Sexual Disgust: How Do You Get Past It (and Should You)?

Sexual disgust can hold back your progress with women or wreak havoc in your relationships. Yet how do you overcome it… and SHOULD you?

A week back, on an article where I discuss a girlfriend who'd been with three men before (two boyfriends + a guy she hoped would be a boyfriend but who turned out to already have a girlfriend, unbeknownst to her), a reader commented:

Chase, I've worked hard for not feeling insecure about the girl's past. What i still do feel though, is disgust. With no intentions of insulting your girlfriend, if i had a girl like that with a past like that I'd feel utter disgust. While that girl may be considered a unicorn in ur country, i feel utter disgust. any tips on overcoming this disgust and being too damning on women??

What he's talking about is sexual disgust.

Sexual disgust is a natural - though not absolutely ubiquitous - phenomenon that occurs among both women and men. You'll see it the most by far with sexually inexperienced individuals; the more sexually experienced someone gets, the less sexual disgust is an issue for him. We'll discuss more on this below.

I want to discuss it with some sensitivity in this article, as any time the topic comes up it tends to provoke polarized responses from all sides. People low in sexual disgust regard as Puritanical those with higher sexual disgust; those high in sexual disgust view as degenerate those with lower sexual disgust.

Instead, in this piece, we'll aim for practicality:

• What is sexual disgust?
• Why do people have it?
• How do you overcome it?
• Should you overcome it... and if so to what degree?

All, I think, are worthwhile explorations. Let's have a look at each.