Very briefly I would like to let readers who may need to know that this story is about purity culture (evident from the title) and contains discussions of victim blaming and mentions of sexual assault and abuse. This is part of this as it is, unfortunately, woven deeply into purity culture. If this is not for you, that’s completely fine! Take care of yourself first. With that, let’s begin.
When I was about five years old, my grandparents took me and a few of my cousins to see the new Pixar feature, A Bug’s Life. It was a fun little movie and I enjoyed it a lot. Afterwards, my cousins and I talked about bugs vs insects and if they were synonymous, if they were two separate things, or if none of it mattered because they were exactly the same. When you’re young these kinds of is-that-also-this-but-not questions can be very exciting. The conclusion we came to — or were told, I don’t completely remember — was that bugs were insects that bit you, and insects could be bugs, but weren’t always. Therefore, all bugs were insects, but not all insects were bugs.
According to Dictionary.com the difference between an insect and a bug is actually a lot more nuanced and has to do with the order that a small creature with an exoskeleton might be in as well as their body types and how they are segmented. This means that there are…
