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Would You Wear Fur?

15:32 / 02.11.03

I don't think many people I know would go out and BUY a fur coat, but I'm just wondering on people's views on this.

The reason I ask is that I have just inherited two mink jackets that were my grandma's. Both thirties/forties. Part of me feels a real emotional connection with items that were worn by someone I admire and miss, part of me is surprised at my (positive) reaction to the beauty of such things, and part of me thinks - slightly revulsed - what am I doing here?

So, can I/should I wear them?

16:21 / 02.11.03

well, its a product of an unethical(my opinion) trade. can you imagine inheriting an heirloom from a relative in the deep south of america, something either made or paid for by slave labour?

i dont think there is any problem with owning such items. in my opinion the purchase and the support that that suggests is the problem. if you are funding the trade, its a BadThing. if the funding has already been done, then its pointless to worry about it.

the only thing to watch out for, of course, is that PETA activists dont throw red paint on you. they wont ask you to explain first.

16:45 / 02.11.03

I don't have a problem with the fur trade to begin with, but to use slavery as a clearer example, I make three distinctions

1. Purchasing items made by slaves recently, directly funding the slave trade
2. Purchasing items made by slaves a very long time ago while the descendants of those slaves are still slaves making the same product.
3. Purchasing items made by slaves long after slavery has been abolished and there are no slave owners (of a kind) to profit.

The third case is unquestionably permissible and the first is unquestionably bad. The second is not as easy to decide on, because you may still be encouraging the use of slavery today by increasing the value of slave-made products. You may also be doing so by displaying them prominently (say, wearing them).

I advise you not to wear this fur coat. Assuming you do not wear leather and the like, and assuming you feel strongly that wearing other animals is wrong, then you will only be encouraging the larger society to go buy fur coats.

17:20 / 02.11.03

for a minute i thought we were talking about plushies...

19:03 / 02.11.03

When my family and I first moved into our last house my dad and I went up into the loft and got the fright of our lives when we found ourselves face to face with a fox!

Closer inspection revealed it to actually be a fox stole of the kind ladies in the twenties used to drape around their necks, making them look like they were being throttled by an angry mammal.

I still have the fox today, it seemed somehow wrong to just throw it out when the animal had given up it's life. I use it as costume whenever I am in a production that's appropriate, I like to think that I'm trying to make up for past wrongs by letting it shine on stage!

I have to say though that I wouldn't wear it in my real life. Do you have a theatrical/costume friend you could donate them to?

No star here laces

00:55 / 03.11.03

If you're a vegetarian, maybe there might be some point in choosing not to wear it.

But if not, wear the fucking thing already! Fur just LOOKS GOOD. There are far worse threats to life, morality and the ecosystem than the fur trade. If you're going to worry about this stuff, I'd spend your energy trying to get wood and paper products that don't involve illegally logged timber from old-growth rainforests because if anything's really going to fuck with our cute lil furry cousins it's the loss of all their habitats...

Tryphena Absent

08:19 / 03.11.03

My mother had a fur coat when I was younger and I remember, at the age of eight or nine, asking her why it was okay. Basically the reply was that the coat was about sixty years old, that once an animal dies you can't bring it back and that it didn't support the current murder of animals because it was so damn old.

If you keep this fur you will be, at the very least, prolonging the reason why this animal died and that's got to be a good thing. Imagine being a poor sentient creature and being killed for your fur and then not even being worn! Keep it, wear it and be proud that you're carrying something of your grannies.

Also Fur just LOOKS GOOD. Damn right it does!

09:12 / 03.11.03

Weeeell, okay, I wouldn't wear it, but then I'm vegan. I think fur looks vile, bit of corpse hanging around you, and it would affect my view of someone if I met them and they were wearing a fur coat. More so than leather - which isn't logical, I agree, but it's because wearing fur is so much more in your face. I'm not saying don't wear it -- that's your choice, and I can understand why the family connection makes it all the more attractive. But if you do then you have to be aware that (some) people will see it as quite a strong statement.

Peta used to bury fur coats but I read they'd changed their minds and were giving them to homeless people -- may as well make use of them, I suppose.

13:29 / 03.11.03

Thanks all for your views. Ariadne, I've been wondering this week why I'm kinda OK with leather, but really unsure about fur, when it is, essentially, the same.

13:45 / 03.11.03

I think it's just because we see leather all the time, so it's disassociated from the animal it came from. Plus there have been so many anti-fur campaigns that it's higher profile. It's the same mind-gap that makes people shriek with horror at the thought of eating puppies but not lambs.

13:49 / 03.11.03

Another thought - another difference between fur and leather is that, if you eat meat, then leather is just a by-product of that. To kill the animal just for its fur seems .. well, I don't know about worse but it's certainly a different situation.

