Sex In The Public Square - AIDS - Comments

Fear of Creepy Crawlies

JanieBelle — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:45:01 -0800

This article at LiveScience bears directly on this:

Fear of snakes is one of the most common phobias, yet many people have never seen a snake in person. So how is this fear generated?

New research suggests humans have evolved an innate tendency to sense snakes — and spiders, too — and to learn to fear them.

Psychologists found that both adults and children could detect images of snakes among a variety of non-threatening objects more quickly than they could pinpoint frogs, flowers or caterpillars. The researchers think this ability helped humans survive in the wild.

(More at the link.)

Urgent action needed, thank you Amber!

Elizabeth — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:44:47 -0800

I had meant to get a SexAct(ivism)! piece up about this but clearly there isn't time. I'm so glad you posted this. Of course we're looking forward to your original posts, too, but thank you for taking time away from that to post this call.

Some Info On Arachnid Sex Campaign

JanieBelle — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:41:37 -0800

Just came across (no pun intended) this article in New Scientist , although they don't link to the campaign directly.

According to some of the commentors, the PSA was run a few years ago and terminated for reasons of ineffectiveness.

I'm really curious

Elizabeth — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:23:03 -0800

about this PSA campaign. Where are these images appearing? (Magazines? Metro stations?) And does anybody have a link to the organization that sponsors the campaign, or to any other info about its creation/distribution?

Just curious.

A secondary reaction: It's interesting that they chose wildly enlarged versions of animals that we are terrified of, and not animals that are often associated with zoophilia. Does the use of these animals work mostly because of our taboos about sex with animals, or mostly because the animals themselves are ones we associate with danger and ickyness? (And do the images reinforce stigma/taboo around zoophilia, or do they seem too disconnected from actual zoophilia to have an impact?)