A fun word for two very rare phobias:
1. Fear of blushing. (also Ereuthrophobia) A reasonably bad phobia to have. There are probably countless situations where through embarrassment, cold weather, exercise etc you would feel very uncomfortable. It is however nowhere near as bad an ailment as the primary definition:
2. Fear of Vaginas. (also Kolpophobia) Yes that’s right, phobia of your meat flaps, beef curtains, orgasm organ, front bottom, and other words listed in The Vagina Monologues.
Understandably there are very few heterosexual men willing to share their experiences of eurotophobia or kolpophobia. I found only one, and he was trying to get women to help him “face [his] fear at every available opportunity”.
Therefore to help you understand what is so scary about vaginas I’m going to quote comedian Doug Stanhope:
“Have you ever seen one close up? It looks like the alien. I keep expecting another vagina to come out of it on a stalk”
You see? Very scary indeed.
All this factual content is great; but the fun comes from the special use I have found for this word.
Whenever I encounter euro-sceptics, instead of arguing, I adopt an even more nationalist position than them. After explaining my fear and hatred of all things European, I claim that I am eurotophobic and try to get them to describe themselves as eurotophobes to truly set themselves aside from the wishy-washy euro-sceptics.
So far it’s worked every time.
With any luck - after they discover what I have done - some of these converts will develop a genuine fear of blushing from all the embarrassment I've caused.
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Footnote
When researching the etymology of “euroto” I discovered a (now closed) European plastics manufacturer called “eurotoplastic”. To my eternal joy this roughly translates as “malleable vagina”.
BQ09