So Bad You Can’t Stop Eating

Do you like stinky tofu?

Can you handle spicy food?

Do you enjoy drinking dry red wine (or any other alcohol with very little sugar)?

Stinky tofu, chili peppers, and dry wine all have one thing in common: the first time you try them, you’re bound to think they taste awful. Stinky tofu smells so bad you wonder whether it was really soaked in sewage, chili peppers seem designed purely to put your tongue on trial, and dry wine offers nothing but sourness and astringency.

The first time you eat these foods, you simply can’t understand why human beings would go out of their way to torture themselves with them.

But here’s the strange part: if you can endure the initial torment and disgust, after just a few more tries, the pain starts to fade and the pleasure gradually bursts forth.

The more you torture yourself, the more hooked you get. You discover that they’re so bad you just can’t stop eating them.

Our love for these foods slowly blossoms out of pain and disgust.

Paul Rozin, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, classifies this kind of taste preference as an example of “benign masochism.” Benign masochism refers to the kind of hobby in which beginners have to overcome their initial suffering before they can become connoisseurs.

Besides eating stinky tofu, plenty of other experiences also qualify as benign masochism, such as saunas, skydiving, and rock climbing.

From an evolutionary perspective, benign-masochistic hobbies have one thing in common: hidden inside their high risks (food poisoning, accidents) are high rewards (foods that are so bad you can’t stop eating them are often packed with nutrients, while extreme sports bring familiarity with new environments). So humans have an underlying motivation to develop this kind of hobby.

Besides the feature of “turning initial pain into pleasure,” benign masochism has another characteristic: “the taste keeps getting more extreme.” People who love spicy food keep eating it hotter and hotter; people who enjoy extreme sports become increasingly willing to risk their lives. This may be because overcoming the initial pain requires overstimulating pleasure, and intense pleasure makes people crave it more and more.

In *The Better Angels of Our Nature*, Steven Pinker points out that some sadists’ addiction to sadism can also be explained through benign masochism:

“The career paths of government-employed torturers, such as police interrogators and prison guards, are the exact opposite of what people intuitively expect. People generally assume that beginners use excessive force to get more confessions, while veterans, skilled in their methods, have no need to cause much pain. But in fact, veterans will torture prisoners for no necessity at all. They know how to get pleasure from it.”

This is actually very similar to the process by which people who can’t eat spicy food learn to enjoy it.

References:

1.Gorman, J. (2010). A perk of our evolution: Pleasure in pain of chilies. New York Times, 20.

2. Steven Pinker. (2015). *The Better Angels of Our Nature*. CITIC Press.

Note

• This article in the “New Psychology” series was a short popular-science essay/ramble written at the time to accompany content related to Zhichao Wei: New Psychology Course. It was published on the now-shuttered platform Fatuan, and the original link no longer exists.