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Colin McGinn

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7 Things You Find Most Disgusting (PHOTOS)

Posted: 12/06/11 09:58 AM ET

We are disgusted by many different things: from rotting flesh to excrement to warts to rats. What do these things have in common? A first thought might be that what disgusts us is what is potentially poisonous or germ-laden. But we can be disgusted by quite harmless things, such as sagging flesh or internal organs; and many harmful things don't disgust us, such as arsenic or weapons. We get closer to the truth when we note the link to death: what disgusts are the things in which death is immanent--corpses, digested organisms, ripped flesh. But this is not quite right, since the skeleton is not disgusting. What seems to provoke disgust is the co-presence of death with pulsing life: the corpse being consumed by bacteria and worms, living things turned to dead pulp in digestion, bleeding wounds, scurrying rats in graveyards. My new book, "The Meaning of Disgust" [$35, Oxford University Press] demonstrates that it is the intersection of the living and the dead that turns the stomach, their terrible proximity.

Here are the things we find most disgusting:

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We are disgusted by many different things: from rotting flesh to excrement to warts to rats. What do these things have in common? A first thought might be that what disgusts us is what is potentially ...
We are disgusted by many different things: from rotting flesh to excrement to warts to rats. What do these things have in common? A first thought might be that what disgusts us is what is potentially ...
 
 
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09:33 AM on 12/09/2011
(a) I didn't intend to list the 7 most disgusting things, but to suggest a spectrum of cases. (b) I didn't get to see the pictures before I wrote the captions. (c) How would people feel about hairy backs on women and hairy lips or foreheads on men? (d) Noses and feet are potentially disgusting and can easily become so (noses contain snot after all). (e) I was dealing with physical disgust not moral disgust. (f) The pictures chosen by Huffpost are pretty bowdlerized, no doubt to spare readers too much disgust.

Colin McGinn
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Brianna Cole
Attempting an open mind on all things.
10:31 PM on 12/08/2011
Alex, I'm gonna go with "Hairy backs" for the win.
10:23 AM on 12/07/2011
Noses and feet? Seriously?
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Gilbert Albright
08:58 AM on 12/07/2011
I really find feet disgusting. They come in all kinds of weird shapes. Especially the toes. Some look like they are deformed.
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08:23 AM on 12/07/2011
I can guarantee us that many, many, many of us find back hair and big noses attractive and sexy.

Oh, and those are blisters, not warts.
08:06 AM on 12/07/2011
Noses? No...just boogers and nose hair.

Back fat is way worse than back hair.

And feet aren't bad, but flaky cracked stinky feet with toes covered in toenail fungus are.

Oh....and feces is yucky, but the feces of carnivores and omnivores is FAR yuckier than the feces of herbivores like the one you showed above. The smell of the kind of feces your showed can be sour, but it ages quickly and then just smells like dirt. The other...not so much.
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BurtonDesque
Fear a Blank Planet
06:10 AM on 12/07/2011
That picture isn't of warts. Those are blisters.
05:48 AM on 12/07/2011
The author puts noses and feet in the same category as feces? That strikes me as an odd choice.
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Joshua Kaanaana
Liberal, Democratic, Patriotic
04:56 AM on 12/07/2011
It's always amazed me that feet are disgusting to people. They are really a facet of a person's self image to see how well you've taken care of your feet is to see how well you take care of your body.
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Sheldon archer
Our facebook is Yuyun Archer
04:55 AM on 12/07/2011
Should have included the Republican candidates
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evilchihuahua
Crossing the line just because it's there.
08:46 AM on 12/07/2011
They did, it was photo #2.
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Sandgnat
Embrace the Lunacy
04:40 AM on 12/07/2011
That ain't no hairy back, that guy's clearly homo sapien. Next time you need a photo of a hairy back, ask for submissions. I'll disgust you with my light-skinned silver-back gorilla impersionation. In fact, my hairy feet and hairy nose might just abhor you as well. You guys have been reading Cosmo too long.
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themightyabealrd
screw the real world-I'm an artist!
04:24 AM on 12/07/2011
I'm disgusted by ignorant people who don't know that hirsutism (which causes back hair, etc.) is a medical condition caused by an out of kilter endocrine system.
I'm assuming that those same people would be okay with someone who has hirsutism being disgusted by a physical/medical imperfection of theirs.
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Mrsbean54
05:56 AM on 12/07/2011
Plenty of people have hormone issues that make them less attractive....acne, hair (everywhere), weight gain, oily skin, etc etc etc. It doesn't mean they can't make an effort to keep it in check...

Some women like their men hairy. But, if your lady is not one of those women....hair is removable regardless of hormones.
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shanesdad
mine goes to eleven
03:07 AM on 12/07/2011
Um, thank you for that. It was good to be reminded as to what exactly disgusts me. As to what number 8 might be, hmmm, let me think, could it possibly be articles like this?
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02:44 AM on 12/07/2011
Kept waiting for the photo of the Koch Bros counting their money.
02:31 AM on 12/07/2011
Noses, but not backne? (spelling)