The e-mail was titled, “Minks Are People Too”

Dear Monk,

I've been dreaming about buying your rope for a while now, but one thing is holding me back. Mink oil. I've been reading your blog and Matisse's for a few months now, (love them both, thank you both immensely) but when I read that mink oil is part of your conditioning process, I was devastated. I am assuming your mink oil comes from real minks, i.e. minks farmed for their fur. I did a bit of checking online and found that the mink industry is not as bad as it used to be, but it is still far from ideal and not exactly consensual sadism.

Can I hold out a ray of hope that there is such a thing as synthetic mink oil? Or that you could make your fabulous rope without the mink oil? It would be a great joy to a compassionate budding kinkster like me, in need of good rope like yours, but not wanting to think of the pain of captive minks while I'm trying to enjoy my own captive / pain experience.

-veggiegodess

Well, hmm… ya first off I would have to say that I sorta feel sorry for all the kinky vegans out there. I mean it really must suck to be part of a community that identifies itself with the wearing of dead mammal flesh? Leather is integral to the identity of most kinksters and somehow wearing naugahide just does not seem as sexy.

So why do I use mink oil on my rope? The last stage of processing and conditioning the is a light coat of mink oil, rubbed into the fibers of the rope. This does several things. First off, it relaxes and softens up the rope. Next, it provides a protective coating on the rope against rot from moisture and lastly it gives the rope that nice luster. But why use mink oil and not some other oil? There have been countless discussions about this on-line and it boils down to this. Non-animal oils like hemp or almond oil will eventually go rancid and your rope will STINK. Oils like tung may contain additives that could be caustic to human skin. Mink oil does not rot or harm skin.

Still want some rope but refuse to have anything to do with the milking of minks? I have made, on request, rope with out any mink oil added. We just skip that final step all together and the customer accepts that the rope will not be as soft as my normal rope. Now the rope will eventually relax, however they will need to use it several times before it takes on the usual softness associated with Twisted Monk rope. Also they accept the fact that the rope may dry out sooner if left unused for long periods of time. If the customer chooses they can try to oil the rope using a petroleum jelly or Vaseline, however you mileage will vary.

Still not convinced? What if I told you that we only used oil harvested from hardend, criminal minks? Minks who, upon receiving a fair trial from a jurry of thier fellow minks, refused state ordered rehablitation. We are talking, hard case un-repentant criminal minks who would surely lead other younger, more impresionalble minks into a life of mink related crime? That and they never called thier mothers on mother's day and were litter bugs.