Peta appears to have a very simple strategy when it comes to campaigning for animal rights: generate as much noise and attention as possible by unsettling and disrupting sensibilities through the use of arresting, controversial imagery.

The campaign group has a long tradition of using models and celebrities to catch the eyes of the indifferent and its latest poster runs with this theme to the extreme. This time we see a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader called Bonnie-Jill Laflin, who now acts as the NBA's only female scout, posing naked in a locker room with a caption asking: "Want my body? Go vegetarian!"

The Peta website explains that "sexy NBA scout Bonnie-Jill Laflin bares her body in a sizzling ad for PETA to show how hot a vegetarian diet can be". It continues:

A meat-free diet promotes good health and protects against numerous diseases, including heart disease, cancer, strokes, and diabetes. Vegetarians and vegans typically weigh 10 to 20 pounds less and live six to 10 years longer than their carnivorous counterparts. Scientists have also found that vegetarians and vegans have stronger immune systems than their meat-eating friends.

Laflin also explains why she agreed to do the poster:

I hope after seeing this campaign that people will … want to go to peta.org and get more educated and see what happens to these animals in slaughterhouses and how horrible it is, because basically you're eating fear. So when you see these animals being slaughtered and tortured, that you'll think twice about ordering that steak.

I don't have too many quibbles with the notion that eating a vegetarian or meat-reduced diet can have significant health benefits. However, I do have a problem with Peta presenting the idea that by becoming vegetarian you can somehow "get" Laflin's body. Presumably, the reason Laflin has the body offered to us in the poster has very little to do with the exclusion of dead animals from her diet, but because of her genetic inheritance and the fact that she exercises every day of her life, as she admitted in a recent ESPN interview.

I've been athletic all my life and was also a professional dancer for the NFL and NBA. Working out is an important part of my daily lifestyle. I do weight training, pilates and the bar method.

Another (far larger) problem with the ad – and it hardly needs pointing out - is its blatant sexism. It is insulting on a number of levels. First, we have a woman being used as a piece of meat to urge people not to eat pieces of meat. Perhaps this is some kind of post-modern, cultural subversion thing that has gone completely over my head? But, sorry, I just don't see it.

Second, Peta and Laflin are utilising a clichéd Playboy-style pose and milieu – male locker room, pushed-out buttocks, turned head, one foot on tip-toes etc - that not only belittles and objectifies Laflin, but also implies that a man might only want to become a vegetarian because he "wants" Laflin's body.

Third, this is not the first time Peta and Laflin have combined to produce such an ad. In 2008, she was filmed lying on a table, but that time she was wearing something. Admittedly, it was little more than dental floss and lip gloss, but it seems to suggest that the creatives at Peta thought that they should go even further in their next campaign rather than have a re-think.

So, who exactly is Peta trying to reach with this style of poster? I can't believe that it only wants to turn 18-year-old jocks into vegetarians. I would guess that Peta has a disproportionately strong female following, so doesn't this poster risk alienating supporters rather than attracting new advocates?

If it really is just about making a noise then, well done Peta, I've played into your hands. But I seriously doubt whether this poster wins friends and influences people in quiet the way you might have imagined.

UPDATE: I have now received this response from Virginia Fort, senior campaigner at Peta US:

The mission of Peta and our affiliates is to get the animal rights message out to as many people as possible. This is not always an easy task. Unlike our opposition, animal charities don't have millions to spend on advertising, so we have to be creative. We will do provocative things to get the word out about animals in trouble because we have learned from experience that the media usually do not consider the bare facts alone "interesting" enough to talk about. The bare breasts are another story.

It is silly to make generalisations as to how feminists feel about disrobing in order to bring attention to the horrendous cruelty in the factory farming industry. I am a feminist who strips for Peta. Peta is made up largely of passionate feminists, and our managing director, who is 62 and has stripped several times for the cause, marched for women's rights when she was in her teens. This isn't Afghanistan under the Taliban – it's the free world, which surely means that women are free to use our minds and bodies as political instruments to bring attention to animal suffering without having a finger wagging at us or being told, "Behave and cover yourself up this minute!"

Peta's campaigns and those of our international affiliates are extremely effective – and not just in getting people to talk about the issues. We and our affiliates have prompted designers – including Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Vivienne Westwood and Betsey Johnson – to shun fur; compelled Unilever, one of the world's largest tea manufacturers, to stop testing its tea products on animals; and helped to get plans scrapped for a "super-dairy" in Lincolnshire, saving thousands of cows from a life of pain and suffering. However you feel about them, our campaigns are effective in getting the message out, generating discussion on these issues, and bringing about change.

History looks back approvingly on Lady Godiva. Peta's modern-day "Godivas" are just as honorable in the pursuit of the ethical treatment of animals.

I thank Fort for taking the time to respond. But I can only reiterate that my objection is not because the poster contains "bare breasts", or that a woman has chosen to strip naked for the campaign. My point is that the image relies on pornographic clichés and sits next to a "Want My Body?" strapline which clearly pushes a sexualised sub-text. Call me a finger-wagging Taliban if you must, but I fail to see how this advances the feminist cause you say you advocate.