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Original poster

Is it wrong to wear fur?

274 replies

fortyplus · 12/12/2006 08:47

I have launched a fairly venomous attack on Xenia, glibly implying that 10,000 of you will agree with me. Here are some 'edited highlights' of what started it...

By Xenia on Sunday, 10 December, 2006 8:45:30 ...The girls have a huge range of interests (including intimate knowledge of London nightclubs.. I think one got into conversation with a famous chef at ChinaWhite one night when he ought to have been dealing with his children and being with his wife, rather than chatting up pretty blondes wearing fur?.)

By aliceband on Sunday, 10 December, 2006 8:55:19 PM
wearing fur?

By Xenia on Sunday, 10 December, 2006 9:00:13
Fur... of course. Surely from my posts you could tell my family would wear fur? 160,000 vicunas now roam Peru I think it is because they had been dying out but then were farmed for their fur. It saved the species and yet Blair bans fur farming. There is no hope but thankfully the planet is big and the world our oyster.
Later...
Did you mean I wasn't clear on fur ro you think we can wear leather shoes and murder plants but not something that looks sweet and fluffy (unless it's a calf in which case then it's okay to kill it but only if the skin is a by-product even though we no more need to eat meat than we need to wear skins)? Thankfully a week today I will be somewhere amongst many fur wearers and away from the warped collective British conscience.
By Queenmummy on Monday, 11 December, 2006 3:25:09 PMOne of these days Xenia will disappear up her own a**e and suffocate herself (hopefully before she bores us all to tears with the one track argument we are all fed up with listening to. Xenia - if you really are a well-rounded and interesting person, how about talking about something new besides than this dull and done to death SAHM/WOHM thing......

By fortyplus on Tuesday, 12 December, 2006 12:00:26 AM
I take back what I said about Xenia's views being to the left of Attila the Hun.

Abhorrence of the fur trade has nothing to do with whether animals look cute & fluffy, Xenia. It's all about the pain and suffering caused to the animals and stupid bitches wanting to look like prostitutes quite happy to wear the skin of a big cat that's been killed by having a red hot poker stuffed up its anus so as not to mark the skin.

You say that you've 'worked hard to fit in' with British society since coming to this country.

You haven't got a clue. Why do you think that out of 10,000 people on mumsnet the only one who consistently agrees with you is mohze?

Your smug, sanctimonious opinions are despised by every apparently decent person on this site.

OP posts:
doyouwantfrankincensewiththat · 13/12/2006 17:48

I have a cunning plan...Xenia , an island, an axe, a reality TV show...I'm Xenia get me out of here...

Blondilocks · 13/12/2006 18:11

I don't really see how much worse wearing fur is to wearing leather, except that you can get fake fur that looks like fur, whereas fake leather is pretty much just plastic.

Not that I own any real fur.

Judy1234 · 13/12/2006 18:36

I've thought about that as a way of getting something built on it free. The building is very expensive. Islands with a building on are often £1m more than those without. It's a huge cost if you do it properly. The lady near mine has bought a machine that makes concrete blocks so they can make the blocks on the island itself. I don't have any money to build on it at the moment by the way. I also want it to be very simple. one of the daughters suggested a boat moored off it might be easier too to sleep on. Camping is another option as well but I think a reasonable little house with 2 rooms might do. I was in touch with a company that builds proper homes in trees as well. Lots of options. It's fun.

kittyschristmascrackers · 13/12/2006 18:38

Sounds it, sounds idylic

doyouwantfrankincensewiththat · 13/12/2006 19:33

for some reason a picture of International Rescue & Tracy(sp?) Island has sprung to mind...

GlennCloseAsCruellaDeVille · 13/12/2006 19:38

I'm sure Xenia would allow James Bond to drop in..of course could be her assignation in "the Alps"

doyouwantfrankincensewiththat · 13/12/2006 19:49

Yes Xenia is a perfect bond girl name.

...Xenia Bitz darlink

imnot27 · 13/12/2006 20:27

This WHOLE thread is, like, really weird...

I just have a furry botty, myself. And I don't have an island, but I might get one on ebay. I have got an axe though, it is yellow.

Judy1234 · 13/12/2006 20:39

They're not very expensive.
I need to lose 10 pounds before I feel more like a bond girl again. Being abandoned on the island might help. I could make it a diet retreat, guaranteed weight loss as only fish and brown rice to eat. Make the women do compulsory yoga every day and perhaps part of their therapy could be helping build the house etc - free labour....

I wouldn't need fur on the island. May not need clothes at all. There's a nudist beach on the biggest island nearby where we stayed but I couldn't persuade the children to hunt it down with me this summer.

doyouwantfrankincensewiththat · 13/12/2006 20:53

s'true, that would work, though compulsory yoga might take the fun out of it....(how much is 'not v.expensive'?)

Judy1234 · 13/12/2006 22:28

... a state secret... I wouldn't even tell the last man I had dinner with.I told him my mother always said it was impolite to talk about politics, religion or money.

doyouwantfrankincensewiththat · 13/12/2006 22:46

shucks Xenia that's awfully middle class of you

but fair enough in RL my nosiness is more restrained.

