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.

seal skin does not come from humane sources

if dog and cat fur can be banned then so can seal skin and probably will be soon

the fur trade is market driven (obviously) so anti fur campaigns effect the market and throttle it that way

and anti fur campaigns do work which is why the fur traders don't like them and try to counter act them as much as possible

again with the

humanely reared....voting with feet

paulaplumpbottom - why eat meat when veggies and vitamin suppliments do the job? its not about necessity.

what more can an average person do? vote with feet buy organic, freerange, humanely reared

if fur imports are cut to eu countries then it makes the market less viable

hopefully it includes personal imports

it is then up to fur traders to establish whether animals can be bred humanely

Most consumers (where they are rich enough to have the luxury... ie no most I suppose) try to ensure their food and shoes and T shirts are ethically made. Look at the first post below - those vicuans virtually dying out in South America until two brothers started fur farming them and now they're thriving. They are not simple issues.

Are people saying when foxes are killed on the roads around here I am free to collect the carcass and cure the skin or even that if I could keep them on a large estate and then humanely kill them then you don't object to fox fur?

Fake fur is nothing like the same and it doesn't have that same lovely feeling of this is how my ancestors 25,000 years ago dressed themselves, the kind of wildness and naturalness which the fake (and arguably much worse for the environment plasticy stuff does).

Animal cruelty aside, fur just makes whoever is wearing it look like they tried too hard, crap and cheap.

Real or fake.

Madonna would have looked better with it over her head.

it's not how ancestors dressed themselves..you would be a laughing stock if you went to tokyo dressed as stone age man

and that is a bizarre argument are you going to live hand to mouth and dwell in huts or caves as recreation?

Have a look at their vidoes if you can stomach it.

Then say that wearing fur is ok.

It feels soft too. The youngest child comes up and strokes it. It has that effect. Lovely stuff.

So really the argument seems to be either you may not be sure it's farmed humanely - a bit like the prosecution of people who view illegal images, if you don't prosecute the users you will never cut off the source so by banning all fur that way you stop those farming it illegally or cruelly as well as those who don't hurt the rabbits etc. And also perhaps that food is needed by animal skins are not and plastic shoes rule.

I don't think much of either of those arguments. What about the Muslim and Jewish rules of only eating animals who have died whilst their throat is being cut but I think the better places stun the animal first so that doesn't really advance any argument.

I hate suffering. I'd not knowingly hurt an animal although the children will never let me forget the day on Christmas Day 2 years ago on the way back from church when I killed a squirrel with the car - completely by accident.

youd never knowingly hurt an animal but youd wear one?

I don't think the images thing helps. I could show you pictures of live babies killed in abortion units or the condition of all those chickens you were conned into buying the supposed free range eggs of. All we can do is try to source humanely but what Blair has done is said I may not in my backyard set up a unit which kills rabbits for their fur. It is against the law now. So in fact his rule is within the mumsnet consensus - good track of the nations feels although whether we should legislate because most people think something is another issue. Often people are very wrong.

I would like to think we have evolved a bit since then

I wouldn't buy fur regardless

but then i don't buy anything much just for the sake of it or for prestigious status symbols

I don't buy fashion items either

I wouldnt venomously attack a fellow human being in the same way I wouldnt attack a defenceless animal. Yes some things people do say and do are stupid but live and let live. I personally though would rather go naked (and thats not attractive) than wear fur and I would rather eat a dodgy burger than have Venison, Kangaroo, Ostrich or Polar Bear. Yes it is wrong to wear fur but it is wrong to attack fellow humans as well

Why not show those sorts of images Xenia, they speak the truth.

So in fact his rule is within the mumsnet consensus - good track of the nations feels although whether we should legislate because most people think something is another issue. Often people are very wrong.

Please start a thread on this as I think it is another discussion and could be interesting (cue only me interested)

Xenia - I read the article about the vicuna in the Telegraph magazine. The reason that the vicuna population is growing is that they have their fleeces shorn - their skins stays on their backs, so is not relevant to any argument about the fur trade.
If your children love the feel of fur then why not get a cat or some other furry creature? I'd much rather stroke fur that has a warm living, breathing animal beneath it than an old dead skin.

GlennCloseAsCruellaDeVille - I do think that Blair goes for the populist approach, but as you've implied this often means sinking to the level of the lowest common denominator.

I suppose the whole argument re: fur revolves around the fact that its production is often cruel. If the animals didn't suffer then there wouldn't be such a groundswell of opinion against it.

I still don't understand why people want to wear it when they must realise that 90% of the eyes upon them are despising them for it.

custardo for PM. shit that girl speaks sense

(and anyone else have fond but now a bit tainted memories of their granny wearing fur, or is that just me?)

oops sorry i took a phone call while i was posting that and it is in fact Xenia's quote of course..I was talking to a customer while i was posting it

that's ok cruella. I was posting on here about wiis whilst "in a meeting" the other day

fatwoman - a friend's Granny had one of those fox furs with the stuffed head at one end and the tail at the other thatyou wore round your neck like a scarf with the poor creature's legs dangling either side of your neck. I found it quite appealing as a child - seems quite bizarre now!

I would take off the head before I made the wrap of course...

I don't see why people say how could anyone want to wear fur when they probably also wear leather shoes. You wear something because you happen to like it. I don't wear fur all the time and I don't have a lot of fur. On Saturday I will be in the Alps amongst lots of furry animals and lots of men and women wearing fur.

Vicuna... didn't read that. They keep their fur on, okay, forget the vicunas - they're gorgeous by the way.

My mum had one of those fox fur things as well with the feet attached - Ive always found it vulgar. She herself now says its vulgar and she threw it out even though it cost a mint.

Xenia leather is a by-product. I dont know how you can say most of what youve said and then you say state schools are crap. You are clearly in need of re-educating.