I study disgusting fetishes, and I think they are totally gross.
I am a professional Dominatrix and kink educator based in the USA. I spent the last few years doing independent research on fetishes that require participants to “override” their natural instinct for self preservation. Despite my expertise and familiarity with the topic, I am not immune to the disgust responses that come with more extreme play. Scat play is actually one of my hard limits. That said,I do like flirting with that edge of pleasure and disgust.
There are many well meaning people who are afraid to learn about fetishes they find strange or disgusting because they don’t want to make the other person “feel bad.” I think you SHOULD find it gross. Isn’t that the point?
To be aroused by something “disgusting” is full of contradictions and paradox.
For example, how is it that I delight in “force-feeding” a (willing/eager) naked man a bowl of dog food while he wretches and gags, and yet also experience severe sensory aversions to dirty dishes and strong smelling foods, and vehemently oppose bullying outside of the very specific context of sadomasochism?
How is it that I enjoy the extreme visual impact of a body stuck full of needles, with blood cascading down the curvatures of their body, and yet I am severely distressed by gore in horror movies? Even theatrical depictions of (nonconsensual) torture will leaving me reeling with empathic horror.
To be clear, I don’t “enjoy’ being disgusted. It’s much more complicated than that. I think many people can understand the feeling of a “love/hate” relationship. But a lot of the stuff I am drawn to falls far outside of what is socially acceptable. For a long time I viewed myself as an anomaly. A strange, baffling specimen without any rational explanation for why I am the way that I am. We all think we’re the only ones.
Through working with my clients in professional BDSM and studying their inner worlds, I began to unearth the mysterious labyrinth of my own sexuality. I listened to their stories and learned about the forces that have shaped them and how they find ways to experience pleasure despite numerous obstacles. Both inside and outside of “kink community” I’ve met dozens, if not hundreds, of people, with similar stories to me. I became awake to a world of incredible sexual diversity and learned first hand that this paradox of disgust and pleasure is both common and understandable.
Despite not having a formal background in research, my favorite thing to read is scientific studies. I found myself awake until 4 AM reading abstract after abstract, trying to find something that gave a name to this strange paradox. And what I found is that there is evidence that disgust and pleasure are related.
For example, in his 2023 study, Glad to be sad and other examples of benign masochism, Dr. Paul Rozin and his team conducted a survey measuring individual preferences for activities that evoke negative reactions but are still seen as pleasurable. Examples include eating smelly cheese, listening to/telling disgusting jokes, popping pimples, riding roller coasters, watching scary movies, and more. The researchers posit that certain activities that are initially negative can be a major source of pleasure in the right context, a concept they refer to as “hedonic reversals.”
The scope of Rozin’s research, however, does not include the study of fetishes or sexual sadomasochism. While I can’t speak to his personal stance on the subject of kink, there is an enormous lack of rigorous and culturally competent research about BDSM, let alone about more stigmatized fetishes considered “disgusting.” Unfortunately, most clinicians and researchers who study sadomasochism do not understand our practices nor our value system of consent, integrity, and communication.
That said, despite the fact that the Rozin study doesn’t include sadomasochism, the research is still relevant and valuable. And while the data isn’t there yet, the link between pleasure and disgust is clear based on my observations.
Some of us are drawn to disgust A LOT more than others. Some people like being grossed out to a point that they aren’t sure if they are experiencing pleasure at all. Or the things they like are so far outside the realm of what society says is “normal” that it doesn’t seem to make any sense. This brings to mind a conversation I had with a workshop attendee who expressed a desire to understand what it’s like for someone to be turned on while also having a “bad time.”
I have a lot of examples I could offer, but an obvious one would be toilet play. I had the pleasure to interview a man about his long-held fetish for being a human toilet. He partakes in this play with his close romantic partner where he is strapped down and forced to eat her waste. During the process, he wretches and gags. The experience involves a constant push and pull. Yet he is drawn back to the struggle, time and time again.
“My body fights at the entire time and it truly is a fight or flight response that you have to try to overcome in your head.”
To make things even more delightfully complicated, outside of a specific BDSM context, he is repulsed by bodily fluids.
“A great example is the NYC subway – when that wave of piss smell hits me as I go down the stairs, I visibly recoil and gag.”
While this is, to many, an extreme example of “erotic disgust” there is a useful lesson in it for everyone. The erotic can be, and often is, a place of ambivalence. A part of us wants it. Another part doesn’t. It’s messy and complicated. Can you think of an example of something in your life that you both deeply desire and are simultaneously repelled by?
This ambivalence, this push and pull, is the centerpiece of erotic disgust. It is, of course, only one piece of the puzzle. This topic is sorely understudied; A lack of cultural competency in academia compounds the stigma and taboo of kink, and I hope to be a part of the solution in changing that.
Writer Mia Action
