ABSTRACT
Contemporary models of sexual behaviour propose that sexual responses involve an interaction between sexual excitatory and sexual inhibitory processes. From such a perspective, the generation of sexual responses may be compromised when sexual inhibition outbalances sexual excitation. This chapter argues that there might be an important link between self-disgust and sexual behaviour. It provides some preliminary data collected in a recent research project at the University of Groningen that focused on the relationship between self-disgust and indices of sexual functioning. Although there is considerable variation in the exact stimuli people find disgusting, the range of disgusting stimuli seems to cluster in three coherent domains: pathogen disgust, sexual disgust, and moral disgust. The chapter then addresses the potential influence of enhanced self-disgust on the generation of sexual problems. It also presents a heuristic model/diagram that illustrates the proposed inter-relationships between disgust and sexual arousal.
