USA: a nation of arachnophobes?

Thought prompted by something mentioned in a recent thread; and an item chanced-upon in one from a couple of years ago – bringing to mind what has struck me as a bit of a recurring theme on SDMB.

In discussion of courteous/ chivalrous / helpful behaviour vis-a-vis those toward whom, such behaviour is perceived as appropriate (concerning attitudes which may be pro- or anti- that overall idea, or in between): a fairly frequent action cited as a “stock” example done by the chivalrous person for the recipient (often, but not always, one man and one woman respectively) – is “killing spiders”.

In my country, UK: among folk who would broadly consider themselves “progressive”, a benign attitude toward most of “the brute creation” is fairly general – this certainly including spiders. Regarding them as repulsive beasties the killing of which is right and proper, is seen as an old-fashioned attitude fit for irrational ninnies – far better to consider them interesting and beneficial eight-legged friends, which help to keep down the numbers of truly noxious insects, and should be cherished. (I am myself a little bit arachnophobic: I wish I weren’t – am pro-spider in principle, and would desire to be able to be more so in practice – they are truly fascinating beasts.) If someone doesn’t want spiders around them, “trap, relocate and release” is seen as appropriate, rather than killing the poor things.

There is possibly the factor that effectively, no British spider is capable of physically harming a human. I realise that the US has some varieties of spider which are venomous; but if I’m right: these species are in a minority and found only in some parts of the country – the majority of North American spiders are harmless. With the meme of spider-killing often being cited as a chivalrous action: I do wonder whether many Americans are still today of the opinion that spiders of any kind are horrid creatures and “the only good one is a dead one”, and act accordingly – or whether this is more, a “fossilised” figure of speech representing chivalrous behaviour, and real-life arachnicide an act from which large numbers of people refrain. I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts on this thing.

Sir or madam, if you haven’t noticed, Muricans like killing stuff.

I personally don’t object to the little critters; I destroy their webs when housecleaning but do my best to avoid damaging the beasts themselves, generally with words of warning and encouragement that I hope they duly appreciate. If I do encounter a spider in a place I really don’t want it to be, then as you say, trap-and-release is the proper approach.

I think my attitude is not unusual, though a lot of people also seem to treat spiders as just another form of bug that you routinely squish when you encounter them. Is it possible that we in the US get more invertebrate intruders of various kinds than you in the UK and therefore are more indiscriminate about eliminating them?

I agree with what Kimstu wrote. When I was much younger, I was very arachnophobic. I cured the fear by becoming the proud parent of a friendly tarantula whom I named Fang. Fang was endlessly fascinating and after he had helped me overcome my horror of his 8-legged relatives, I released him back into his natural habitat, forever grateful for his assistance.

I draw the line for catch-and-release for black widows, which were common where I lived in California. Haven’t encountered them much here in Oregon – can only remember one, and she was not in the house. I don’t find many spiders in the house, but when I do, I usually just leave them be. If in an inconvenient spot, the relocation is my choice.

I like spiders. I’ve kept several as “pets” from the little ones who lived in my curtains when I was a teenager, to Miss Muffett who lived under my old printer, to an orange-kneed tarantula in a terrarium. They have never bothered me. The most I will do is move them out of my way if they’re in it, or get them away from the curious and destructive paws of the cats.

Yeah, there is sometimes a bit of a problem with cobwebs, but then I don’t see many bugs around the house.

It has absolutely nothing to do with their deadliness. I am completely terrified at spiders. If I catch a glimpse of anything moving when I don’t expect it my adrenaline spikes in a millisecond and I am swiping to kill the damn thing without any conscious effort. Should it happen in my car it has nearly caused a crash or two.

One time I had parked my car alongside a pond while I was fishing. As I drove away later a fair sized spider descended from behind my sun visor and dropped towards my lap. I slammed on the brakes and rolled out of the car while it was still moving at the road side. I can’t recall how I ever got the courage to drive home as I did not locate the offending arach. I do recall using several room sized bug bombs in the small car to make sure it was dead, dead dead. To this day I will not park my car with the windows cracked if I am anywhere near fields or even under a tree in a parking lot.

This extends to even images of spiders. I like to play spider solitaire but hate hate hate the playing cards, I have searched endlessly to find a game that does not have spiders on the deck. I will not watch a spider on TV. AT. ALL.