Judy1234 · 13/12/2006 23:16

He was very persistent. I showed him a picture. I carry it in my handbag at all times...

They're less than a villa in Spain but more fun. There are web sites which market islands anyone can look prices up on.

What you should always avoid is a place you feel therefore has to be the one place you go for holidays for the next 40 years. You need somewhere that doesn't matter, that you can take or leave, go or not leave that you don't feel obligated to visit. I hope it can be like that. On dark London nights in December the attractions of rainforest and beach near the equator seem very strong.

doyouwantfrankincensewiththat · 13/12/2006 23:51

no kidding - but db lived in Borneo for a few years & said he did miss the whole spring,summer,autumn,winter thing.

Now I have a mental picture of your wallet photos...these are my children, & this is my island...

Original poster
fortyplus · 14/12/2006 00:09

Xenia - 'The arguments against fur were lost by poor argument on the thread' is hardly a fair statement - many posters have tried to point out the differences between cruel practices in the fur trade and other instances where fur may be an acceptable by product of vermin control or meat production.

But I do think that to maintain crediblility yourself you should avoid contant mentions of sahm/money/religion on every single thread on which you enter the debate - unless of course the comments re: your merely enjoying the attantion are true? (A bit like the naughty child who would prefer to be told off as any attention is better than none at all?)

Are you by any chance a friend of Katharine Pooley? It's just a crazy hunch.

OP posts:
Judy1234 · 14/12/2006 08:20

Never heard of KP. Don't think I mentioned those topics first. I think the island discussion just grew out of fur.... and I don't need to maintain credibility. It's the internet and there's free speech. No one needs to conform to what others think they ought to be like. If I've persuaded one person to buy fur next year then that is all to the good.

On photos... I only get them out if the date isn't going very well and I'm bored. If it's going well the island is not the thing to mention.

whatwouldjesusdo · 14/12/2006 10:14

yes, fortyplus, I thought that was a bit of an outrageous statement too. I am quite happy with the logic of my own position on this; kill animals for food and usefulness, dont kill them for vanity, and try to uphold standards of animal welfare.
This argument has not been lost at all.

If Ive persuaded 2 people not to buy fur this year, then thats all to the good

Judy1234 · 14/12/2006 11:06

Don't understand food and vanity point. We don't need to eat meat. We don't need to wear animal fibres or leather shoes. So why do you think the two should be treated differently?

slug · 14/12/2006 11:43

Xenia, are you sure you weren't in the women's collective with me at university in the 80's? I loved those women, Ijust didn't realise any of them had got rich.

whatwouldjesusdo · 14/12/2006 17:48

We need to eat, and meat is an easy and practical way to get a lot of nutrients for most of us, and leather shoes follow.

Judy1234 · 14/12/2006 19:16

You need to keep warm and fur is a practical way of keeping so. No difference. Meat eating is very bad for this planet and nutritionally not essential (I'm not vegetarian by the way).

No, at university I wasn't involved in that kind of thing. I believe in fairness above all and a lot of women don't get a fair deal and make themselves have an unfair deal. They cause their own misery and that is so sad. They tolerate behaviours which are bad for them because they know no better. However the younger they are the better they seem to be and their brothers at fair home life models so there is much to be hopeful over. Everything always gets better. Scandinavia leads and we follow.

whatwouldjesusdo · 14/12/2006 19:40

I already said that, xenia. The difference is that the meat isnt eaten, and the fur used to be worn for vanity, when not strictly necessary for warmth.

Judy1234 · 15/12/2006 13:54

But you can use fox and other meats in lots of products. It isn't necessarily wasted and wild animals anyway may draw sustenance from the flesh left behind when the skin is removed. Also it may compost into the ground like our own bodies do after death and be good for the soil etc. We have vultures in the wild who live on carrion. I think all this is perfectly natural.

NOELallie · 15/12/2006 14:04

I have a visceral horror of fur-wearing - it horrifies me. But I do wonder if that is mainly because I have no time for the fashion industry itself. My puritan streak dislike the idea of spending thousands on any item of clothing be it made of otter fur or recycled toilet paper. However as a meat eater, leather wearer etc etc I can't morally object to it. Much as I would like to . If it can be guaranteed 100% that the fur comes only from humanely-reared and killed animals, not endangered species, I can't see that it is so different from any other animal product.

We don't need to eat meat, eggs or dairy products, we don't need to use leather...they are lifestyle choices. Same as fur.

Judy1234 · 15/12/2006 14:15

Ah,,, I have a hedonistic attraction to fur...it's based on the feel and look of it. This thread suggests I have lots of fur actually which is not the case. I wouldn't consciously wear anything that had been hurt but I've just drunk a cup of hot chocolate. That probably involved a cow now particularly nicely kept unnaturally in milk when it's calf was weaned... probably also involved cocoa beans picked for low wages somewhere - Cadbury... but by drinking it I've given jobs to farmers and work to cocoa and sugar farmers.

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