.

[facet]

.

Edited November 1, 2019 by facet
Removed by user.

[Chanel_no5]

YES! SO MUCH YES!! 

Or rather, I love those stories WHILE being completely freaked out. One of my absolute favourite Stephen King novels is The Stand - not because it gives me any form of fetish enjoyment (I like sneezes, not death), but the whole extreme contagion thing fascinates me; like you say, as some kind of dark antithesis. It's not limited to respiratory diseases either, I remember one of the earliest seasons of X-Files, there was one episode where someone got some kind of really contagious skin disease, and it was just... Gah, I was so fascinated. Creeped out and on the verge of fainting, but fascinated.

And, for example, blood coughing is the scariest thing I know, so I guess it makes sense that I would like that in a horror narrative, if the very point is to scare me? 

To be honest, I'm very grateful those stories rarely feature sneezing as one of the main symptoms, because when I go into freak-out mode over things like that, I can't enjoy fetishy things for days. 

I feel so incoherent here, I'm sorry! But yes, I know exactly what you mean, and I experience something very similar. 

 

[Quell]

SAME. HAT.

I love plague and disease in fiction, and I enjoy learning about those sorts of things in real life... but I'm also terrified of them. I bought and read The Stand because its premise was irresistible to me, but I had to put it down for a few days because reading it was making me feel shaky and viscerally sick. I asked my partner to watch the first episode of Containment with me because I really, really wanted to watch TV about disease, and I had their hand in a vice grip pretty much the whole time. Sometimes I go to the House MD wiki and read synopses of the episodes, because I know I won't be able to handle actually watching them.

It's not that it's a turn-on for me (like Chanel, if there's sneezing in one of these things, I can't enjoy fetish stuff for a while afterwards), it's just... something in me finds the whole thing deeply, deeply interesting even though it sometimes keeps me up at night.

I've taken to calling it my terrorfascination.

[Chanel_no5]

5 minutes ago, Quell said:

I've taken to calling it my terrorfascination.

That is a very good way of describing it. 

 

[Oolia]

4 hours ago, Quell said:

I've taken to calling it my terrorfascination.

That's EXACTLY what it feels like. Don't mind if I steal that term, it's so perfect

I used to be the same way about pandemic movies. My anxiety has largely decreased over the years as I've worked on it in therapy and on my own, but I would do the exact same thing and google all the scary stuff and work myself into a panic attack that left me unable to sleep all night. But I could NOT stop watching those movies or reading all the news about mystery illnesses and stuff. I personally don't think it's related to the fetish at all (at least in my case). I believe it's more that we find it so scary that we want to know every single detail about it so that it feels like we have some sort of control over it. That, and when we're researching, we're actually just trying to find a tidbit of information that's going to make us feel like it's actually not THAT bad and we're just overreacting (which doesn't always happen).

It's the same for emetophobia in my case (which has also vastly improved for me). Back when it was really bad, if someone I knew got sick to their stomach, I had this urge to ask a million questions like "what did you eat," "when did it start," "how did it start," "did you have X symptom or not," etc. etc. etc. It was like this obsessive need to know as much as possible about the situation so that I had a feeling of control. Like I could compare my current state and say "hmm but I didn't eat X so I should be fine right?" or "I'm not having X symptom yet..." etc.

So yeah, my take is that knowledge is power, and when you've got a phobia, it becomes quite obsessive to the point of utter fascination.

[murphy dee]

I won't, like, hyperfixate until it's damaging to me or anything, but I will definitely sit on the computer for a while and just... look up every horrible, disgusting disease that can kill us. In high school I learned about Ebola and convinced myself I had it hahahah, so I totally understand that weird anxiety related to this kinda stuff that repulses us but also compels us to seek out more information.

I guess I just figure that if I learn enough about something really super awful I'm, like, protecting myself from it?? I dunno lol

[RedVelvetHeart]

Yeah, TOTAL morbid fascination with plagues. The horror/fascination ratio varies depending on what it is, but there is always some of both. 

When I was a kid, there was children's show called The Electric Company and they had these Spider-man live action short stories. One of them had Spidey facing off against Mr. Measles, who had a bag of measles spots that he would throw at people to give them the measles. His nefarious plan was that he would give everyone the measles, and they would have to spend two weeks in bed. Then by the time they got better, he would rule the world! Spidey defeated him...or DID HE? Because then he looked down and saw that he was now covered in measles spots! "It looks like it's ten days in bed for me!" he said, and the last scene was of him in bed. 

This FREAKED me out! I remember literally hiding behind the couch when it came on but peeping out to watch it....I was so horrified but couldn't NOT watch. It was such a scary idea and at the same time so completely stupid, plus compelling and fetishy at the same time. I could not deal.

 

[Chanel_no5]

10 minutes ago, superimmunegirl said:

Yeah, TOTAL morbid fascination with plagues. The horror/fascination ratio varies depending on what it is, but there is always some of both. 

Haha, you don't want to know how many documentaries about the black death and Spanish flu I consume, so horrified my heart nearly comes out of my mouth if anyone coughs around me for the next week or so. And they always seem to end those documentaries with some ominous comment that "It will happen again.. it's not a question of if, but when." YES BUT THANK YOU I DIDN'T NEED TO SLEEP TONIGHT ANYWAY! But, I mean, other people seek out slasher movies to get scared half to death, I seek out documentaries on plagues for the same purpose, apparently. At least I learn stuff...?

On that note, I read that the rat has now been cleared when it comes to spreading the plague. It wasn't rat fleas that carried the bacteria, it was human fleas. Um, not that anyone wanted to know that, probably...  

 

[jano]

I like to compare it to a terrible car crash you drive by on the side of the road -- part of you says Don't look! Yet, you look with morbid curiosity, maybe even stopping traffic as everyone else looks. I am a germaphobe in real life, so the ideas of contagious diseases is one of the hugest turn offs, and yet here I am with a sneeze fetish? The brain works in wonderous and mysterious ways XD Where I would be fixated on someone experiencing cold or allergy symptoms, wondering how it happened and fantasizing, the same thought process happens when I read about scary diseases and plagues. Except I'm not doing it in pleasure, but in a "Oh god this is so wrong, I need to know more" way. Maybe, it has something to do with my germaphobic nature. How does the brain work so convoluted I wonder, being a germaphobe but getting turned on by the idea of colds?? Haha!

On 9/20/2018 at 9:58 PM, Oolia said:

It's the same for emetophobia in my case (which has also vastly improved for me). Back when it was really bad, if someone I knew got sick to their stomach, I had this urge to ask a million questions like "what did you eat," "when did it start," "how did it start," "did you have X symptom or not," etc. etc. etc. It was like this obsessive need to know as much as possible about the situation so that I had a feeling of control. Like I could compare my current state and say "hmm but I didn't eat X so I should be fine right?" or "I'm not having X symptom yet..." etc.

I understand this feeling so vividly. I hate hearing the answers but a small part of me must know.