This interdisciplinary study, coupling legal theory with empirical analysis, presents preliminary insight into the role of emotion in criminalization decisions. While the traditional approach in legal theory emphasizes the role of deliberative and reasoned argumentation, this study hypothesizes that affective and emotional processes (i.e. disgust, as indexed by a dispositional proneness to experience disgust) are also associated with the decision to criminalize behavior, in particular virtual child pornography. To test this empirically, an online survey (N = 1,402) was conducted in which participants provided criminalization ratings on four vignettes adapted from criminal law, in which harmfulness and disgustingness were varied orthogonally. They also completed the 25-item Disgust Scale-Revised (DS-R-NL). In line with the hypothesis, a) the virtual child pornography vignette (characterized as low in harm, high in disgust) was criminalized more readily than the financial harm-vignette (high in harm, low in disgust), and b) disgust sensitivity was significantly associated with the decision to criminalize virtual child pornography, both among lay participants and legal experts (b = 0.48, SE = .04, 95% CI [0.41, 0.56]). These findings suggest that emotion can be relevant in shaping criminalization decisions. Exploring this theoretically, the results could serve as a stepping stone for the development of a new perspective on criminalization theory, including an inherent "criminalization bias". Limitations and implications for legal theory and policymaking are discussed.