I can€™t really pinpoint the true moment when I realized that I love insects. I assume it started at a young age, as many fetishes do. My kindergarten teacher could have probably predicted it when I let loose two hundred squirming tent caterpillars on the art desks during show-and-tell, but that was kindergarten. Things change, don€™t they?

Damn right, things change. My passion for six-legged creatures was like an insidious cancer, gradually becoming more intense as I aged, but remaining relatively harmless at first. I remember sitting on my pool deck when I was around 10 years old. An occasional fly would buzz down from the sky and land on my goose-bumped skin. I began naming them. By age 12, I was collecting them. Two years later, I was picking them out of nearby streams for the county and indexing them. At age 16, I raised them. One year later, I was sleeping with them.

That same year, I went to college. I was primarily studying environmental science and, through a recommendation of a friend, took my first entomology class my sophomore year. My professor asked us (a whopping 10 students) why we were there. I reflected on my show-and-tell moment fourteen years before, still not really admitting to myself that I should be sitting in this classroom. The professor laughed. It seemed to him that I was the perfect specimen for Entomology. It was not until one winter day, as I stood with a group of classmates in 32 degree weather, with hip-high waders in ice-cold water, bug-netting for aquatic insects, did I realize that I had undergone a complete metamorphosis. Like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, I was a full-blown entomophile, and it was really refreshing to know that there were other bug-fetishists out there just like me who were willing to freeze their asses off for a glimpse of a toe-biter. So what if some of my €œcooler€ (a.k.a insecure) friends wouldn€™t wave to me as I skipped across the Ag Quad with a large bug net sticking out of my backpack? I am not ashamed, never was, and never will be.

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I moved permanently to New York City just over a month ago along with my troop of giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches, my 11-inch black African millipede, and Tom Eisner€™s acclaimed book, €œFor the Love of Insects.€ It is difficult finding bug-cliques in the city. Most people despise them, but there are a few that either have a residual childhood fascination or a post-Fear Factor curiosity.

When I willingly surrender the fact that I studied entomology in college, people (especially those in the fashion industry) can€™t seem to comprehend the pure simplicity of my fascination. In general, people are far-removed from the €œbig picture€ of the insects€™ place on this planet. They don€™t realize that insects are an integral portion of the environment, which is where my true passion lies. I doubt bugs will ever become "mainstream" or even "the next big trend," but I work hard to connect my fascination for them to my current ventures. Whether it€™s sporting bug-inspired clothing, photo shoots with my insects, environmental outreach, or work in the field, I always have bugs on the brain. Though my future work in the environment may not be directly linked to insect conservation, you can be sure that they are a considerable motivation for my actions.

So even though any other living, breathing biped would break open a can of Raid on one of my six-legged friends, I choose to step around New York City€™s hexapedial inhabitants, (and not for the fear that they€™ll ruin my new Jimmy Choo€™s)!

Summer Rayne Oakes is a graduate of Cornell University, with a B.S. in Natural Resources and Entomology. She currently resides in New York City with her troop of exotic insects.