If you find out, 500 million gay people would like to know. (sigh)
There are three kinds of homophobes.
Religious freaks (Bibliothumpus jehovae). My religion and interpretation thereof is better than yours, and we don’t like queers. Therefore, I shalt bash thee, as the Lord spake thusly that thou shalt hate all those who art different from thee.
Fear of one’s own inherent homosexuality (Screamingqueenus repressus). I’m not gay! I’m really not gay! Look, I’ll prove it by beating up a fag! That means I’m really straight!
Fear of being hit on (Paranoia sexualitas). Possibly the most obnoxious. Not only do homophobes of this type have an exaggerated opinion of their own sexual attractiveness, but they also use a thought process which, if women used it, would cause the streets to be strewn with the bodies of straight men.
Heh…I’m straight and I have people that call me both of those.
I don’t believe that it’s that, because there are manny other things that are considered perverted and evil, yet you don’t see people with signs proclaiming the sin, whatever it may be.
I recently saw a rather amusing study quoted on a psychology web page on this. The researchers took a bunch of heterosexual men, some homophobic and some not, and played a variety of videotapes for them, some straight porno, some gay porno, some other stuff. Level of arousal was measured by a combination of questionaires and some sort of erection-measuring device. More than 50% of homophobes were ‘fully aroused’ during the gay porno, as opposed to less than 20% of the non-homophobes. No-one has tried yet to replicate the study, however.
<font size=+1 color=red>WARNING - The following is pretty explicit, in an educational sort of way.</font>
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Just in case anyone reads down this far, here’s my 2 cents.
Yeah, gays bend gender roles. So do lesbians, but lesbians usually aren’t hated the same way.
Yeah, it’s forbidden in the bible. So is a woman speaking in church.
Yeah, it isn’t reproductively advantageous. Neither is infertility, but it doesn’t carry quite the same stigma.
None of these explain the deep rooted psychological aversion that most heterosexual men have for homosexual men.
Someone in the Celluloid Closet (I wish I remembered who) touched on a theory that I’m beginning to take seriously. For straight men, often, sex is about penetration. Being penetrated opens oneself up for vulnerability in a way that being a penetrator does not. Mutual masturbation between new lovers is likely to involve similar levels of stress in both parties. But in typical intercourse, it is the inserted party who is exposing herself more, who is accepting the greater risk, and who is making the bigger psychological commitment.
For many men, in some deep subconcious recess of their minds, penetrating is the victory. Being penetrated is the ultimate defeat. This obviously is not something people are conscious of, but if any of you men doubt it, try this experiment:
Imagine you’re with a sexy woman who doesn’t particularly like intercourse, but she’s willing to because it pleases you. She only enjoys direct clitoral stimulation, which is pretty-much irrelevant to intercourse. She prefers mutual masturbation, but will let you have normal intercourse - if you let her penetrate you. This isn’t about being straight or gay. You’re with a woman, full of hetero desires, so that’s not the issue. She just wants to be able to analy penetrate you (with toys or fingers or whatnot) if you get to vaginally penetrate her. Most men would be repulsed. See? It’s a penetration issue.
So in short, when het men think of homosexuality, they think of anal sex. And specifically, they think of anal sex happeneing to them. And they react violently.
As it happens, there was a TV documentary on tonight about men who have killed gay men, and I was struck by how many of them said they were molested as children. The word of a convicted murderer is not completely trustworthy, of course, but it is not difficult to see how this could happen.
Before everyone jumps all over me, yes, I know that homosexuals and pedophiles are completely different. But trauma can give people visceral, irrational, and overgeneralized fears. It’s tough to get reliable statistics on child molestation, but there may be a large minority of people walking around with this particular scar–enough, perhaps, to shape the public debate on homosexuality.
I have to side with the “Narrow Minded” theory. This is more a social theory than a behavioral one, but they interact at some level.
We all like to think that we have a good bead on things; the sun rises in the morning, sets in the evening, men and women make babies, dogs chase cats and so forth. Basic assumptions about the nature of existence that help us define ourselves in relation to other people, society and the “natural” way-of-things.
