I think they're fucking adorable and fascinating.
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| SQUEE! Ain't I adorable? A Photo of Phidippus putnami (a type of Jumping Spider) taken Thomas Shahan in Tulsa, OK. |
I like destroying stereotypes. So, saying that I like spiders is a big surprise to people. I'm sure most of you are aware of a gender binary about spiders. Women are four times more likely than men to have a spider phobia. There is a lot of discussion about why this is. There have been numerous academic studies regarding this. The conclusion based on this study has been the females are genetically disposed to fear spiders and other dangerous critters — but not born that way. Baby girls rapidly learn to fear creepy-crawlies.
I'm uncertain how I feel about a study done on 20 babies, being the absolute word on genetic prodisposition. No geneticist, no archeologist, no paleontologist, no ethnographer, no paleoanthropologist. A psychologist's study on 20 babies where they GAUGED their REACTIONS to PICTURES. Psychology tends to have problematic relationship with empiricism.
The words ‘genetic’ and ‘hunter-gatherer’ has no basis. It’s just a cultural meme perpetuated by repetition. It's true that human ‘instincts’ or not everything is environmental. However the hunter-gatherer concept pisses me off. It invokes an image of big strong men hunting mammoths and home-bound women collecting berries which feeds cultural stereotypes about male and female characteristics which are false.
So if being scared of spiders is genetically predisposed, why bother changing a behavior?
"Even if a person is heavily predisposed to develop spider phobia, exposure therapy would still be effective," says Jaime Derringer, a clinical psychologist from Washington University in St Louis. "But it may be more difficult to 'unlearn' the association between spiders and a fearful response," she says.
In my personal experience. I have not always thought spiders were cute. In fact, when I was seven, they were my most frequent nightmare after watching something on tv featuring an evil man controlled by spiders and a house of spiders.
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| Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and Half shows artistic pizzazz with her rendition of "Woman Terrified by Spider" |
So, for years, I've been trying to break my fear of spiders. And I have sort of.
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| My act of bravery, holding my good friend's pet tarantula. |
It's a hard habit to break but I am lucky to have been surrounded by awesome women. A former roommate and one of my best friend's has three pet tarantulas and finds them utterly fascinating. She coaxed me into holding her Rosie (above photo). I've managed to befriend several individuals who happen to love entomology. Slowly in the past few years, I have been able to look at photos and not seen the following:
Instead, I have become fascinated by their particular beauty and really awesome behaviors.
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| Another Thomas Shahan photo, Phidippus audax in Norman, Oklahoma. The yellow you see coating its body is pollen, perhaps acquired after a messy tussle with a bee. |
But...I still don't want them to touch me.
I don't like spiders in the house. I like admiring them in the wilderness. If a spider crawls on my leg, you can bet I'll scream and fling it across the room.
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| Thomas Shahan photo |
How do you feel about spiders?
I was told as a kid that we were never more than six feet from a spider at any time in our lives. That made me feel good because if one bit me it might have given me spider-powers. My big fear is fish or anything that brushes up against me in the water.
ReplyDeleteI really do appreciate what the spider does for our household (and the ecosystem) in an abstract sense (i.e. it eats other bugs and bits I like even less like the buzzing fly). But when a spider is near me, in the same room as me, or perhaps is about to skitter across my path, I just lose it. I squeak like a little girl and run for the fly swatter to defend myself. Though, recently I've taken to running for a napkin to put it outside instead of squishing it. Regardless, I still react like all spiders are pure evil trying to eat my face off, and that's okay. I feel as though some fear is okay to live with as long as it does not control my life and prevent me from doing what I need/want to. (^_^)
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