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Home > Fear FactorBeing an advocate of lesbian living, it isn’t often in my life that I wish I was living with a man instead of my luscious, lovely, lady. But I have to say, bug-time is one of them. Now, I don’t like buggy beasties or creepy crawlies – especially quick, buzzing, slimy, jumping or flying things (which I think pretty much covers the whole range). But my dislike pales into virtual non-existence when compared to the loathing and fear of my other half. Not for her the “Tut, there’s a spider let’s get rid of it” scenario. No, hers is the screaming, flailing, running from the room and locking me in with the offending beastie approach. No opportunity for me then to pass the beastie buck like our  straight pals. No, one of us in this relationship has to be brave and there are no prizes for guessing who gets to reluctantly pick up the heroine mantle. This has nothing to do with butch-femme stereotypes and everything to do with a comparative fear-factor scale. On a scale of 1-10, my girlfriend’s buggy fear factor lies convincingly around the 30 mark (pretty much for every single type of bug in the world), making my pitiful 9 the sole reason for my winning the valour award for beastie-banishing in our home. We are not alone apparently, for other Sapphic couples relay similar tales. Take Luce for instance who fled shrieking from a not very big bedroom in Gran Canaria locking her partner Annie in with an extremely big cockroach. She shamefacedly admits to not letting Annie out until she promised her the big-bug was dead. “I felt dreadful,” she said “And I know Annie hates them too but I just can’t be in there with her – she handles them better than I do. I did open the door long enough to throw in the bug spray though.” Support indeed. Charlie tells a similar tale of woe. “My partner Lorraine woke me up at about three in the morning,” she says. “She was almost in tears because a daddy-long-legs had got in through the window. I had to get up and get rid of it before she’d calm down and get back into bed. Daddy-long-legs don’t freak me out that much but chasing one when you’re naked feels kind of weird, I’d have had to get dressed though if it was a spider – I’d have needed some sort of armour for that one!” Then there’s Jackie who has to check the bathroom every morning for spiders before her girlfriend will venture over the threshold; and Lisa whose spider phobia meant that her and her girlfriend Jane passed up on a beautiful 19th century apartment purely because the ceilings were so high “Jane works away quite a bit which means I’d be at home on my own a lot. I’d just be a blubbering wreck if a spider was up there in a corner and she wasn’t around to get it for me – and there’s no way on god’s earth I would climb a ladder or anything to get it myself – you have to think about these things.” You do indeed. Take some advice – get the fear factor scale comparison done way before you fall hopelessly in love. If yours is the lower mark and you decide to go for it at the very least you’ll know what to expect the next time a beastie bug trundles across the lounge floor when you’re cuddling up with your Sapphic sweetheart. If however yours happens to be the higher mark try not to be too smug about having found yourself a protective partner, remember in lesbian living terms a lower mark doesn’t necessarily mean no fear, it just means less fear. And for all you Sapphic couples out there with equally high marks, get to know your male neighbours pretty damn sharpish! |
"Daddy-long-legs don’t freak me out that much but chasing one when you’re naked feels kind of weird..."
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