#biophobia

[nerohelvetico]

[irantforpleasure]

I think I have a fear of nature, stuff like long grass and deep water terrifies me because of what can be living in there.

Part of my brain wants to enjoy these things because I still admire the beauty of nature but snakes, spiders, ticks and potentially giant sea beasts plague my brain.

My parents live next to a sea connected lake and when I’m standing on one of the docks I get nervous that this will be the day there’s a shark that got completely turned around and is desperate enough to lunge itself out of the water to get me.

The spiders, ticks and snakes fear in long grass is kinda justified in Australia though. We have giant spiders that live underground and ticks that can paralyse you ok. And then there’s the most poisonous snakes in the world. When grass is allowed to actually return to it’s natural state these creatures call it home, so I’ll just let them have it.

[zorkaya-moved]

😓

[djholt]

Family Reunion | Para

Featuring: Delilah, DJ, & Tucker Holt. Mentions of their parents (Jonathan & Scarlett Holt), and Tucker’s boyfriend (Cameron LaCava) Time Frame: Thanksgiving 2022 Location: New Orleans, LA // Los Angeles, CA // Boston, MA Triggers: Mentions of homophobia, biphobia, alcohol & death/loss Notes: The Holt siblings gather (over video call) for the holiday

DJ had been spending the past couple of days leading up to Thanksgiving catching up with friends and former colleagues while in LA. A former client of hers while at her old agency had invited her down for a ‘Friendsgiving’ and after some consideration, she’d accepted. While at the extravagant home and watching some of the other guests mill about, sipping beer and cocktails in small clusters, DJ had been half-heartedly watching a football game on the giant, 80″ flat screen TV. While she was happy to have been invited over and not spend Thanksgiving alone, she as a bit tired and contemplating a round of visits and ‘hellos’ before calling it an early evening and heading back to her hotel room to sleep. Or take advantage of the hotel’s heated pool for an hour.

It was at that very moment that DJ’s cellphone buzzed her hand. For a split second, she’d hoped that there hadn’t been any sort of work-related crisis happening. Thankfully, the alert was actually showing her sister’s name, photo, and a request for a video call.

Glancing around while thinking quickly, she excused herself from the party’s main indoor area and slipped into the nearest bathroom, locking the door behind her. As she lowered the toilet lid and sat down, she answered the phone in a somewhat hushed tone, finding that her sister, Delilah, already had their brother, Tucker on the video call from his respective location.

“Hey! Happy Thanksgiving, Dolly!” Delilah piped up.

“Yeah, Happy Turkey Day. I love the haircut,” Tucker added, lifting his martini glass in a toasting gesture.

“Back at you both, and thanks, Tuck,” DJ replied, gibing her siblings a friendly smile.

“How’s Boston, Tucker?” Delilah asked.

“Just peachy, sis. Very historical. Way too cold to ever live here. We just finished having dinner. Cam’s family is still a little bit stuffy for my taste. Like I was regretting not wearing some pearls, but they’re nice people.”

DJ and Delilah chuckled at Tucker’s joking over the pearls. And then DJ asked, “How’s the adoption going?”

Right away, Tucker’s eyes widened and his lips stretched into a huge smile. “Amazingly! We should have our baby girl after the new year. You’re going to be aunties soooon!”

At his singsong announcement, DJ raised a hand on camera and said, “Already there thanks to Delilah but I’m happy to be an auntie again.”

Tucker gave a harmless but dismissive flick of his wrist at his sister’s technicality and then said, “Anyway, we’re so ready for her. Cam and I have been watching a lot of kids shows to prepare and Dolly? Nesting is definitely a thing. We’re not allowed to tease Delilah anymore.”

DJ rolled her eyes, while Delilah said, “Don’t worry, the baby factory over here is closed permanently. Three is plenty of kids for me. What about you, Dolly?”

DJ’s brows shot up, “Uhh, my baby factory never opened, so...”

