{"id":24754,"date":"2023-05-22T09:01:01","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T07:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=223834"},"modified":"2023-05-23T04:12:56","modified_gmt":"2023-05-23T02:12:56","slug":"clowns-agoraphobia-and-kayaks-a-history-fear-and-loathing","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/clowns-agoraphobia-and-kayaks-a-history-fear-and-loathing\/","title":{"rendered":"Clowns, agoraphobia and kayaks: a history fear and loathing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The past (and not so past) is studded with incidents when seemingly innocuous objects and situations have sparked repulsion in unfortunate sufferers. Kate Summerscale explores what the history of five phobias reveals about the mental states of people through the centuries… <\/p>

By Kate Summerscale\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 22 May 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Listen to a version of this article:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Clowns: party monsters<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

The origin of the term coulrophobia<\/em>, meaning a morbid fear of clowns, is murky. The word is thought to have been invented sometime in the 1980s or 90s. \u201cCoulro\u201d possibly derives from k\u014dlobathristes<\/em>, the Byzantine Greek word for \u201cstilt-walker\u201d, or from a mangling of the modern Greek klooun<\/em>, or clown \u2013 itself a borrowing from the English. Yet a surprisingly clear sequence of events created the need for the term.<\/p>\n

Clowns were much-loved figures in 1960s and 1970s America, but their image was damaged in 1980 by the conviction of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. A suburban businessman from Illinois, Gacy had performed at children\u2019s parties as a clown called Pogo. His picture in the newspapers showed a plump man in a red-and-white-striped romper suit and ruff, waving to the camera with one gloved hand while holding a bouquet of balloons in the other. A huge red smile was painted across his chalk-white face. He was later discovered to have assaulted and murdered dozens of young men and children.<\/p>\n

A kind of collective panic took hold in the next few years, especially among children, and in 1981 \u201cstalker clowns\u201d were spotted all over the United States. The actor Johnny Depp said that he feared clowns \u201cbecause it\u2019s impossible \u2013 thanks to their painted-on-smiles \u2013 to distinguish if they are happy or if they\u2019re about to bite your face off.\u201d The figure of the predatory jester gained even more traction in 1986 with the publication of Stephen King\u2019s bestselling novel It<\/em>, in which the clown Pennywise was a malevolent being who took on the shape of whatever a child feared most.<\/p>\n

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Dirt and germs: greater knowledge of disease helped spread fear<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cUnder the name of Mysophobia,\u201d wrote the American neurologist William Alexander Hammond in 1879, \u201cI propose to describe a form of mental derangement\u2026 characterised by a morbid, overpowering fear of defilement or contamination.\u201d<\/p>\n

The phobia \u2013 its name created by Hammond from the Greek musos<\/em>, or uncleanliness \u2013 multiplied in the last decades of the 19th century as more people learnt that disease could be spread by invisible microbes. In The Alienist and Neurologist<\/em> in 1899, CH Hughes reported on a 26-year-old woman who after reading an article about bacteria became convinced that \u201ceverything about her was infected with some sort of disease-breeding germs\u201d. She washed her hands repeatedly and became unable to touch even her own child.<\/p>\n