Everyone's entitled to their opinion.
Personally, I'd say that it depends: I've had partners who degraded me during sex and we both enjoyed it - but I can honestly say that I enjoyed it because it was connected to sex. Had it occurred outside my sex life, e.g. in a supermarket or so where the point of degradation wouldn't be to stimulate me sexually but to make me feel bad, I wouldn't like it one bit.
For example I've had men and women who fucked me and at the same time slapped, choked, spat on me, pulled my hair or degraded me verbally - that turned me on.
But had they done it in a non-sexual situation, to me there wouldn't have been anything arousing about it.