Anti-gay zeal greatest in those fearing own gayness?

For some time I’ve been mystified by the obsessive hostility by some in our community toward folks of the same sex who want to marry. I always figured if you don’t want a gay marriage, then don’t have one. But then I happened on a scientific survey on homophobia (the irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals according to the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary), and the motivation behind at least some of the condemnation became clear to me.

At the University of Georgia, researchers conducted an experiment involving 35 homophobic men and 29 non-homophobic men (as measured by the Index of Homophobia). All of the men participating in the experiment considered themselves exclusively heterosexual. This study, published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Volume 105, No. 3, August 1996, described how each of the participants was shown sexually explicit heterosexual, male homosexual and lesbian videotapes. The level of sexual arousal of each man was determined by a technique that measures arousal.

Sexual arousal for the homophobic and non-homophobic men was found to be similar when they viewed both the heterosexual and the lesbian sexual activity. However, when the two groups viewed the video of two men engaging in sexual behavior, a significant statistical difference arose. In this instance, the group of homophobic men showed a considerable increase in sexual arousal while the group of non-homophobic men did not. The implication of this study is that homophobia in men is a reaction to their own repressed homosexual urges.

Of course, for some time many therapists have believed that prejudice against homosexuals involves projection — the transfer of fear and repulsion about one’s own homosexuality onto others. In other words, men (and women) who cannot accept their same-sex desires (suppressed or conscious), release their intense feelings of self-hatred through the condemnation of other people’s homosexuality. Some men, confronted with insecurities about their heterosexuality, attempt to appear hypermasculine — highly competitive, sexually aggressive, domineering with women, physically imposing, tough, unfeeling and detached — to mask their self-doubt.

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060505/OPINION03/60504035/1194

Oh ssssssssssnap! Take that you fun-D'uh-Mental-ist closet cases! :spank:

There was absolutely no scientific basis for my thinking, of course. But I always wondered why some men would go to the extremes of physical violance against us...for no discernable reasons. And I thought...they must have same-sex attractions themselves.

I'm glad that studies are beginning to bear this out.

erection measuring devices to be quackery.

if you have fought the urge all your life, you're gonna be kinda cranky about those who have "given in" and are prospering.

The thing that bothers me about this study, and this concept in general, is that I don't see how this will ever change. It appears to be a natural rather than learned situation. Makes me wonder if we as a culture can ever get it right.

Homophobia is really only concerned with men. I have never seen it discussed in relation to women.

I do believe that it is a problem exclusive to men. I always assume that a homphobic man is over compensating for his own fear that he would enjoy and may desire a homosexual experience at the least, and most likely a relationship, possibly with someone he knows.

Then again, when some homphobic relatives were going off the deep end about gay men, I suggested to them that they were afraid of the sexually agressive male. (Of course they do no realize that women have learned to deal with that without getting their knickers in a twist as homophobes do) Having already expressed pride in their own sexual prowess (ad nauseum) with women, I told them they were just afraid to have that kind of energy directed at them, or to be talked about in the same terms that they often decribe women.

No matter what the reason men are homophobic - it begins with fear. It's like a cat arching its back and puffing its fur to look bigger. A bluff.

It reminds me of when my gay roommate in college, who took a malicious glee in exposing his 'straight friend' to the depravities of gay life. The first time we went to a gay bar, I remember thinking, "Oh God, what if someone starts chatting me up? What will I do?" I began planning a whole, "Thank you, really, but I'm actually straight and just here with a friend, but I'm very flattered" speech when I realised nobody in the place was even looking in my direction. After about 20 minutes of this, I felt like shouting, "Hey! What the fuck's wrong with me?! Don't you bastards have any taste?"

It's funny how malleable sexuality can be in the face of changing environments and social expectations.

Of course there are homophobic women. Don't be ridiculous.

I have seen women be disapproving, gossipy and that sort of thing. Some women want to prevent lesbians from holding certain jobs and will deny civil rights to all homosexuals. But I have never seen the vehemence that men project toward gay guys.
They do not go bonkers over gay women.

We are talking about "phobic" here.

I will think about it some more - there is always the possiblity I am wrong. I do come to this site to learn.
But really GymGeek, there are kinder ways of communicating with people than using terms like insane and ridiculous.

Well, I suppose all it would take to demonstrate is to go to a GOP rally and ask one of the women there what her opinion was. Should clinch it in two sentences. Try attending a Mormon church social with your partner. Am I talking physical violence? Not specifically. It seems that the stereotype would be that women, being typically thought of as physically weaker, wouldn't resort to bashing tactics to express their fear and hatred.

If you want me to respond to posts with a moderate tone, you should avoid using a tone of extremism. What does the phrase "I do believe that it is a problem exclusive to men" reveal to me? Exclusive is a very specific word. It presumes an awful lot of awareness, an awful lot of knowledge. Now, I know you didn't engage in that level of self-reflection or information-gathering. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone with the extreme tone. So your beliefs are interfering with your perception of reality. That's called insanity.

And that makes the argument ridiculous.

Don't wanna be called out for bad opinions, don't share them. If you do, prepare to defend them. Or retract them, of course.

:hi: :hug:

...because Queen Victoria simply refused to believe that 'ladies' would get up to any such thing. So she simply drew a line through the provisions in the Sexual Offences Act relating to it. Homosexuality was illegal for over a century, lesbianism never has been.

