, people will join us. And every new vegan is additional propaganda for animal rights. As the percentage of vegans grow, so will the exposure of non-vegans to animal rights ideas. Once there are enough of us, people who had not yet been motivated to go vegan out of compassion will do so to avoid the social disapproval that might result if they didn’t. A generation or two later, and caring about animal rights will become just another cultural norm.
• The profit motive in food production and the media means that billions of dollars are mobilized in propaganda which shape people’s desires for dairy, meat, and eggs, and which teach us to accept the exploitation and murder of animals for ‘food’. And so as long as we live in a capitalist and quasi-democratic society, the counter-propaganda by vegans may not be enough to influence the majority of the population to become vegan. But the more vegans there are at the dawn of the revolution’s victory, the easier it will be for us to convince the rest of the population to make a democratic transition to veganism. So in the meantime it is important that we increase the number of vegans as much as possible.
• Each individual vegan prevents dozens of animals every year from experiencing the horrors of exploitation and murder. The standard estimate is 100 animals per year ( http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming.asp ); the more conservative estimate is 50 animals per year ( http://www.chooseveg.com/vegetarians-save-lives.asp ).
It should go without saying, but let me make it clear that my comparison of non-vegans to child porn watchers is only directed towards those who choose to be non-vegan. The people living in circumstances that I described a few paragraphs ago – Indigenous foragers and herders, the extremely poor, etc. – don’t really have a choice. There’s also probably other circumstances that I forgot to mention which would make veganism an inaccessible choice (already I’m realising I didn’t mention people living in war zones). I’m not going to sit here and try to list every possible circumstance that would make veganism inaccessible. Although you will likely try to deny the truth to yourself, you know in your heart whether or not your being a non-vegan is due to a lack of choice or a lack of willingness to make a change. Most people living in Canada, or in countries of comparable prosperity, could start being vegan today if they wanted. So odds are that veganism is a choice you could make. Meaning my child-porn-watching comparison probably applies to you. No offense.
Part 5 – Conclusion
If you also want to advocate veganism by comparing child porn and non-vegan food, I won’t be offended by this, even if you were never sexually abused. In fact, I will be honoured if you make this comparison. If the pain I went through can help stop someone else’s pain, then it will be worth it. Clouds rarely come with pre-packaged silver linings. We need to draw our own silver linings in life, and this article I have written is my attempt to draw mine. By using the child porn analogy you will help make my silver lining even bigger; and the more people who use it, the bigger it will be, until perhaps it will become a giant mass of beauty glowing so brightly the cloud at the center is barely even visible.