Delilah chuckled and said, “Okay but are you seeing anybody? Are you thinking about settling down sometime soon? Maybe starting a family?”

With a sigh and a quick pause to make sure she wasn’t being overheard, DJ lowered her voice and told them both, “You do know that those things are requirements in life, right? I don’t think anything serious is happening for me right now, and I really don’t know on the kids front. I don’t exactly work the kind of job that’s conducive for the whole conventional family life.”

“Really?” Tucker questioned, tipping the martini glass to his lips. “For some reason, I thought you might want a child or two someday. If you did, I’m sure you’d figure out a way to make it work. Have it all and whatnot.”

Shrugging her slender shoulders, DJ replied, “I’m really focused on my career. And I love what I do. I’ve worked hard and love that I’m also successful at it and that’s not something I want to compromise. Besides, isn’t it a little backwards for me to jump to any sort of family planning when I’m still single? I mean, wouldn’t the Old Man keel over or ask God to smite me if I attempted having a child out of wedlock?”

Tucker couldn’t suppress an amused snort while Delilah’s face became immediately void of any amusement. With a gentle reproach, the eldest of the Holt siblings said, “Dolly...”

“What? Come on, Delilah. When has he ever approved of anything about me--who I am, what I do, any of that? I’m sure he’d have a conniption if he saw how short my hair is. And what if I were to pursue a serious relationship with another woman? Do you think it’d matter to him whether or not I’d want to have children? My relationship and any children would be abominations to him. Delilah, I know you choose not to speak ill of the man, but you only have secondhand experience to what Tucker and I went through when it came to our sexualities and Dad’s behavior towards us. I’m not ashamed of who I am or who I might end up in a relationship with. And I’m not going to submit myself or anyone important to me to his judgments.”

Taking a deep breath, DJ reminded herself to keep her voice low but she continued on. “He claims to love me but he doesn’t show it. Blowing up my phone around the holidays or his birthday, leaving me voicemails where he’s making digs or attempted guilt trips if I don’t answer or call back right away? That’s not love. Standing firm over some biblically-charged misgivings on non-heterosexuality to fuel his phobias or beliefs that two of his kids are absolutely going to hell? That’s not love. He can make the claim that he loves us but he has a horrible way of actually showing it. The only reason I’ve catered to him on any level with returning or answering calls has been for Mama, for her memory. But after this year, I’m not doing it anymore. I’ll find a different way to honor her--a way that doesn’t include his type of conditional love.”

Delilah frowned but said nothing. Tucker proceeded to down the rest of his very full martini glass.

The silence stretched on into uncomfortable territory, so DJ said, “Listen, I have to get going. I was invited to this Friendsgiving shindig and so far I’ve either been a wallflower or hiding out in a guest bathroom talking to you two. I love you both, but let’s talk again sometime before the weekend’s up, okay?”

“Sure, sure,” Tucker replied, lifting his empty glass in mock toast to the screen.

“Yeah, that’d be nice. And Dolly, Tucker, listen. Y’all know I love you, right?” asked Delilah.

“‘Course we do,” Tucker said.

DJ’s expression softened a bit but she didn’t offer her siblings a smile as she said, “I know. I love y’all too. And as much fun as hiding out in a bathroom at someone else’s party sounds, I really should get going.”

Tucker chuckled and Delilah said, “Oh, right, right! Sorry! We’ll talk again soon. Both of you take care.”

“Always,” Tucker sassed.

“Give my hellos and such to Cam, Jackson and the kids.”

Tucker and Delilah spoke confrimations over one another before all three ended the video chat. DJ sighed, thinking about the turn the conversation had taken with her siblings, namely with Delilah. She knew that, despite her eldest sister loving and accepting her and Tucker for all of who they were, her sister was by far the least resistant of their bigoted father and always tried to mend the broken bridges between them. DJ gave up actively trying to get her sister to see sense and give up said crusade, but she also wasn’t going to listen to Delilah’s attempts at getting her to even pretend to be loving towards their father. She hadn’t seen him as an actual father for a very, very long time. Thanksgiving certainly wasn’t going to change that.

