Digesting what disgusts

What is the psychology behind our digust?

Disgust.
A powerful word, a powerful response to something found totally offensive.
Often disgust is inspired for good reasons such as survival. Rotting food ought to revolt us because otherwise we may eat it.

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But what if disgust is cued by something that mightn't actually be bad? What about when we’re disgusted by something that can’t actually hurt us?
Like sex, for instance.
Or love.
Why are some people disgusted by things that are beautiful? And can the disgust be diminished?
A girlfriend’s reaction to her adult boyfriend’s wet dream – or nocturnal emission – got me thinking about the science behind disgust.
It’s not common but it does happen and science poses numerous reasons as to why, mostly relating to the need for sperm and their genital vessels to exercise often (the male penis is surely a fascinating creature!).
Yet I could find nothing that could explain why she was so utterly revolted by his sleep squirts - nothing that linked her disgust with even the most primitive instinct for survival. Seed-spilling may offend Methodists, but not our biological beast within, or so it seems.
So I concluded that her disgust might not be innate and common to all humans but rather a rejection of something that offended her individual moral and cultural values. Values that were also threatening to destroy her relationship.
It’s not uncommon.
Consider things people that frequently freak or gross folks out – menstruation is yucky, sperm is yucky, commitment is repellent, emotional honesty is a terrifying weakness – how often do we pause to consider why these things are so offensive and whether we really have good enough reason? How much of our disgust is really that reasonable?
Then I discovered that the concept of disgust is riding a wave of scholarly interest at the moment, and one young philosopher had recently published a book aptly titled Yuck!: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust.
In this interview, Daniel Kelly explored the idea that learned disgust, as opposed to hardwired disgust, was an imperfect moral barometer that could do more harm than good, particularly in regards to decision-making.
Interesting, I thought. So many of our decisions are influenced by the way we feel about things, or the way we think our peers will react, or society at large.
But is this right? Is this healthy? If our internal vibe-o-meters aren’t pure mechanisms of survival, can we trust them to guide us?
Think of the things you find disgusting.
It could be sickly-sweet displays of affection, or anal sex, or romantic entanglements with the relations of your in-laws, and then think about why they disgust you.
And tell me, do you think your disgust is really, truly warranted?
Could you learn to love what you find most foul?


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/blogs/citykat/digesting-what-disgusts-20110804-1id7x.html#ixzz1U7zeHFOE