Unpopular opinion: "I wear fur and I'm OK with it".

Today I wore a rabbit fur vest into the Mamamia office.  Not faux fur.  ‘What’s up Doc’ bunny rabbit kind of real.

Cue horror and outrage.  It was like I had a bomb strapped to my chest.

The fur outrage seems faux to me.

“I can’t believe you’re wearing a bunny,” says Mia as she patted me and then walked away in her leather shoes.

“I’d be worried someone would throw paint on me like they did to Samantha in Sex and the City,” says Caitlin as she took a bite of her ham, cheese and tomato toastie.

“Oh it feels so good, but I just couldn’t do it,” says Candice as she threw her leather jacket over the back of her chair.

Hypocrites!

I don’t understand this leather wearing/meat eating outrage over fur. Why will people wearing fur risk red paint being thrown on them but go to your local rib joint and you can happily chew on pig bones like a caveman without a care in the world?

On the issue of fur, I’ve decided I will only accept the disdain of vegans. Vegans are true to the animal rights cause because they have values and beliefs and they stick to them.  I don’t agree with their stance, but at least they are not phony.

I also figure they are too weak to fight me.

I grew up in country Queensland.  I tried to go vegetarian when I was 16 and my Dad sat me down and told me I was being offensive to our farming community. Since then I have been a very happy carnivore.

Yes, I know where the animals come from. I’ve been to an abattoir. I’ve grown up around farms.  My eyes are open.

We once had a pig-on-the-spit in our family back yard. Dad shot the pig and I had to scrape the coarse hairs off its body with a metal pot lid.

It was delicious.

There’s an argument that leather is ethical because it’s a byproduct of the meat industry.  In the minds of many, this makes it OK.

“Leather has a practicality that fur lacks. Like fur isn’t sturdy, it just feels nice and looks pretty. You also have to kill a lot more furry animals to make a single vest than you would to create a pair or boots, ie. less than one… and leather is produced as a bi-product of the meat industry that will exist whether you get dressed in the morning or not,” says Jo.

“I think fur seems worse in most people’s minds because it resembles the animal’s natural state more closely. People may see fur and immediately think of the animal, but see leather and just think, ‘nice shoes’,” says Emily.

“Personally, I’d never wear fur, and I don’t have leather items or eat meat.  But I think fur is often singled. Look at the conditions of factories in countries like Bangladesh. You don’t see people walking up and stroking someone’s pretty $20 pants and then saying ‘too bad an uneducated woman was paid 12c an hour to make them’.  It’s Consumer Fetishism. We’re fine with items that assist in the production of our identities but turn a blind eye to the process by which it comes to us. It’s not mutually exclusive. I’m aware of this, but I think we feel powerless to affect change,” says Ally.

“I think so many people love fur, but don’t want to admit it. Often people go out of their way to justify wearing fur, e.g. they say they will only wear it if it’s second-hand, as if that way they didn’t contribute to killing the animal. I think that if you like wearing fur, just own your feelings! Don’t apologise!” says Carla.

Boy.  One vest.  So many office opinions.

What are your opinions on fur?