Having coached actors, musicians and at one point, a local politician through public relations and putting on a strong faces when they weren’t really in the mood or mindset to, she took her own advice, slapped on a convincing smile, and washed her hands before heading out of the bathroom the rejoin the Thanksgiving festivities--and try to put the bulk of the video call behind her.

[maintitle]

so weird to see the caleb gallo guy in ads for an actual television show. to me he's just that guy. the one who complained a lot and got outshown by the freckle 'sometimes expensive things are worse' the icon. that's a real guy doing acting gigs? weird.

[myimaginarywonderland]

I don't know why you all are acting like even leaning for a kiss isn't cheating.

Eddie is a committed relationship that he has had for months.

Buck has spent the last weeks/days (no idea about time in the show still) crushing on a guy that he is currently dating.

Buck has once before kissed someone drunk while in a relationship and deeply regretted it. This was a plot that was seen so out of character that there are people even debating if it was consensual.

Eddie, while being a bad partner, has never been anything but loyal.

Someone who is committed to another person for as long as Eddie and Marisol have been, is not even entertaining the thought of kissing someone else.

And an almost kiss makes it even worse because the cheating is not just physical but it deeply emotional as it implies such strong feelings between the two people who are cheating.

If you want a ship so many have wanted for years to start this way, maybe you are the problem because a storyline like this is even more problematic than the Buck/Lucy kiss as both people would be cheating and to such an awful degree.

Not to mention that showing a character who just recently revealed as Bi, a character who has already cheated on someone before, kissing a person they aren't dating? Biophobia is a real fucking thing and it starts with you all implying that almost kissing someone while you are dating another person is okay.

Biophobia is very much a thing because it implies that someone because Tommy and Eddie are guys this kiss would count less? If you truly can not see the amount of problematic layers to any possible Buddie storyline next episode, maybe you should not watch a show that wants to tell a positive queer story.

[gracevandienupdates]

This blog is dedicated to Grace and her work as an artist, not a gossip or hate blog. Grace’s privacy and personal life will be respected and I will not be answering any inappropriate anons. Bodyshaming, biophobia, general misogyny etc are NOT welcome here and you will be blocked. ✌🏻

[our-bisexual-experience]

I had a guy tell me I was lucky because bisexual women didn't experience biophobia and it was "so unfair" that there was no stigma around bi women like there is bi men

Huh. That’s not right. Like at all. That’s really wrong.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 Finally Fitz Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD If you have a plant, what type is it and what would you name it OR what's the story behind your Insta handle?❓ 🦇 When Ava "Fitz" Fitzgerald travels to New York with her girlfriend, Danica, she's ready for the perfect summer attending a prestigious summer fashion program that will take her upcycling Insta account to the next level. Unfortunately, Danica upends her plans by dumping her before classes even start, blaming Fitz's obsession with her online persona. To show she's willing to do anything to win Danica back, Fitz takes a break from social media. After reuniting with her long-lost, childhood best friend Levi, she strikes up a plan to win Dani back by making her jealous. Unfortunately, even the most carefully designed plans can come apart at the seams.

💜 Fitz is adorably chaotic and entirely too realistic. A perfectionist with three sisters and parents too busy to pay her much notice, Fitz connects to her older sisters by upcycling their old clothes, turning them into new creations. Unfortunately, that perfectionism causes her to become creatively blocked, leading Fitz to realize there's just as much beauty in imperfections and being authentically yourself, sans filter.

💜 There are so many adorable tropes in Finally Fitz, giving it elements of a comforting, familiar rom-com. I loved Fitz's dynamic with her sisters (I'm the oldest of four girls, and she's the youngest), who always felt shut out and disconnected as the baby among them. The underlying mental health topics of self-worth, authenticity, and work-life balance gave this story the extra layer of depth it needed. I also appreciated the normalcy around queerness (and the touch on biophobia/bi-erasure) for both Fitz and Levi.

