I Know I'm A Snob

Sometimes I can be a little bit... hoity-toity. I buy expensive creams and potions to prevent wrinkles. I give my hair special treatment, using a conditioner infused with champagne extract, diamond dust, cashmere and crushed pearls. I concern myself with the strength of my nails, the softness of my skin, with hair growth, removal and its loss. I enjoy shopping as much as the next girl, and part of my fancy nature always leads me to expensive boutiques where I like to touch all the lovely luxurious fabrics (and gawk at the price tags). Mohair, silk, camel (!?) and every type of fur, all get special attention from my finger tips.

As a devout vegetarian, I never thought my love affair with the softness and lightness of fur to be inconsistent with my beliefs. I always held onto this romantic, fantasy driven notion of hunters making a living selling the skins of animals they shot in the wild. In my fantasy, the animal lived a long free life, full of exercise, fresh air, and little pups.

Last week, while doing my daily Internet rounds, I clicked on a PETA video about the fur industry. After watching the video (which I chose not to post because it is far to disturbing for anyone to see), I wondered how I could have been so naive, remained so ignorant on a subject that I hold so dear to my heart: animal rights. My romantic notion is one that may have existed in a simpler time, when things weren't mass produced in ways to decrease production costs as much as possible. Farm animals live their entire lives in captivity, experiencing exhaustion, loneliness, pain, depravation and torture. Farm animals are bred to serve our needs, and the fur industry works in the exact same manner.

I will be forever haunted by the images of violence, suffering and blatant disregard to any human decency in that video. Being vegetarian I feel empowered everyday by not eating meat because I'm saving animals in the process. But watching that video, I truly felt helpless, and sooooo guilty about owning a winter coat with a fur trim around the hood. I wish I could take back my purchase, decrease the demand for fur by at least one coat. I will never again see fur as luxurious or soft or attractive, it is now as a symbol of violence and torture and suffering.