I Love Fur

A few weeks ago, I rolled out of bed just in time for work, checked weather.com, and, finding the temperature below 35 degrees, did the natural thing in these situations—I reached for my lovely fur. In the intervening months, with the red-faced heat of summer fresh in my mind, I had sort of forgotten about the firestorm of criticism that always follows me whenever I step out into the world clad in the Saga Fox. I was about to be reminded.

I sashayed onto the train platform with nary a care in the world, with the cheering expectation of finishing a few pages of Crime and Punishment before having to commence my daily drudgery. Glancing up from my book I caught the eye of a fellow traveler who proceeded to wrinkle her nose at me. I thought little of it until later that day when I was chatting with some friends in a local coffee shop. I was discussing plans for my latest rococo dinner party (I made a roast goose, it went very well, thanks for asking) when the conversation shifted to my distinctive outerwear.

To a rapt audience, I told the story of stumbling upon the Fox in the dingy aisles of my favorite resale establishment. Out of the rows of polyester ski suits, well away from its rightful home in "better garments," emerged an ostentatiously 80s-style fur for the low, low price of $20. It was thrift-store destiny, and yes, I was willing to overlook the crudely stapled price tag on the lapel. At this point, the provenance of my luxury item was pretty clear, and not very luxurious. Clearly, I wasn't giving any money to the fur industry. Still, a mutual acquaintance interrupted me: "Don't you still feel bad wearing fur?" It almost made me wish I had bought it new.

At that moment, the dim memories of wrinkled noses and raised eyebrows of years past came flooding back. I recall a particular incident in which I was wearing black and had been a little laissez-faire with the lint roller. "Do you own a dog?" I was asked. "No, but I do own a fur coat." Admittedly, I do relish the frisson of trespassing this utterly meaningless taboo just a tiny bit. There is no small satisfaction to be gained from playing Cruella DeVil to a bunch of pious Dalmatian lovers. But I'm not killing puppies, I'm wearing a coat I got at a thrift store. Still, even if I did buy it new, it's really nobody's business but mine. So what is it about fur that causes people with otherwise indifferent attitudes towards animal rights, who don't bat an eyelash at Uggs or steak, to feel like they have to speak out in defense of the poor critters adorning my shoulders?

Anti-fur partisans usually open with the "cruelty to animals" salvo. And I happen to agree that when animals are raised to be slaughtered, abuses occur and must be curbed. In the grand scheme of things, however, a side of bacon or a pair of leather shoes is no more or less necessary to sustain life than a fur coat, and is also pretty likely to have been produced in abhorrent factory-farming conditions. Indeed, to follow the rabbit hole down to its logical conclusion, almost every consumer good, somewhere on the production line, is irrevocably tainted with human and animal rights abuses. Welcome to capitalism.

The thing is, taking a "bold" anti-fur stance is really quite easy, because it does not require the average consumer to make any lifestyle changes whatsoever. These days fur is basically an extravagance of the wealthiest among us. I hate to suggest that maybe hating fur gives lazy liberals a convenient channel to vent their class rage at the rich, but I just did it anyway. On the other hand, what's so wrong about just straight-up hating rich people? Why do we need to bring fur into it?

It's pretty obvious, really: fur makes a great symbol. In one corner, there are all the adorable little animals. In the other corner, evil rich people. But somewhere in the middle you have the truth, which is that yes, you have to kill animals to get it, but fur is really warm and comfortable as all hell, and there's a reason people have been wearing it for thousands of years: when you wear it in the winter, you can actually be warm, and not that weird synthetic "I'm climbing Mount Everest and sweating oddly" warm but that "Ah, a cocoon of warmth surrounds me" warm. The tactile pleasures of fur are also not to be underestimated, and a fur coat, when properly cared for, will literally last a lifetime. When I'm old and evil and rich I just might buy one for myself.

In conclusion, Kathleen of America's Next Top Model, cycle 8, says it better than I ever could: "Actually, I really do like fur. I mean, it makes you look hot.