Snake Stigma?

[concinnusman]

I think nothing of immediately picking up a snake (even some venomous ones) I come across outside, and even some spiders (oddly, it depends on how the spider looks rather than the actual threat level).

What is completely irrational is the emotional reaction I have to an opossum. Don't even get me started on those. The mere sight of one, or even a picture gives me the willies so bad (and yes if I'm surprised by one I might scream like a little girl LoL) but it quickly turns to an overwhelming desire to kill it. I just want it dead, now. Don't know why. It's irrational and I know it so I can sort of relate to how some people feel about snakes.

I don't care that it's irrational and I don't care to be "fixed". I have no interest. Just keep it away from me or kill it, that's all I care about.

[backafter30]

In high school, I tried to make a pet out of nearly everything. I even set out live traps just to see what I could catch. I caught a tiny baby opossum once that seemed friendly and curious. I took it home and put it in a cage, and thought I had a pet. Luckily, I used a glove the first time I petted it, with my hand in a fist and the glove fingers empty, because the little guy just shredded the glove. Definitely NOT a pet. Almost cute, as far as opossums go, but NOT a pet. I sent him on his way.

[Julius2314]

ROFL. yeah they are mean little guys. I used to have a phobia of spiders. Then i worked as a exterminator with a buddy of mine. We been working together for years on in off. Id get him a job with me roofing the he would hook me up then so on and so on lol. Any way one day this house had a massive infestation of brown recluses. Was really bad. Me and my friend crawled under the huge old house to spray.... Thousands upon thousands of brown recluses everywhere. Was very scary lol. But we sprayed and killed em put like 50 gallons just in the crawlspace. I now understand spiders better and am not at all afraid

as for what people say to me about my snakes, i never really tell anyone i have or keep them. i got my friend into them now he has a ball and his girl has a redtail the times i have the people seemed very interested and nothing negative

[Stephan Grundy]

And may I say that I am just flabbergasted at the number of women in this hobby! I really have a lot to learn, and maybe undo some of my own stereotypes. I may have been called "odd" as a teenager, but a girl who kept snakes back then might have been burned at the stake as a witch![/QUOTE]

Ah, that's still fairly modern. In the Bronze Age in Denmark, women (or goddesses) were apparently leading processional snakes on leashes (yes, it is possible to leash a snake, it's just not easy). Around the same time, we had the Minoan "snake-priestesses", and in the Viking Age, keeping a snake in a box in your house was apparently a girl-thing (men fought large snakes - women raised them). There are probably a huge number of other examples in folklore and religion, and I suspect that most of them originally came from the "snake-mistress" cult of the Bronze Age, which apparently started in the Mediterranean and spread throughout Europe (yes, Denmark and Southern Sweden were trading extensively with the Med then - there has even been a large Mediterranean, either Phoenician or Mycenean, trading outpost found in south Sweden).
So, as a woman snake-keeper, you stand at the end of a long and honourable line of European tradition!

[Lankyrob]

I tend to get two reactions when i memtion we have snakes, tho both start with a shocked expression this is either followed by A) thats cool, what have you got, can i see pictures, can i come see them or B) ugh they are horrible slimy creatures, how can you keep THEM

I try to educate both people especially about the slimy thing which seems to be the most common misconception alongside them all being "poisonous".

I agree that kids seem to be much more open and curious whereas adults seem to be split fairly evenly between the two reactions.