💙 Fitzy. Oh, sweet, sweet Fitzy. Fake kissing your childhood best friend and plotting a curated, fake relationship to make your ex jealous is not okay. Not respecting someone's boundaries or desire for a healthier relationship (by their definition) is not okay. The moment Fitz started down that route, I disconnected from her, even as a fellow messy bi. Everything that Danika considered a red flag was entirely valid, and Fitz only made things worse for herself.

🦇 Recommended for fans of She Gets the Girl or To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Great if you love a messy fake-dating rom-com.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🪡 Second Chance Romance 🪴 Friends to Lovers 🪡 Mental Health Rep 🪴 Bi FMC + Bi4Bi Romance 🪡 Young Adult/Coming-of-Age 🪴 Queer Supporting Cast 🪡 Jewish FMC

🦇 Major thanks to the author @marisakanter and publisher @simonteen for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #FinallyFitz

💬 Quotes ❝ But if I’m a person who never shows people less than their best . . . how is it possible to still feel like my best is never enough? ❞ ❝ Because it’s one thing when queerphobic trash invalidate your identity. It’s another thing entirely to experience biphobia from within the queer community. ❞ ❝ Because everyone deserves clothes that empower them to feel like the best, most authentic versions of themselves. ❞ ❝ I just want to bottle the feeling that’s finding the one person in this universe who gets you and sees you—the whole unfiltered truth of you— and loves you anyway. ❞

[pinewae]

There’s actually a super interesting article on that subject that i find fascinating- it makes me want to learn how better to educate tbh (Though one cannot force others to learn, I dealt with my own bug fear at my own pace and decision) https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(22)00360-3

The breaking down of what causes biophobia and how it fuels itself to get worse is really interesting, I think understanding how it starts and continues is the first step to helping people break the cycle

thank you for sharing :0!!!! i think that fear of the unknown is especially true from what i've noticed, like spiders and snakes for example are a bit different because they're more often depicted as scary in fiction so it creates that general impression from a young age, but bugs that either look unfamiliar or are in an unfamiliar location can freak people out just based on the unpredictability. it look me a long time to get comfortable with bees, because the one thing people know about them is they can hurt you, but bees generally aren't hostile if you don't give them a reason!! i have handled one many times :] i definitely think the more people learn about a piece of nature the less they feel that extreme fear

[unhonestlymirror]

The way Belarus people put "💔" under "Biophobia: Internet search trends reveal growing fear of nature"

[pcrfumebcttles]

Allison actually grew up with internalized biophobia/misogyny when she was younger.

Now she was never nasty towards other women and queer people, her parents raised her better than that, but she would constantly compare herself to other women, and strived to be just like them, if not better in order to be the “real woman” she thought she could be. The Archetypal princess, if you will. This was mostly due to the traditional environment she grew up in and her relationship with Romeo.

Yup. Romeo would absolutely neg her all the damn time. He would constantly compare her to other girls in order for her to strive to be what he wants, and avoid being what he doesn’t want. Hell, he would even use her parents and their relationship to manipulate her, knowing how much she wants to be just like them when she grows up. (Yes, I know. He’s fucking evil.)

In college, this self-hatred started to crack when she started to have a solid group of gal pals, but it wasn’t truly shattered until she arrived in Hollow Port. She got a chance to truly explore who she wanted to be as a person, and even experiment with her sexuality more. It helps that she once again had a stable friend group, specially a queer friend group, in order to help her feel more comfortable with who she is.

[occultadama]

'Bio-liminal' (Dama, 2022)

Since my first 2 years of study I have been developing an emerging theory of how to address our broader environmental crisis through the arts. Insect populations, in the context of my current PhD research, act as a case study to probe at the potentiality of new emotional and subjective networks to reimagine our natural world.

