The phrase "detest being" is correct and can be used in written English.
It is often used to express a strong dislike or hatred towards an action or state of being. Example: "I detest being stuck in traffic, it always puts me in a bad mood."
Some shoppers love them, but others detest being lectured by a mis-functioning machine.
Although I do detest being awakened at absurd hours of the night, that red sweater really does look pretty good on her.
Defence secretaries are despised by the armed forces for never having fought, doctors sneer at health secretaries, and teachers detest being instructed by education secretaries.
Kneeland wrote that Burns, with "a smile which quickly developed into a constantly recurrent and particularly devilish grin," told him, "I shall tell you quite frankly that I detest being asked questions".
"The socialites today detest being called socialites and prefer being known as people who work," said David Patrick Columbia, the editor in chief of Quest, a magazine about the rich at home and on the black-tie circuit.
In September 2012 the supermarket introduced the Twitter hashtag #WaitroseReasons, asking people to finish the sentence "I shop at Waitrose because... ....... Some of the responses included mocking comments such as "I shop at Waitrose because it makes me feel important and I detest being surrounded by poor people" and "I shop at Waitrose because everyone on our estate does.
The Greenwald that we know – that the NSA and GCHQ detest – was born.
But what they detest is the idea that it might let feckless Italians and Portuguese off the hook.
The reason that the Clinton and Trump campaigns are embracing a strategy that so many voters profess to detest is somewhat paradoxical: it works.
The reason that the two campaigns are sticking with a strategy that so many voters profess to detest is somewhat paradoxical: it works.
Moreover, the Tory hard Brexiters, wedded to the notion of a clean break from an EU they detest, are in the political ascendancy.