14:51 / 03.11.03

yeah i eat meat and wear leather but i wouldn't buy anything fur. even just a little fur trim. UNLESS it was used/vintage. then i think it's ok.
when my sister was vegan she only wore leather from the thrift store.
i have 2 pairs of leather pants but i think a leather couch is excessive, i also think leather car interiors are excessive. i'm a little weird like that, like i eat meat, but i prob'ly only do so about six or seven times a week, and by "meat" i mean chicken/pork too. i think it's excessive to eat meat at every meal. and gross.

16:52 / 03.11.03

What if it was a brand new coat of nutria fur?

18:34 / 03.11.03

Wearing fur is fine, because it's just a by product of the killing furry animals industry.

18:59 / 03.11.03

I would wear fur if I lived somewhere cold and I only make that distinction because I'd feel over-dressed with it unless outside was knee-deep in snow. The only moral objection that bears any examination is the absolute vegetarian/vegan. All the others are a bunch of hooey, slogans implanted into uncritical receivers and fueled by class resentment. Even so, "slavery"? Please.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

12:47 / 04.11.03

I agree with Ignatius, wearing fur in say Morrocco would seem somewhat strange probaly best for cold places/wheather.

I have a fur coat which I got from my Mum which will eventually be used as cold weather kit for LRP. Morally I'm not sure where I stand though I am re-examining it due to this thread. I've always worn leather, which I've seen as a byproduct of meat which I eat. I was always uncomfortable with animals being raised for fur. Thinking about it now I'm not sure why it's just another use for a dead animal. Pretty much I'm of the opinion that if you're going to kill something then you should really use as much of it as possible. I'm probably more worried about the treatment of the meat I eat on the grounds of cruelty than I am fur. I'd love everything to be free range/organic, less cruel, more rural jobs etc. (it's the threat to hunting not factory farming that's ruining the rural economy dontcha know, yessirree).

In terms of slavery like most other western consumer I use things that have been manufactured/grown by people who work in what pretty much amounts to slavery so I suppose I'm a bit of a bastard really.

13:32 / 04.11.03

Yes..but I just tend to duct-tape road kill all over my body. I think its morally sound...although some of them have turned out to be not so dead and have caused some confusion and amusement at inoportune moments.
Besides, dont kid yourselves, If they had the technology those cute little minks would think nothing of wearing you to their next hoity-toity party.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

13:40 / 04.11.03

You're absolutly right Keg, what I need is a squirrel large enough to wear.

14:26 / 04.11.03

For maximum warmth, the furry part should be worn on the inside, and the leather or lining on the outside. If you wear it like that, you can honestly say you're wearing it for warmth. That would be acceptable to me.

I have two leather coats and a pair of leather shoes. However, they were already dead when I got them.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

06:36 / 05.11.03

Do you not think that looking like a giant inside out squirrel would be odd, wheras looking like a giant squirrel would be kind of cool?

14:57 / 05.11.03

For maximum warmth, the furry part should be worn on the inside

Is this true? I would have thought the other way around, since that's the way the animals wear it, but, then, I'm not sure how they could grow fur going inside, so maybe you're right.

15:17 / 05.11.03

I think your main worry's going to be the public revulsion for fur, although fake furs are so good these days I'm sure you could brazen it out.

I've never worn fur but it would be a huge hypocrisy for me to claim any scruple lies behind that choice. I wear leather. I eat the flesh of animals farmed, often kept in cruel conditions, just for that purpose. I am irredeemably compromised.

I suppose the only logical stand I could manufacture would be against the wearing of fur from endangered species. It's a moral minefield what you put onto and into your body these days.

Old fur beats new fur but with wars over oil to make more synthetics, the best leather coming from foetal lambs and calves, and aspiring moths boiled for silk, you'd have to stick to fair trade cotton or naturalism to feel untainted.

I think women should all wear unbleached cotton and men should go naked and all the animals would smile at us as we pass by, shivering but pure.

15:19 / 05.11.03

I think the word I wanted above was naturism, and not naturalism. David Bellamy and David Attenborough have my permission to clothe themselves. In fact, I would encourage both to do so. In discarded furs.

19:26 / 05.11.03

Or molted skins.

07:16 / 06.11.03

just one thing on the leather-as-a-byproduct-of-meat argument:

if you look at how much an animal's flesh is sold for, then look at how much the skin is sold for, it's plain that much more money is being made out of the skin.

doesn't wash, IMHO.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

10:27 / 06.11.03

Are you saying that we're being ripped off by cows?

10:38 / 06.11.03

I think Naked is saying meat is a by-product of the leather industry (though I think leather costs more than meat because it has to be tanned). Or that it's dry-clean only.

Never really get the by-product argument myself.