The aim of 'bio-liminal' (Dama, 2022) spaces is to disrupt the ideological framework in which we are socialised to symbolically fictionalise nature and emotional parallax with different species within it. This uses Lacanian and Freudian psychoanalytical theory to reframe and further distort the space between biophilia/biophobia - feeling/reality - subject/object.

This is currently being explored through 3 ongoing animated practice pieces researching the various ways in which the 'Bio-liminal' (ibid) could emerge. The majority goal is to determine how meaning can be suspended from matter, using the symbolic fiction of cinema as a sandpit for these experiments.

The first piece is 'Domestect' a cyclic loop of mundane domestica between a wife and her beetle husband (image 1) using both film and 3D animation.

(image 1: Domestect, dir. Occulta Dama 2024)

The 2nd project is a stop motion peice entitled 'Transverse Orientation'. A sympathetic stop motion from the perspective of a moth, which aims to merge both biophilic/biophobic and adult/child approaches to insects in cinema. Development puppet below (image 2)

(image 2, Transverse Orientation puppet, Occulta Dama 2024)

And finally the film & stop motion animation 'Kafka's Nightmare'. A continuation of Kafka's novella 'The Metamorphosis', that poses what the afterlife would look like through Gregor Samsa's eye, a sympathetic cockroach/human hybrid. See insect puppet below (image 3)

(image 3, Gregor Samsa puppet, Occulta Dama 2024)

The combination of these projects accounts for a variety of different algorithms the 'bio-liminal' (ibid) could be arranged; Human Perspective (Domestect) insect perspective (Transverse Orientation) and both (Kafka's Nightmare). Whilst combining and borrowing from different recognisable tropes in genre, targeted demographics, artistic & technical approach as a means to disrupt our subjective constructs of insects.

Follows up to each project will follow as they enter production.

[leoparduscolocola]

I’ve been thinking a lot about the morality of zoos and aquariums in the context of nonhuman personhood and animal rights lately, and one talking point of pro-zoo rhetoric that I’ve been contending with is the idea that zoos are a key connection between humans and nature. Zoos, the argument goes, provide an irreplaceable window into the wild world, reducing the current crisis of biophobia. But the thing is… there are so many ways to view and learn about wildlife that don’t involve keeping them in captivity; these ways may take more effort than buying a ticket to a zoo, but they’re not as inaccessible as one might think. All it takes to go birding is an identification book and a willingness to go for a walk; there are amazing birds in even the most urban, heavily developed areas on Earth. If you can’t go for a walk, you can buy a bird feeder and bird seed to bring birds to your window. For $99, the price of two or three visits to my local zoo, I bought a camera trap meant for hunters that I use to observe the wildlife that walks through my backyard at night. I’ve gotten videos of opossums, raccoons, rabbits, deer, birds, and more on my camera, but the two most exciting videos of all were my bobcat ones. Seeing that magnificent bobcat (based on the usual territory size of bobcats, I’d say that both videos showed the same individual) strolling by my camera for a few brief seconds, free to go where he or she (based on how large this individual was, I’d probably say they were male, but it’s impossible to confirm this from just a video) pleased, was honestly just as or maybe even more rewarding than the countless encounters with animals in zoos that I’ve had in my life. You can buy a ticket for a whale watch for the same price or cheaper as a ticket to SeaWorld. If you’re too prone to seasickness (which I know from experience can be truly day-ruining) to go whale watching or just don’t like being on boats, there are tons of amazing places where you can watch cetaceans from shore, and from my experience pinnipeds and sea otters are actually easier to view from shore than from the water. At a zoo or aquarium, you’re guaranteed to see the animals you want to see, but there are no guarantees in the wild, which makes the sightings you do have much more special. 

