Revulsion Revolution: The Protective Power of Disgust

Safeguarding Society Against Public Paraphilias

True revolution comes from true revulsion; when things get bad enough the kitten will kill the lion. -Charles Bukowski

Public paraphilias are harmful, particularly to women/children. Our revulsion instinct in the face of these open fetishes is not only an alarm bell alerting us to potential danger, but a valuable social tool that can be wielded as a weapon to help us curb unwanted behavior from individuals whose toxic proclivities threaten healthy community relationships.

In the intricate tapestry of human evolution, instincts play a crucial role in shaping our behavior and ensuring the survival of our species, both in terms of physical survival, as well as shaping the social health of our communities. Valuing our instinctual responses is foundational to my work on the topic of embodiment and safeguarding and most importantly as an analysis of how to build resiliency against the dissociative cult of trans ideology. My essay series, Sex Mimics are Mimics Part 1 and Part 2, outlines the significance and importance of staying grounded in our instincts as a primary safeguarding tool. And my essay The Dangerous Doctrine of the Disembodied Body Part 1, underscores the harms of dissociating from one’s primary survival instincts. Each of our instinctual responses has developed to keep us safe. In the book, The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker warns of the dangerous consequences that occur when humans discount their intuitions and instincts when it comes to predatory behavior. The human animal is the only animal that uses rationalizations and justifications to talk itself out of intuitive instinctual guidance. We are also the only animal that often teaches our offspring to disregard and dissociate from their primal instincts. All other animals remain responsive to their adaptive instincts and further hone and develop these in their young.

Among these instincts, the capacity for revulsion has proven to be a particularly significant safeguarding impulse. Revulsion encompasses a strong feeling of repugnance or intense aversion, often triggered by stimuli that threaten one's well-being or violate societal norms. The evolutionary significance of revulsion lies in its role as a deterrent against behaviors or situations that could jeopardize an individual's safety, reproductive success, or social standing. This essay explores the evolutionary roots of these instincts, their adaptive functions, biological underpinnings, behavioral manifestations, and the ways in which they remain integral to maintaining healthy communities.

The Gag Reflex: The Value of the Revulsion Impulse

The revulsion impulse has deep evolutionary roots that trace back to our primitive ancestors. The primary function of this response has to do first and foremost with our gag reflex and is ingrained in us to protect individuals from potential harm posed by toxic substances or behaviors. This instinctual response is a result of natural selection favoring those who avoid ingesting spoiled foods, reducing the risk of illness or death. Revulsion also serves as a protective mechanism against the spread of disease, as individuals who were repulsed by the sight or smell of illness were less likely to come into contact with contagious individuals. This behavioral trait was particularly advantageous in communal living settings where the transmission of pathogens was a constant threat. Over time, this trait became hardwired in the human genome, contributing to the development of a robust disgust response that spans a wide range of stimuli, from foul odors, to contaminated substances, to disease. (Curtis et al., 2004)¹. Early hominids that developed a heightened sense of disgust were more likely to survive and reproduce, passing on their aversion to potentially harmful stimuli to subsequent generations.

The adaptive functions of the revulsion instinct are multifaceted and extend beyond the avoidance of toxic substances. The instinct for revulsion/disgust also has social implications. It can act as a moral compass, shaping our attitudes towards behaviors that may jeopardize social cohesion. Disgust can discourage individuals from engaging in activities that are perceived as morally reprehensible or socially unacceptable, fostering a sense of community and shared values. Individuals who experience revulsion in response to harmful or exploitative behaviors are more likely to distance themselves from those who pose a threat to their well-being. This selective social behavior fosters alliances and cooperative relationships among individuals who share similar values and interests, contributing to the strength and resilience of social groups.

The Biology of Revulsion

The biological foundation of revulsion can be traced to the ancient origins of our nervous system. The brain structures responsible for processing revulsion/disgust include the insula and the anterior cingulate cortex, which are part of the limbic system. This system plays a central role in the regulation of our senses, emotions, and behaviors. The revulsion response has a strong innate component. Newborn infants have shown that they display facial expressions of disgust when presented with unpleasant tastes or odors, suggesting a biological predisposition to react negatively to certain stimuli (Rozin & Fallon, 1987)². Our inborn instincts are part of our internal guidance system responsible for safeguarding.

The behavioral manifestations of revulsion are diverse and can include facial expressions, body language, and avoidance behaviors. Facial expressions associated with revulsion, such as the wrinkling of the nose and the protrusion of the tongue, are considered universal across cultures, further supporting the idea that these responses are deeply ingrained in our biology (Ekman, 1992)³. These embodied responses are spontaneous reactions to external stimuli that take place at a level below conscious awareness. Being responsive to our instantaneous adaptive reflexes is a primal survival necessity. The revulsion impulse works on the level of “flight” in the fight/flight ingrained instincts. It is alerting us to move away from potential danger.

Guardians of Societal Norms: The Functional Role of the Disgust Instinct in Restraining Public Paraphilias

The evolutionary roots of revulsion in social contexts can be linked to the benefits of cooperation and group living. In early human societies, individuals who engaged in behaviors perceived as harmful to the group would elicit feelings of revulsion from their peers. These involuntary reactions are a visceral response to situations or behaviors that violate social norms or expectations. This, in turn, could lead to social ostracism or other forms of punishment, reinforcing cooperative behavior within the community (Rai & Fiske, 2011)⁴. In older times the “crones” of the village served as a social anchor for the community. These older women played a pivotal role in maintaining societal norms that best served the collective health of the community. They wielded the tools of social shaming and disgust in order to sever unwanted behaviors that threatened the social health of the collective.

