The reactions have been some combination of "Ew gross!" and concern for the potential dangers of eating raw foods: "You'll get worms!"
The first is probably mostly a matter of cultural conditioning. There are plenty of places in the world where people eat raw meat. When I worked as a line cook in college, the French cooks would routinely taste the raw meat they were butchering. Japan culturally exports an entire category of raw food in sushi.
I don't know the Japanese words for most of the food-borne illnesses we worry about in the US even after living in Japan for six years, because they aren't a concern. I ate raw cow, chicken, fish, whale, chicken eggs, quail eggs, horse, liver, live shrimp, etc. etc. in Japan and never got sick from any of them.
The Japanese, and I would guess the French, don't have mechanized agriculture like we have in the US, and eat raw food regularly.
Whether or not people want to eat raw meat is a matter of taste and what they are used to eating. As far as safety goes, anytime you eat any raw meat there is the chance of some food-borne illness. This can be greatly reduced by buying meats from animals that are raised cleanly and humanely, but is always there. There are some that say that some food-borne parasites are actually beneficial for humans, so there may also be an upside.
The flip side of this is that, the more meats are cooked, lots of bad things happen: proteins mutate, natural enzymes are destroyed, free radicals increase, vitamins decrease -- the meat becomes less healthy.
So, if you're inclined to do so, eating raw meat is essentially a risk-reward calculation: the regular increased nutritional benefits of consuming the food in its natural state vs. the rare risk of food-borne illnesses, which is further reduced by buying quality meats.
It's not like all I eat is raw meat. When I cooked, I was taught that medium-rare is ideal temp to at which to serve red meat, and from a culinary perspective of strict taste, I agree. But sometimes, I just like it raw :)
