July 3rd 2015, the words, “Oh yeah, show it to me baby”, were echoed through the New Spring, Colorado AMC movie theater with Jane Holden and her six-year-old son sitting mid-row watching the newly released marvel movie, Ant Man. Jane Holden recounts that dreadful day stating, “My son and I had the best seats in the theatre especially since it was particularly empty, thanks to the fact it was an early showing. My son, Theodore, suffers from social anxiety so whenever I take him to the movies I always make sure I buy the first showing on a Monday or a Tuesday.” Jane Holden wipes her tears while describing the middle-age man that would ruin the Ant-man movie experience for both Jane and Theodore. “This man was sitting at the front row, away from both of us, wearing a long trench coat it was clear within twenty minutes of the movie that this strange man was getting off. I noticed he would squirm and get excited whenever an ant would appear on the screen. When ant-man first shrunk into the size of an ant, he was violently shaking while shrieking. After a while he became more confident and I can see him rub his nipples in an anti-clockwise motion.”
Jane Holden – like any mother would – stormed out of the movie theatre with her son and immediately contacted the AMC manager. Jane Holden described to the manager that there was a perverted individual sitting in the front row of the Ant-Man showing, but Jane was quickly shocked when the manager replied, “Just move seats, there is nothing I can do. If you want to receive a refund for the disturbance, please go to the front desk but I will not remove this individual out of the theatre if he is not hurting you or your son.” After the disappointing reply made from the manager, Jane Holden decided to take option B and complain through the internet with hopes that it’ll garner attention. When Jane Holden created the Facebook post she was expecting support and perhaps even a comment from the upper management of AMC. Instead, Jane Holden was meant with an overwhelming amount of hate. “Go kill yourself, bigot”, says one of her many comments under the Facebook post. Jane Holden was soon bombarded with comments by a community that she and many didn’t know existed. They are known as “Insectophiles”. These insectophiles, would soon dox Jane Holden’s address as well as her work which unfortunately lead to here firing. Due to the backlash and threats, Jane Holden had to move out of Colorado with her son.
The Facebook post went viral exposing the world to this new found community while having many online individuals , asking the question, “what is an insectophile?”.
Insectophile is the medical term given to an individual who is sexually attracted to insects. These insects range from ants, spiders, flies, crickets and bees. Psychology professor, Dr. Gary F. Floyd, from Harvard University describes the sexual attraction being around for decades, in fact they even had a name for people who were attracted to insects, “retards”. Dr. Gary F. Floyd explains to me, “The name evolved over time and eventually the name, Insectophile was given. Due to the internet and national geographic magazines, the attraction has expanded. Our research tells us that 80% of insectophiles are anti-social males, ranging in their 20s – late 30’s while possessing other strange hobbies like watching anime.”
The average insectophiles are considered harmless for the most part but it’s been revealed that having an attraction to insects can hurt one’s social life and on a rare occasion even death. Dr. Gary F. Floyd gives an example of an incident that resulted in a brutal death, “I will never forget this, a 19 – year old male, living in Wisconsin decides to cover himself in honey with the goal to have bees cover his naked body, unfortunately the honey attracted a bear wondering near this young man’s house, eating him a live as he screams on his lawn. Another tragedy happened to a forty- year old man when he decided to raise and groom a bunch of ants. The man, Henry Lischer, killed the queen ant so he can train the ants at to enter his mouth in a straight formation so they can leave outside his anal glands.
Once the ants entered Henry Lischer moved he passed away after sneezing, causing an unplanned redirection. The ants would soon climb inside Henry Lischer’s brain causing an ant like tumor.”
Samuel Smith, co-creator of the popular insectophile forum and self-proclaimed insectophile activist, explains that not all members of his community are the same. “We are social outcast, but not all of us are perverts. I’m here to tell you that if homosexuals and transgender are accepted in the LGBTQ+ community, how come we are not included? This is not a weird fetish, it’s a sexuality, a way of living.” Samuel says as he holds his wife, Martha, a butterfly inside a clear jar. When our reporters asked Samuel Smith if he has performed sexual intercourse with his butterfly wife, Samuel gave a small smirk and said, “Watch this.” Samuels face, immediately became bright red as he shook it violently while clenching his dry lips together. Two minutes went by and Samuel Smith passed out on the floor. Once the paramedics showed up it was found out that Samuel suffers from seizures and after he said “Watch this” his seizure was triggered. Nothing more than a confusing coincidence that might’ve been triggered by one of our reporters flashing LED sunglasses that he bought at http://www.flashinglightssunglasses.com [paid sponsorship].
Insectophiles are all over the internet, constantly fighting for their right to be accepted and given their own letter to the LGTBQ+ name. We contacted an LGTBQ+ spokesperson that told us, “The insectophiles need to stop bugging us.”