The Reluctant Whore

According to a study which involved the opinions of 1.1 million people collected over a year, the sound of someone vomiting is the worst sound. Ever. The most unpleasant, to be more specific.

Coming in, pathetically, in second place is the sound of microphone feedback and then crying babies and squeaking breaks tied for third. The interesting thing is that scratching nails down a blackboard was only 20th.

Scratching nails is never as horrifying as it sounds, it's an entirely constructed fear. People are just afraid of actually breaking their fingernails back and for the skin to start bleeding but then chalk dust gets inside that wound so it's difficult and painful and right at the tip of your fingers so it REALLY hurts but there's chalk and blood and nerves and shock and pain and panic and extreme discomfort and also, you're at school and the teacher just gives you a band aid which is all you can do, really, but ultimately it still hurts for a while and you just can't get the idea that chalk is INSIDE your wound out of your head and it spirals out of all control and you can't think properly or remember or see or eat or move.

But the sound itself is nothing. It's all that memory and emotion that makes it unpleasant.

Meanwhile, it's interesting that someone would, on average, prefer to hear the sound of a crying child than the sound of someone's body convulsing to bring up what they had for lunch. Particularly seeing as vomiting is far more likely to be a fetish experience than listening to a baby crying.

But still, it's good that we know now. Scientifically.