to want a real fur coat

[choufleur]

I don't me made from baby seals or anything endangered but a rabbit one maybe.

I eat rabbit, so can't see the problem with wearing a coat made from a by product.

At least you aren't a hypocrite. Good for you, being bad all round.

I dont eat meat so i already have strong views. If i saw a woman wearing a fur coat i would think she was ugly on the inside. Her vanity is more important than giving a stuff about things.

I do eat meat, not everyday and we try (as far as our budget will allow) to eat free range/freedom meat when we do. It's not something I do without a nagging conscience and I certainly don't buy the hideously raised cheap chicken.

I also benefit from medicine no doubt tested on animals. I'd rather there was alternative, but in this instance, I selfishly put my health first.

Fur and leather, no. There are so many other options, warmer options, cheaper options, so it's a small thing I can do. It's a step in the right direction.

I'm afraid I don't view occasionally eating ethically raised/slaughtered meat as justification for wearing fur. Just as I don't equate eating meat with punching puppies or torturing kittens.

I couldn't wear a real fur, my mum has a full length beaver fur coat that was my great grandmothers, I find it so sad that it is just there in the wardrobe.

I do eat meat but am very careful about its source I buy from our lovely local butcher who sells only local meat from small farms.

I would feel really uncomfortable if someone I knew started wearing a real fur.

vegas, throughout history folk have broken laws in order to bring about positive change in society. It does have some moral justification, in my opinion.

I suppose that I should add for the record that I am a meat and dairy eater, I probably wouldn't buy fur new, but would happily wear vintage etc, and I also wear leather shoes. I try to ensure that we buy welfare friendly meat and always buy free range eggs.

The hypocrisy argument is very seldom used in other ethical debates. I wonder why it's so easy to fling around when it comes to animal welfare. Surely it's better to light a candle than sit in the dark?

The hypocrisy is not in doing what one can, and is comfortable with, but in being so vehemently opposed to someone elses choice that you might commit or encourage criminal offenses against that person when you are not further along on an ethical/moral contunuum than they are. In other words, if you happily eat meat and dairy and wear leather, don't bitch about those who wear fur. And that is not directed at anyone in particular on this thread either.

Hedgeblunder

I does get minus 40 and lower where I am.

"I honestly pity them for having a mother like you" If that was aimed at me, thank you very much for your kind words, you obviously are a lovely person

Depends, if you eat the content wear the skin. If not then don't.

SimplesTiggaxx

dawntigga. Fair enough. But you know that expensive handbags are made from the hides of special cattle bred exclusively for the high-end leather goods industry.

So pretty much like a fur coat. But people do not get quite so steamed up about pricey hand luggage. They don#t tend to call people who have bought LV items 'ugly on the inside' or would throw paint on them.

Ultimately I make my choice and have never been castigated for it. I've had friends turn their noses up but it doesn't bother me. Man has a complicated relationship with animals and the whole food issue/using by products or not (as is the case with expensive shoes and bags too) and hunting and shooting for sport, down to racing animals, is utterly riven with ignorance, hypocrisy and a sliding scale of moral indignation with a dose of class tension bubbling under the surface.

Unless we completely repudiate our relationship with animals (as some do, I have no problem with that) then we have to accept that we use them and the responsibility that goes alongside it. Did your family need that farmed chicken for the second time that week? No. But you wanted it. Do you lust after a pair of Jimmy Choos for your birthday that were produced from a breed of South American cattle whose carcass was turned for pennies to the ped food industry? How many shoes and bags do you have? More than you need? Probably.
Do you feed your pets pet food? The list is endless. So a fur coat is a lightning rod for all this confusion. The sine qua non of animal cruelty. Easy to pick on, seems unnecessary, the industry has been guilty of some awful practices (but then every animal industry has too), there are class issues too (as in hunting, somehow shooting isn't seen as quite so dreadful to some)

All this does not negate our efforts to take the best care of animals while they are alive that is reasonable and slaughter them as painlessly as possible.

There are some things I won't buy. Ivory, Chinese medicines, jade, endangered animal products. But I will buy and wear a fur coat. Luckily in Russia they see this is part and parcel of life with animals.

Hedgeblunder said:

"I find people that wear mink utterly utterly soulless. Mink have to be skinned alive to keep the softness, I don't get on my high horse about much, but the idea of a small animal being literally skinned alive, bleeding, nerves exposed, dying a death that a torture victim would be unlucky to go through psycopathic.

This thread is seriously making me want to vomit, what a terrible message for your children,
I honestly pity them for having a mother like you".

So do I. Now, here's the rest of your fur coats.

The majority of fur comes from places like China where the animal welfare conditions are appaling and the slaughter of the animals is particuarly inhumane and brutal.

The animals are electrocuted in their anus, then skinned. Often the electrocution does not kill them first so they are effectively skinned alive. Their was footage of a dog being thrown onto a pile of other supposedly dead dogs after being skinned but he was still alive and moving - actually sitting and looking up.

Please please please have a look at the Peta website before making your decision about this. www.peta.org.uk/

otchayanyiye - well said.

Well said poppydog10, I've watched one of the videos about dog-skinning in china, v v , gave me nightmares for a long time, wouldn't advise anyone to do same unless they are thinking of wearing fur. I don't think the argument about meat/fur stands because, as said before, animals farmed for fur are often skinned alive, and fur farming is not allowed in this country due to cruelty. Regular farming is allowed, is well regulated & not same at all. Not sure about the vintage issue, but surely any wearing of fur, whether new or vintage, sends a message to trade that it is wanted.

My point about charges of hypocrisy stands. The medical profession for example has gained a great deal of its knowledge from some pretty abhorrent practice - grave digging, murder, experiments on slaves and in concentration camps. I'm opposed to all of those things (except maybe grave digging) I don't get accused of hypocrisy when I have a medical procedure though. Unless I happen to be a vegetarian and then suddenly I'm a great big fat hypocrite for being against vivisection.

I assume that none of us are in favour of child slavery but we Unknowingly eat chocolate and buy other products produced using it. That doesn't mean that if someone says 'I really hate child slavery' 16 people post saying 'well I hope you don't eat chocolate then'.

Isn't it better to do what we can do rather than sit around being sanctimonious about other people?

Fur coats etc have always, since childhood, given me the creeps. There is something sinister about them I've always felt this way long before any ethical reasoning could have entered my head! YABU

OP-I would say if you want one & will wear it, get one.

OP YABU unless you want to look like a heartless old crone.

i have just bought a vintage fur coat and it is fake fur but looks real i don`t get how wearing areal vintage one is better somehow animal still died horribly .I would never wear a real one but i am a hyprocrite as i am a vegetarian who wears leather boots but i have never saw a woman who looked better in a real fur coat than the original animal would have

"By wearing the vintage fur, one is making the statement that fur is a good thing to wear, that it's desirable and fashionable; that in turn promotes fur as desirable and fashionable; and so on goes the desire and demand for fur clothing to be produced from 'new' animals. If nobody presented vintage fur as fashionable and desirable, it would essentially lessen the demand for furs made from 'new' animals as a desirable fashion."

By that logic then wearing fake fur also creates a desire for real fur?

Also, for those of you who would destroy a fur coat, do you check if it is real or not first? I have a beautiful fake fur coat, feels as soft as real fur, but definitely fake. Unless you checked inside the lining you wouldn't know it was fake. Would you destroy it on the off chance it's real?