In addition, I worry that zoos send a message that only charismatic wildlife species from “exotic” locales are special or interesting enough to observe and that nature is something far away, something you have to “go to”, when in reality nature surrounds us everywhere on Earth—even in dense cities, coyotes and raptors and sparrows and plants eke out a living. Every species on this planet, from tiny insects to the largest megafauna, contains amazing hidden depths if we are only patient enough to wait for them. Seeing an animal on their own terms, not because they've been placed in an enclosure specifically for people to look at them, is amazing, even if the animal you see is “just” a groundhog running through your lawn—Groundhogs are actually a pretty fascinating species!

Plus, many species of wild animals in captivity have limited autonomy or choice over meaningful events in their lives or opportunities to express behaviors they would express in the wild, so are you really connecting with their true nature when you visit them in captivity? Some species can engage in a lot more wild behaviors in captivity than others—for example, zebras kept in a big field in a zoo probably have plenty of opportunities to interact, graze, move about, and play the way they would in the wild, but a polar bear kept in a zoo will never get to range over a vast distance, skillfully hunt seals, swim between ice floes, or compete with other polar bears the way they would in the wild. How is a captive killer whale teaching anyone to respect and love nature when that orca has been stripped of everything that characterizes her species, to the point that wild orca biologists tell us that the behavior of captive killer whales is virtually unrecognizable to them? When you go to the zoo, you see a lion, but since that lion lives such a radically different life from a wild lion, what does that teach you? Can a lion still be considered a lion if she never gets to drag a buffalo to his doom with her pridemates? Can a sea turtle still be considered a sea turtle if she never gets to make the amazing journey to lay her eggs on the beach where she hatched, and her mother hatched, and her mother’s mother hatched, stretching back countless generations? Can a rattlesnake still be considered a rattlesnake if she never travels any farther than a few feet across the bottom of her terrarium? Can a bottlenose dolphin be still considered a bottlenose dolphin if he never travels up and down the coast with an amorous band of other young males, tossing pufferfish around? If two tigers had their genetics analyzed to determine their compatibility, were ultrasounded and injected with fertility drugs and had their blood hormone levels monitored, were transported thousands of miles by truck or plane to bring them together to mate, and when they refused to mate were subjected to sperm extraction and artificial insemination to produce cubs, can those cubs be considered wild animals? Again, I’m really not anti-zoo; I recognize the fact that some of them do some important work, and I’ll probably visit a select few again in the future. I just think that everyone should ponder the philosophy behind them instead of fully going along with their rhetoric, because in my opinion the rabid pro-zoo rhetoric on this website leads to people rejecting nuance and supporting both good and bad zoos, which ultimately does more harm than refusing to support even good zoos. I know that from personal experience. Online rhetoric was what convinced me a few years ago that the SeaWorld parks are not only ethical places to support but bona fide conservation havens, and visiting the San Diego park and seeing what it was really like—pinniped tanks barely bigger than jacuzzis with blaring pop music surrounding them at all times, orcas floating motionless and belugas and walruses swimming in endless circles, single-use plastic for sale everywhere, and shows that contained either zero educational info whatsoever (the sea lion/otter and dolphin shows) or the bare minimum amount of info topped off with a cheery message about how your purchasing of a ticket has singlehandedly saved the ocean (the orca show)—is what started me down my anti-cap journey, but I still really regret going and wish I had been more educated.

[thefree-online]

Biophobia: what it is, how it works, and why it matters.

from thefreeonline May 4, 2024 by peoplenatureblog By Masashi Soga, and Maldwyn John Evans. This Plain Language summary is published in advance of the paper discussed; check back soon for a link to the full paper. Throughout history, humans have maintained an intricate connection with nature, often finding fascination with, and deriving numerous benefits from, the natural world. This positive…

[tsmom1219]

Online searches point to growing prevalence of nature-related phobias in urban populations

Read the full story from the University of Turku. According to a new study, internet searches indicate a growing prevalence of various biophobias across the world. Countries with larger urban populations show interest in a broader range of nature-related phobias, supporting the idea that urban living may be linked with fear and disgust towards nature.