Easily Grossed Out? Sensitive to Smells? What is Disgust Propensity in Emetophobia?
Channel: Emetophobia-Free
Date: 2023-06-16

Easily grossed out? Sensitive to smells? Feel an 'ick' about a lot of things? In this week's podcast, Rob and Joe discuss the huge role disgust propensity plays in Emetophobia.

Most people don’t like touching dirt, grime, mud and mould - unplugging drains, cleaning toilets, taking the bins out, but emetophobes have an extreme aversion to this sort of thing, known as disgust propensity. This is when you have an exceptionally intense, often visceral, response to anything ‘disgusting,’ which far exceeds the average person's reaction This is particularly apparent around bodily functions and vomit: an emetophobe’s emotional and physical repulsion is overwhelming, they feel nauseous even to look, talk, or think about vomit.

Disgust Propensity is a huge, overwhelming aversion to ‘disgusting things’ and it is the key difference between other anxiety disorders, such as OCD, and emetophobia.

Disgust Propensity is learned, usually due to socio-economic and cultural conditioning. It’s the reason 97% of emetophobes are female. In the West, females have been taught from a young age to be ‘sugar and spice and all things nice.’ Despite progress, there are still fundamental differences in upbringings that means bodily functions are normalised for boys, allowing them to ‘get away with’ being ‘disgusting’ - often finding it funny. For example, boys start using urinals in front of other boys from a young age, while many women can go their whole lives without using the toilet in front of someone else - they’d feel ashamed to do so.

It’s this emphasis on shame which is important. Disgust Propensity in emetophobes often manifests in an aversion to external bodily functions: not just vomit, but sweat, blood and number ones and twos. But this externalisation is essentially a massive projection of guilt, shame and disgust they feel towards themselves. In essence, a huge feeling of self-loathing and self-contempt.