During the 1920s, it was considered terribly racy to have lesbian dalliances. The lack of marriageable men after the carnage of WWI also forced a lot of women into 'companionships' with other 'spinsters,' many of which were life long. It seems that society as a whole was far better able to accept the idea of women's dalliances that they ever have with men.

That is so true - maybe the phobia springs from the mistaken belief that "of course all people of the same sex will be attracted to me!!"



:silly:

Homophobic men view homosexuality as being "like women" ... kind of like the biblical admonition of "not laying with mankind as with women."

To be gay is to be like a woman, and since homophobic men have little respect for women, they are doubly disrespectful of any man who would "choose" to give up being manly and take on a "woman's role" sexually.

And the more clearly defined, traditional or 'macho' the male roles are in a given society, the less tolerant of homosexuality that society tends to be.

The experiment you mention is very interesting, as it's the first empirical test I've seen of how expressed attitudes map to underlying preference. It's not surprising that repressed homosexuals deal with their desires by expressing anger or revulsion. They are afraid of how they feel, and one of the two primal reactions to fear is the fight response. The other is flight, of course, and there are probably an equal number of repressed homosexuals who metaphorically 'flee' (by submerging their desires and large parts of their personalities) in order to appear 'normal.'

Personally, I don't believe that there is such a thing as an entirely hetero or entirely gay individual. Like much else in nature, we're probably scattered across a bell curve, posessing varying degress of the two alignments. There is some evidence to support this view. I took part in an experiment a number of years ago that had some similarities to the one you cite. It wasn't focused on measuring superficial attitudes, however, but concentrate on physical responses to visual erotic stimuli. I never saw the final results but the preliminary ones indicated that people's sexual alignment does follow a more or less normal distribution. I, for example, came out 29% gay (or, if you prefer, 71% hetero). My gay roommate came out 62% gay (or 38% straight). I was surprised at my high 'gay' score until it was explained to me that my score was at the low end for people who had described their alignment as hetero. Most 'straight' people fall in the 30-40% range.

I don't know how seriously this 'gayometer' or 'straight-detector' ultimately proved to be, but I found it both intellectually and emotionally satisfying that we are all on a curve, with shades of difference between us, like a kind of sexual rainbow, rather than polar opposites, on two sides of an arbitrary cultural divide.

Still, I know I virulently loathe homophobes. Does this mean that I am a repressed homophobe myself? Hmmm. Perhaps some analogies can be taken too far.

For one, the idea of the "paradox" is part of the history of psychology, Freud in particular, and I doubt such things stand up to reality, most Freudian theory was just speculation. The paradox idea, such as you hate your father not because you really hate your father but because you really love your mother. The paradox that you do one thing because subconsciously you fear something else, grabs the imagination and makes you wonder if it could be true, rather than just dismissing it as rediculous, but I think it is just a case of "bullshit baffles brains", that is, what sounds like complex scientific jargon that the layman can't easily understand or dismiss, is just a bunch of bullshit. One old anti-gay psychological speculation was that men put their penis in a mans mouth because they had a secret subconscious fear of a vagina with teeth (makes no sense at all does it?)
Hate is learned. And hate is what we are talking about. White men don't hate blacks because they secretly love them. Anti-semites don't hate jews because they secretly admire them. It is just pure hate.
Repubs hate liberals because of the constant rhetoric which really started in overdrive when Clinton was elected and Limbaugh started directing his radio show as a constant daily "two-minute hate" and then came his many imitators and the "liberals hate america" bullshit. No mystery, people listened, then adopted the hate, just like the years of anti Jewish rhetoric of the Nazis over years gave them greater power. Because people want to be on the winning side, or be the good guys, and if it is defined that "good" is repub and "liberal" is bad enough times, some people will believe it.
As for gays, the bigotry against gays has always been a part of religious indoctrination, and religious indoctrination in practice is often more about the reproductive imperative and controling the sexual behavior of ones children, than real concern with supernatural beings. One has to explain why some of the most anti-gay male bigots are women like Anita Bryant, etc where this psychology doesn't apply. It is just plain hate alter all.

To say that homophobes bash gays because they secretly desire our gayness puts hate crimes against gay people in a different category than other marginalized groups. Do white men bash black men because they secretly want to be them? Etc.

Saying that gayness is the cause of gaybashing seems oddly homophobic to me. More blaming the victim.

Saying that gayness is a contributor to the phenomenon of gaybashing is demonstrable, if you can point to examples of it happening. Roy Cohn. And that's just their god.

Saying that there is only one cause of gaybashing seems oddly ridiculous to me. More like looking for someone to blame.

and it doesn't statistically mean shit. Anecdotal evidence means not very much. Yes, the idea that there is one cause of gaybashing is problematic. But the idea that the "one" cause of gaybashing is gay people's internalized homophobia is sillier. White men don't bash black men because deep down inside they feel black. Bashing, more likely than not, has its origin in proto-fascist behavior.

If anti-gay behavior comes from being a self-hating gay man, then why be upset by lesbians?

It seems more reasonable to me that it comes from Lakoff "strict father" model. Queers are viewed as threatening the rigid structure of their ideal society.

...But married..


...DAMMIT !!!!!

closeted.

or worse.

i mostly take people at their word -- they are straight.

or as straight as any one can be where there is in reality no hard and fast rules in a species whose sexuality exists on a continuum.