However, I love insects. Adore them. I catch fearsome looking stag beetles and love to watch them crawling on my hand. Praying mantis? Best friend, so cute. I considered a career as an etymologist until I realized there were like 6 jobs available in the whole country.

Dennis

No insect nor insect-adjacent creature found within the walls of my dwelling or workplace will be permitted to continue living. If they got in once, I don’t trust that they’ll not get in again, so no trap and release. That’s my attitude.

Clearly the country needs far more etymologists, to help the people who are interested in insects to find one of the thousands of jobs open to them.

In addition to a “violence-first!” perspective, Americans are somewhat distracted/lazy, too. Some folks are too busy facebooking or watching fox news to take the time to identify, catch and release such vermin as spiders. It’s easier to smash and move on.

Though all hope is not lost. There’s some (many on this MB) who marvel at the wonders of the earth’s creatures. The mantra I’m likely to recite (to anyone who will listen) is, “They’re just trying to make a living, like the rest of us.” Upon their release, I like to wish these little critters some version of, “A salaam alaikum”, too.

Mantras are the worst, I beat them with a stick and then squash them with my shoe.

I like spiders. I would likely squash them inside my apartment, but I have on more than one occasion scooped them up and set them free outside.

I see the whole stereotype of the woman running squealing to the man to kill the spider she just saw is alive and well. Nice misogyny there, despite the recent gains through politics and #MeToo.

I’ve long had a house spider called Horace*, who I’m quite happy to have around. As you say, a bit of cobweb is a small price to pay for keeping other bugs down.

  • Oddly, Horace used to live in my mum and dad’s house before I moved out all those decades ago :wink: I wonder how many generations of Horace there have been in my life? I also wonder if spiders establish dominance, because there only ever seems to be one big one at a time in my bit.

This is weak sauce. OP could hardly have been more explicit that he was making an observation that such stereotypes exist without endorsing them.

I’m a catch-and-release guy. Spiders aren’t allowed in the house; so if I find them, they spend time in the Penalty Jar until I take them outside. (i.e., I put them in a jar until I get to releasing them outside.) I used to catch a fair number of giant house spiders (example from 2011), but I’ve only seen a couple since we’ve had cats. Now they’re mostly ‘daddy longlegs’ (Pholcidae, not the non-spider Opiliones) or smaller, slightly hairy, brown or black spiders. The only spiders I let stay in the house are the false black widows, because they live under the furniture or in other inaccessible places and stay there.

As for real black widows, we haven’t seen any up here. They were common when we lived in the desert though. Even though I’m spider-friendly, black widows would be killed on sight. Sorry. I don’t like them.

You may want to read this and this before you bring on the smug.

Mrs. L.A. no longer screams. She’s getting better. She still doesn’t want to look when I catch a really nice one and want to show it to her, though. (She does love jumping spiders.)

And people accuse us Yanks of ignoring history. Back when we were still just struggling colonies, people weren’t coming here fleeing mundane European crackpottery like religious persecution. We were fleeing a land positively infested with spiders thanks to the likes of you. As a result, our culture is noted for an unusual concentration of arachnophobia. It is one of our strongest bonds as a nation. Boston Tea party? Not an act of insurrection, a dock worker spotted a Parasteatoda tepidariorum “comparable in size to a wagonne wheele” creeping across his hand. He panicked and dropped his box o tea and it tumbled into the bay. “Spyyyderr” he yelped and the rest of the dockworkers likewise dropped their loads. The Chicago Fire of 1871 and Seattle fire of 1889? Workers [del]frightened[/del] attacked by Phidippus audax and Tegenaria agrestis, respectively. There is ongoing debate about what really happened on 9/11.

Drives me crazy when people kill spiders for no reason other than that “they scare me.” These are the same people who, centuries ago, would have probably wanted animals like wolves and coyotes exterminated. Even more hypocritically, many of these spider-killers are people who claim to love animals. Guess what, spiders are in Kingdom Animalia.

I’m terrified of the fucking things. We have a lot of banana spiders in our yard and wolf spiders get in the house all the time, so it’s only a matter of time until one of them gets me and I just drop dead. That said, catch-and-release is the rule around here. It’s not right to kill something just because it is a hideous alien monster.

I have a natural loathing for any life form that has – to quote Dave Barry – “way more legs than necessary”.