Domain-specific variation in disgust sensitivity across the menstrual cycle

Disgust operates in many domains of behavior. On the presumption that facets of this emotion evince adaptive design, we conducted a cross-sectional study of 307 women, investigating changes in disgust sensitivity across the menstrual cycle. Two hypotheses were tested, namely (i) sexual disgust is an adaptation that serves to reduce participation in biologically suboptimal sexual behaviors, and (ii) many facets of disgust sensitivity compensate for cyclic changes in immunological robusticity via patterned alterations in behavioral prophylaxis against pathogens. Hypothesis (i) was supported, as disgust sensitivity in the sexual domain, and only in the sexual domain, was positively correlated with presumed conception risk as assessed on the basis of self-reported position in the menstrual cycle. Hypothesis (ii) was not supported, as no facet of disgust sensitivity changed as a function of the presumed level of immunosuppression assessed on the basis of self-reported position in the menstrual cycle. Results are discussed in light of published ethnographic evidence indicating that, in disparate cultures, disgust is elicited by aberrant sexual behaviors, and sex is equated with eating. Together with published findings on an animal model of sexual conditioning, this corpus suggests that sexual disgust may be a panmammalian adaptation. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.