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.

My personal opinion is that I will wear leather as it is a by product but I wouild never knowingly wear something that has been killed for the sake of that relatively pointless thing called fashion. I used to be a veggie but gave up when I was dx with a casein intolerance: I am not organised enough to be vegan, until then I did not wear leather. Now that I eat meat tho it makes sense to surely?

But rearing and killing animals just for fashion? Sickening.

Charity shop fur is a bit more blurred morally, but on balance I would say no as it glamourises fur wearing.

OK if you ate the animal that once wore it (or similar). OK if you live in a cold country and your motive is keeping warm (though artificial substitutes are better these days).

Not OK if you live in a temperate country, your motive is vanity, and the animal was not eaten.

What turned people's stomachs originally was the sheer pointlesness and oneupmanship of so much fur wearing.

I haven't actually met anyone nice under the age of 60 who wears fur

I have a beautiful jersey made with possum fur and wool. I wear it with a clear conscience.

Poppiesinaline, the only other way to get rid of the possums is with poison which has issues re: native wildlife and domestic cats, not to mention the odd child. The possoms also learnt to avoid the bait. The small local fur industry was very effective precisely because the high prices made it feasible for large numbers of widely dispersed people to trap as many as possible, making it very efficient at keeping the numbers down.

check out the bedspreads

N.American grey squirrels are (cute) vermin that have virtually wiped out our native red squirrel, are they fair game?

my SIL (from Wisconsin) has a family recipe for squirrel pie too so no waste.

Forty, she is obvioulsy thriving on the attentiona nd will post more 'outrageous' claims to get more.

I don't agree with wearing fur; I'm a veggie for ethical reasons (if anyone wants to discuss it, fire away) but I also don't believe a word Xenia says.

This is another debate where I can see where both sides are coming from, so I'll just keep clear suffice to say that I agree with themoon66 in that people wearing fur look about 3 stone overweight.

In Milan the fur coats and fishnet tights are brought out every year on 1st November and they go back into the cupboard at easter, whether the weather agrees with that philosophy or not. It's a totally different attitude on the continent, and just for the record they do farm cows and sheep in factory conditions and think we're downright weird for letting them roam pretty much free range in fields where just anybody can come along and put one in the boot of their cars!

Can we just start treating Xenia like any other troll and stop giving her all this attention? Sorry to sound petulant, but she is fucking ruining mumsnet for everyone else.

MrsArchie, I live in San Remo for a while - very clement winters, but still the fur was out right up until April!

I agree Dino. Can we please move on

can I make a joke about monkeytrousers' trousers and the hypocrisy of her stance on fur please?

also, to be pedantic...nobody farms sheep in factory conditions. they don't breed that way.

Senora! These trousers are 100% ethically correct. No monkeys were harmed in their making; just tickled.

For the record also, I have no problem with Inuit wearing fur!

Opp's, that should have been lived MrsArchie. I also live in Milan however and it was bitterly cold in the winter, and foggy. Not arctic conditions though and no Inuit, just (I observed) very old and ugly ladies in fur.

Opp's, that should have been lived MrsArchie. I also lived in Milan however and it was bitterly cold in the winter, and foggy. Not arctic conditions though and no Inuit, just (I observed) very old and ugly ladies in fur.

Opp's, that should have been lived MrsArchie. I also lived in Milan however and it was bitterly cold in the winter, and foggy. Not arctic conditions though and no Inuit, just (I observed) very old and ugly ladies in fur.

...

Most of you are far too precious. I know who I'd take to my desert island from this thread below. You have ot be prepared for blood and gore in the real world, not the fake namby pamby lets pretend we're otping out of capitalism by leeching off our poor husbands financially and let's pretend we're green when clearly we aren't kind of parallel universe you seem to live in. Yes try to avoid being cruel to animals (and even husbands and children) but specious arguments about fur don't cut much ice. You may well think it makes men and women look ugly (I will check in the Alps next week) ... images of that fur bikini coming to mind from 1001 years BC coming to mind which looked pretty good but that's irrelevant. When you have to descend to that kind of point you've lost the arugment.

Thank goodness I live in a real world where I am free to wear fur if I choose.

why would you need fur on a desert island?

& is it a private island?

I think a debate about fur is interesting..i don't see how having one is ruining mumsnet

however i'm not at all sure where the hatred of men and of women who have a partner in their lives comes in to it again

it is interesting.

xenia, what are you talking about, blood and guts? real world? where are you again, the congo, the lebannon, iraq?

the alps and a thai national heritage site I think both well known for blood and gore and blood sucking women

Yes the traps can sometimes be cruel?!

Oh, so that's why they try to chew their trapped limbs off ??

WTF is that all about ?

While I'm at it, leather isn't a bypass of meat - see the poor cows bleeding to death in India.

No I don't by the eggs from the 'scare' . Neither do I buy Waitrose duck a la orange. Neither do I buy meat unless it's from my local ORGANIC bring in the butcher farm.

Argue yes, stupid sweeping statements no.

I'm off before I really lose it