A keyword perspective on why fur-wearers do it

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2006:
Anti-fur campaigners typically believe that fur-wearers wear
fur chiefly because they associate it with glamour and sex appeal.
This may be incorrect.
A keyword search of the 2006 staff-written content of 1,216
newspapers archived at NewsLibrary.com turned up 3,913 articles
associating “fur” with “coat,” and 651 associating “fur” with
“trim.”
Among these articles, 62% linked fur with “independence,”
“liberty,” or “freedom.” The usual context appeared to be furriers
describing buyers as either women of independent minds and income,
or younger people defying pressure from animal rights activists,
portrayed as a vocal minority–but reporters found the remarks worth
quoting.

43% of the articles linked fur with “security,” 41% with
“warmth,” 28% with “safety,” 28% with “success,” 27% with
“independence,” 18% with “cruelty,” 15% with “status,” 13% with
“luxury,” 9% with “sexy,” and only 5% with “glamour.”
The 18% association of fur with cruelty tested at more than
twice the strength of “horse” with “rider” (8.5%). Thus there may be
no lack of recognition that fur production is cruel–as acknowledged
by Alison Hardie of The Scotsman in a recent commentary, in which
she admitted that she wears fur trim even though she is concerned
about animal suffering. (See pages 12-13.)
However, associations of fur with independence, liberty,
and freedom appear to be three times stronger than the association
with cruelty, and the associations with security, warmth, safety,
and success are also significantly stronger, especially when
combined with the slightly weaker scores for “status” and
“luxury.”