Is it wrong to wear fur?

[fortyplus]

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.

true Xenia & don't forget the byproduct of the milk industry, male calves shipped off for veal production - not always the nicest business.

If you looked too deeply into the production of what you eat you might never eat again, worldgonewild posted recently that soya bean production is decimating rainforest land, there's something to think about.

I have objected to fur coats in the past because of the endangered species angle & also the potential suffering of animals involved. I wear leather shoes & I eat KFC & I like silk clothes when I can afford them (which I believe involves boiling silkworm larvae- not particularly friendly), but who wants to be told they're a hypocrite eh?

xenis, i think you bought the island jsut so you could name drop it at every turn anyway keep posting i think you are v entertaining. how do you have the stomach for all the wind ups though? i couldnt handle the confrontation.

i should be absolutley furious with you as you have insulted my lifestyle totally and utterly, but actually am finding it quite funny.

ps- it's really not smart to boast is it?

think she's just had her cocoa & gone to bed

Ah well, she's a flight to catch. i wonder why she likes coming on here to boast so much? tis weird. it is like she has a marie antoinette syndrome or something. 'let them eat cake!'.

did xenia start this thread..?

i posted and feel my posts were ignored, lauhed at or answered by kids!

do you honestly think , after reading her posts, that she would ask a question like that? - that she would even ask for advice at all ?

sorry laney, i only read xenias post cos they are soooo outlandish.

oh well ive killed a few thread lately (no idea why) so anything is better than nothing...

id love a nice island though!!!

I don't understand SAHMs who say you've insulted me when a working mother says she likes working or vegetarians who think if I defend fur I've insulted their life style. We adore living in a Britain of people with different views. It's one of the freedoms we relish and surely we think it's excellent there is debate over fur or food or whatever? I certainly don't want animals to suffer but the planet has many challenges and we have to take a route that works and make choices about where and how we live based on our own personal morality.

sorry xenia, those arguments just dont stand up!
Vultures LIVE on carrion, they dont wear little carrion furs slung round their necks! If an animal is going to die in the wild, the benefits for the food chain would be even greater if the skin had not been removed. And we dont eat carnivores, esp foxes. Im perfectly happy to wear the skin of anything that I eat, and I have several fake fur trimmed things. Cant you get your buzz from fake fur????

i think this thread will run and run!

eggnog, xenia works b**y hard, good for her if she can afford to indulge her island fantasies.

Hi - I started this thread but was at work Thurs/Fri then Broadband was down Sat/Sun so haven't looked at it for several days.

I do find it interesting that X says there have been no valid argumants against the fur trade on this thread - when she has asked the question what is the difference between breeding rabbits & mink for their fur - thereby demonstrating that she has no knowledge of the cruelty involved.

But then again - anyone who wishes to wear fur wouldn't wish to acknowledge the facts, would they?

Having said that - we live in a free country. However obnoxious some of X's views may occasionally seem to most of us, I for one would fight like a tiger to defend her right to express them.

I also stand by what I said about her earlier - she usually remains very dignified when answering criticism of her lifestyle, even though she can't resist the constant references to money and wealthy/famous friends.

And no one can accuse her of apathy, which in my book is this country's greatest problem at the moment!

Who is Xenia? Are we supposed to know? Is she famous?

Xenia is the MNer everyone loves to hate - she posts 'knowledgably' on just about any subject and is always name dropping, boasting about how wealthy she is and slagging off SAHMs and State education in the most sanctimonious fashion.

But she's probably delightful if you know her in person!

If you want a sample of her comments then take a look at the original thread that prompted me to start this one - it's in Current Affairs: Are women interested in current affairs? (And why I hate Woman's Hour)

You'll also find her on 'Are Private Schools worth the money' and many similar. She must spend half her waking hours on MN!

I'm not wealthy. I don't have any famous friends. I have an island but they don't cost huge amounts.
I don't think cruelty involved in fur is mcuh worse that than involved in getting many products into your local supermarket and I don't understand the argument that if you eat the meat it's fine to use the fur as a by product but not to farm the animal humanely for fur. I am against cruelt to animals and humans (and I do regard the position of some women as domestic slaves to their men as a much worse issue facing this country than anything you might do to a fox in a trap by the way).
I also believe humans have souls but not animals but even so would never want an animal to suffer needlessly. Some suffering of course is essential. We live in a free Britain because others suffered for us and died. There are prices to be paid all down the line.

I am currently in Val D'Isere. There is not much fur to be seen because there are 1000 university students in the resort this week. Odd bit of fur available in the shops but not much. Lovely animal tracks in snow but we haven't seen any yet in the wild. Issue of damage skiing or indeed any activity other than us living in sustainable huts in English forests being self sufficient another interesting issue.

oh, Xenia, I love you! Comment of the week, "I've got an island but they don't cost much". psml!

It's the variety of the people that make mn such an interesting site, and you are certainly one of them.

Have a great holiday in Val D'Isere, and I sincerely look forward to disagreeing with many of your comments, but still love reading them.

possums are pests in New Zealand, as far as I am aware World Wildlife federation actually endorses the sale of possum fur products.

Made me buy the hat

oh fgs. I'm not wealthy but I have an island.

fgs.

The self knowledge of Zsa Zsa Gabor, as someone said in a film.

Xenia youre so full of sh*t and you dont half get ma wick.

I haven't had chance to read the entire post yet (it looks like I will need a brew and an afternoon!!) but just wanted to say that of course it is wrong to wear fur. Disgusting in fact. And anyone who compares it to wearing leather shoes needs to stop talking utter nonsense.

real fur is just naff. Chavs wear it to flaunt the fact they are nouveau riche.

Thanks, mc.
Depends how you define wealth, doesn't it? Everyone on state benefits in the UK is hugely wealthy compared to many people in Africa. They don't know they're born in some senses. It's just relative. The island cost less than most villas in Spain but I accept most people can't afford a second home at all even when they've worked for 25 years as I have.
Do the people who object to fur have the same feelings of revulsion about feather pillows by the way and why no problems with leather? Bizarre.

I have a mission (as well as getting 5 children back through Gatwick in fog tomorrow...) which is to ensure everyone knows there is snow here and the skiing is fine. The poor locals aren't getting visitors because there's a myth that there is no snow.

Having read through this thread, I would like to say the comment by Laneydaye is soooo typical of many people today, she thinks people who wear fur should be stoned to death. I think its about time people minded their own business and if someone is not doing anything illegal, they should be allowed to get on with it without having other people acting as moral guardians. It happens in more and more areas of life and makes me sick. I don't wear fur but would if I lived somewhere like Russia or Iceland, and I bet most of these so called objectors would too if it was a choice between them or their children freezing to death. Really, with the way some farmed animals are treated for the food industry, the farming of fur is really not so different and I can't see the moral difference between people protesting about the treatment of these animals for fur as opposed to the poor specimens who end up in the cheap convenience products in some supermarkets. I eat meat but can see that the way mass production has gone, it is better to try to eat local or organic if you can afford it. If you can't, well you just buy what you can afford. We all have to get by as best as we can and like I said, if it isn't illegal, everyone else should just get on with their own stuff and butt out of what everyone else is doing.