I don’t know that there is any definitive evidence either way.
I’m not necessarily sure how “being grossed out” developed as a concept. I know enough about human history to have a very hard time imagining people from the middle ages or prior being grossed out by anything, considering they lived in a time when they probably grew up with their parents banging regularly in the same room as them, saw their mother give live birth multiple times, ate stuff every day that would turn a modern man’s stomach, rarely bathed, walked through shit-filled streets (literally), and periodically might see massive mounds of dead plague-infested bodies.
At the same time I remember finding stuff gross as a little kid, things like worms coming out of the ground after a heavy rain, that I don’t know where that gross out came from. Unfamiliarity definitely must have some part to play in being grossed out by stuff, I mean I imagine some portion of medical students are grossed out by various things relating to the human body, but they almost certainly get over it pretty quickly or they wouldn’t be able to function as med students let alone doctors. I can’t remember finding worms gross after the age in which I was baiting a hook regularly, either. But the question must be asked, why was I ever grossed out by worms?
You know Dan Savage? Tell him he’s a misogynist douche.
Either way his description of the vulva has nothing to do with the sight of two women kissing in public. I’ve seen plenty of women kissing each other and not once did I see even a hint of vulva.
Disgust is generally agreed to be one of the oldest, most primitive emotions, relating to things perceived to be a threat to health. Food that’s spoiled, excrement, and other things that may carry disease trigger disgust. The extension of the emotion of disgust to things that are not a literal threat to health would have come with the evolution of various higher brain functions, but they ultimately boil down to the repurposing of old “software” to new situations.
Go read some stuff by doctors. They are crossed out by gross things too.
But where did my childhood revulsion to worms come from? Nightcrawlers to my knowledge aren’t in any way threatening to health. I’ve never even heard of them carrying disease or even being a general sign of uncleanliness or such (like cockroaches are sometimes seen as.)
Also, spiders. People are grossed out by spiders, and they can actually promote general health by killing lots more insects that are injurious to health.
He just represents what I’ve seen along this trend. It was quite clear I was speaking anecdotally, do you want me to track down individuals I’ve known, get them to register here, and talk about their general distaste for the the opposite sex?
I’ve not seen anyone running here with peer reviewed studies so unless you feel like bringing some out I’m not terribly interested in having “dueling personal observations of other people’s behavior” with you.
But that says nothing about where it comes from. Sans alternative evidence my personal experience (as a human) is I had some revulsions as a child that make no sense, and that I no longer have. Primarily they went away when I became more familiar with the thing I was disgusted with. I don’t know the source of the original revulsion, but the specific things I’m thinking of I don’t know how it could be “social imprinting.” Not saying it isn’t, just saying it isn’t immediately obvious how it could be.
Two men kissing each other passionately is a much less familiar thing for someone than a man and a woman doing the same. It could be that many people find any PDA a bit gross, but because of higher levels of exposure to heterosexual PDA it doesn’t trigger a gross-out effect.
So at least in my experience that would make sense, the things I was grossed out by that I’m no longer grossed out by were things that were somewhat unfamiliar to me but that over time I became a lot more familiar with.
Someone who is grossed out by seeing two guys kiss, I wonder if they watched film of hundreds of different gay couples making out for a few hours if it would desensitize them to it and remove the initial gross out reaction.
I’m sure they are grossed out by some things, I’d assume blood, internal organs and etc wouldn’t be among them though or it’d be very difficult for them to do their jobs.
Okay. I’m willing to bet I spend more time around gay men than you do so I’ll just take this as a tacit admission that you made that up. The best you could come up with was an example that didn’t even begin to demonstrate that any significant number of gay men are grossed out at the sight of two women kissing.
Weren’t we talking about gay people kissing? Are you saying you don’t see how one could grow up exposed to social messages that gay people are gross?
And yet no one’s expressed any disgust at seeing two women kiss. What a coincidence that people don’t express the same disgust at women kissing after having been raised in a culture in which lesbian sexuality is commoditized and presented as something desirable to straight men.
Maybe not in this thread, I duno, didn’t read the whole thing. But i have personally witnessed more than a couple of straight men being disgusted by two women kissing. And only on one of those cases was it a religious thing.
I agree that the aversion is probably more a socially-imprinted one than anything “hardwired.” But I still can’t help it. As a friend of mine says, “I’m for the gays.”
I never said any “significant number” of gay men are grossed out at the sight of two women kissing. Come back when you’re ready to discuss something honestly, and I’ll also dismiss out of hand any personal experience you have hanging out with gay men, since we obviously can’t believe anything the other says personal experience has no relevance in any discussion between us.
If you’d like to discuss any sociological or behavioral studies performed by scientists, that have been peer reviewed, I’ll be interested in hearing more. If not, it’s obvious you don’t have a desire to discuss the issue honestly.
If people have theories on where disgust comes from in regards to seeing two gay men kissing, I think they should be the ones to put forth those theories.
Without any supporting evidence “hard-wired” seems just as likely to me as anything else.
I think we ruled that out when you resorted to a description of women’s private parts in explaining that you think gay men are grossed out by seeing women kiss.
Well, not when your “personal experience” is a newspaper column. I mean, obviously you don’t have any.
So, uh, if I don’t unconditionally accept everything you say, even when you can’t back it up with so much as an anecdote, in your eyes I have no desire to “discuss the issue honestly”.
I find any couple seriously making out in public to be uncultured. I am often embarassed for them but I can’t say I am grossed out. A “Hi, dear” kiss is fine for any couple.
For the record, heterosexual male, monogamous for over twenty-five years.
Yes, but it’s no different than seeing a guy kiss a girl (except that there’s two of them). Men kissing looks icky to me, regardless of whether they are kissing a guy, a girl or a puppy.
Do I get icked out by it? Not at all. My ex brother in law is gay, and I’ve seen him kiss other guys plenty of times. (He’s still best friends with my sister, and father to her kids, so I still hang out with him quite a bit.)
Now, I do feel uncomfortable around public displays of affection, whether the couple in question are 2 guys, guy/girl, or 2 girls, if it goes beyond hand holding or a hug. Unless it’s a special occasion that calls for a kiss or something.
Haha no of course it’s legitimate. I just said it fascinates me, that’s all. What’s so gross about two people kissing, regardless of sex? I’m not saying it’s wrong to be grossed out, just that, it’s such a weird thing to get grossed out about, to me, is all. I do realize that people get grossed out about random, different things, but it seems like this is very widespread amongst straight guys, and it just fascinates me as to why it is.