The rise of the transgender trend has put more and more of men’s fetishes on public display. There has been strong propaganda messaging across news and entertainment media to both normalize fetishistic behavior and desensitize others to its appearance in public life. Both grooming and social engineering use tactics of normalization and desensitization as a way to increase and escalate boundary violations over time. To be publicly bombarded with men’s paraphilic enactments is indeed a boundary violation. It is an act of exhibitionism on the level of flashing. The public at large, and especially women/children do not consent to being participants in men’s sexual gratification games. Men’s open fetishistic performances of womanhood are harmful both because they perpetuate hypersexualized and objectifying tropes of women and because they normalize public sexual behavior.

Women who have a visceral disgust impulse in response to men’s public fetishistic displays are having an embodied instinctual safeguarding response to a social danger. This response should not be discounted, dismissed, or discouraged. Rather it should be treated as a valuable internal wisdom to be heeded in the interest of social health and resilience.

It is not in women's interest to make accommodations for men with transvestic fetishism. Their public paraphilias are directly harmful to women/children. Some men are tormented by fetishistic addictions, but it is a dangerous empathy trap to put men's psychological state above women's and children's physical safeguarding. We must not be drawn into empathy traps that attempt to place men's sexual desires over the health of the culture at large. We must reserve our empathy for the health of the community. We must focus on the values we wish to instill in our children. How can we protect children’s innocence and emotional health when we encourage and applaud grown men going around wearing costumes that signal sexual fetishes that objectify and dehumanize women and girls?

But… but.. but.. J.K. Rowling said, “Dress however you please.”

The notion that we can accept the blanket statement that people can “dress however they please” with no social consequences is akin to the notion of blanket “inclusivity” within trans ideology. In all circumstances, safeguarding requires boundaries and boundaries are necessarily exclusive. When they admonish us not to "kink shame," "judge," or "exclude" men who perform their sexual fetish in public, they are telling us not to use our tools of discernment and to stop thinking critically about the implications of men's public actions. Judgment, discernment, and exclusion are useful tools for a healthy society when it comes to curbing socially inappropriate behavior.

It is not the public’s responsibility to approve, validate, or even accept men’s public behavior. It is the public’s responsibility to stay grounded in our instincts. This means responding to our repulsion, disgust, and cringe reflexes when it comes to men's fetishes and paraphilias. Women and children are harmed when we normalize fetishistic behavior that treats human beings like objects. Boundaries are more important than some men's desire for free expression and the sexual frustration they might feel in the face of public revulsion.

Social Hygiene vs “These gender critical hypocrites want to police men’s attire.”

Women who have been critical of men’s public enactment of their fetishes have been accused of “policing expression.” And men’s choice to (in their own words) “wear their girlfriend,” has been conveniently characterized as being “gender nonconforming.” Both of these characterizations ignore the obvious sexism and objectification in the fetishistic performance of womanhood. Being gender nonconforming is distinct from behaving in an objectifying and dehumanizing way. Being gender nonconforming is to embrace oneself, for a woman to embrace her animus or inner masculine qualities, or for a man to embrace his anima or inner feminine qualities. To seek out these qualities within oneself is to explore the full range of what it means for a man to be a man or for a woman to be a woman. Objectification is to project certain qualities as pertaining solely to the other sex and to believe that the performance of external stereotypes is to embody the qualities of the other sex. Rather than expanding what it means to be a man, men who perform objectifying stereotypes of women, reduce and narrow what it means to be a woman.

It would be very convenient to come up with an explicit set of rules for public behavior. It would be very convenient to have a set of exact guidelines or dress codes to distinguish gender nonconformity from public fetishistic performance. However, rules can only provide a false sense of security that often prove to be dangerous in the end. Gavin de Becker reminds us in, The Gift of Fear, that attempting to implement rules that apply universally to all situations keeps us from being able to be spontaneously responsive to our adaptive instincts. There are no universal safety rules because to keep oneself safe is to stay responsive to the present moment, embodied, rather than following a cognitive empirical value set. Our best safeguarding tool is our ability to respond to our intuitive guidance. To be responsible is to be response-able, to be able to respond to primal instincts. This is the true basis for safeguarding.

Disgust Democracy: The Power of Revulsion in Building Stronger Communities

The doctrine of trans ideology and its intrusion into language and law has had drastically negative consequences for women and girls, both in our ability to fight for legal and physical provisions on the basis of sex, as well as in the way in which public acceptance of the dogma has had a sexist and dehumanizing impact on the very definitions of what it means to be a woman/girl. This ideology is backed by powerful monied interests from both the state and corporations. Although women have made a few inroads, it is not an exaggeration to say we continue to face an ideological and financial juggernaut. One free and easy way to fight this regressive dogma is with public disgust, cringe, and revulsion. These instincts are both wise in their guidance and powerful in their ability to transform public behavior.

Our revulsion impulse serves as a collective form of social learning, helping individuals discern acceptable from unacceptable behavior within a given community. This instinct reinforces social norms, fostering a collective understanding of what is deemed appropriate or inappropriate. When used wisely disgust is both a defensive maneuver and an offensive tool for defining and preserving cultural integrity. Disgust is democratic, everyone can do it. If men choose to come into the public sphere wearing their fetish, they can expect to meet public revulsion. And if this causes them to rethink their outfit, good.

1. Curtis, V., Aunger, R., Rabie, T. (2004). Evidence that disgust evolved to protect from risk of disease. Proc. R. Soc. Lond., May 7; 271 (Suppl 4): S131–S133. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2003.0144

2. Rrozin, P., Fallon, A. E., (1987) A perspective on disgust. Psychological Review., Jan;94(1):23-41. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.94.1.23

3. Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6(3-4), 169–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699939208411068

4. Rai, T. S., & Fiske, A. P. (2011). Moral psychology is relationship regulation: Moral motives for unity, hierarchy, equality, and proportionality. Psychological Review, 118(1), 57–75. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021867