Ailurophobia

[xiphias]

A couple days ago, I was asking Lis about the fear of cats, because it's something I just totally don't get. I don't even understand how someone possibly COULD be afraid of a cat. So we looked it up, and apparently, some people are afraid that a cat will jump on them and scratch them.

I thought about how ridiculous that fear was. . . and then I looked at all the scars on my hands, arms, and shoulders from our cats jumping on me, and falling off, and scratching me . . .

Honestly, I bet that, if you laid all my cat-scratch scars out end-to-end, you'd be at somewhere around a foot/30 cm. Yeah, I guess I can't really call that an irrational fear, can I?

Comments

[lietya.livejournal.com]

Yep. My arms currently look like I lost a war with a shredder, because we have a kitten who is very sweet but not always careful, along with one easily frightened cat and two clumsy ones. :) None of them are deliberately trying to hurt us, but even with *clipped* claws (they're very good about that) they can do damage. Probably doesn't help that 3 of them are over 18 pounds, too!

I can sort of see the urge to call the fear *overblown,* but hardly unreasonable. Also, frankly, pound for pound I'm more afraid of vicious cat than a dog - more total pointy bits, the fangs are designed to puncture deeper, and both claws and teeth are going to leave all sorts of bacteria in deep puncture wounds. I'm not afraid of *most* cats (obviously), but one which is irrationally aggressive... yeah.