Now along comes a homosexual. This person upsets the perceived natural order, plays havoc with the safe assumptions that people live by, and lessens their grip on “reality”.
The “normal” person then has to re-evaluate their beliefs, and the general nature of existence. They may have to not only actually think(!GASP!), but to change the way they think(!OH MY GOD!)!
If men start desiring men, then, heaven forfend, what next? Will the sun rise tomorrow? Will gravity still work the same way? The earth is round!?
And then respond in the negative; not only are these people unnatural, they are trying to change the natural order of things.
And as we all know ;), change is bad.
<FONT COLOR=“GREEN”>ExTank</FONT>
<FONT COLOR=“RED”>"…dogs and cats, living together, in the streets! Total chaos!"</FONT>
<FONT COLOR=“BLUE”>“We fear change.”</FONT>
>>For many men, in some deep subconcious recess of their minds, penetrating is the victory. Being penetrated is the ultimate defeat.
So in short, when het men think of homosexuality, they think of anal sex. And specifically, they think of anal sex happeneing to them. And they react violently.
Just my pet theory.<<
-Quadell
Actually, there’s probably a lot to this, and it makes me want to be a lesbian.
Did I mention this on this thread, or on one the other three hundred thousand threads we’ve had on similar topics? Once upon a time, the winners in a battle used to rape the living remnants of the losers. Just to make a well, point.
For a lot of people, being penetrated is being gay. I can think of no better example than a study published in Science about eight years ago, in which a group of researchers announced thet they’d made gay rats. They made them by exposing them to estrogens when they (the rate) were in utero, but nevermind-- the point is, that the rats were gay because they allowed other boy rats to mount them and when the other rat managed, penetrate them anally.
Here’s the really good part: the rats who DID THE ACTUAL PENETRATIN weren’t gay, by the definition of the scientists. Why not? Apparantly because nothing was “wrong,” ie, different about them that anyone knew of. THEY hadn’t been exposed to any weird hormones or anything.
::sigh::
–Rowan
Shopping is still cheaper than therapy. --my Aunt Franny
A paradox which boggles my own mind, too. I wonder how many gay-bashers end up sodomizing their victims, yet somehow figure that they themselves aren’t “gay”?
My wife once asked, “Why do so many men act so disgusted by homosexuals and by anal sex, but try so hard to get their wives and girlfriends to submit to it”? I think that question has, in its own way, great bearing on what Rowan and Quadell said above.
{{She just wants to be able to analy penetrate you (with toys or fingers or whatnot) if you get to vaginally penetrate her. Most men would be repulsed. See?}}
Hmm… most guys I’ve been with were into that though. Most of the guys I’ve talked to online about that kind of thing admit to liking it as well.
[[My own two cents on the subject is that a lot of the most virulent homophobes have some repressed homosexual feelings of their own. They reject these desires within themselves and project them unto others. That’s why you often hear homophobes talking about their fears that homosexuals have the ability to “convert” heterosexuals. They attack homosexuals to “prove” their heterosexuality. This is also the reason that so many homophobes focus their anger on male homosexuals and are generally indifferent to lesbians.]] Mike King
Letter to the Manly Advisor (from “The Manly Handbook”):
Q: "Dear Manly Advisor:
I find that when I go out at night and beat up homosexuals, I get sexually aroused. Is there something wrong with me?"
The only “legitimate” homophobia I’ve ever come across is that of my own father.
He was in the Navy for over twenty years and subject to frequent, unwelcome come-ons by gay men. I think, though I have no confirmation, that he may have even been assaulted by a gay man.
His reaction, when movies or tv shows portray gay men, is that of disgust and repulsion. He doesn’t claim a religious high ground, he doesn’t talk about gays trying to convert children. He has agreed, in the past, that his reaction is emotional and illogical.
The best parallel I can draw is that he responds with the same anger and disgust that a some women rape-survivors show towards all men. But, he’s honest about it, and I’ve even seen him get along with gay men.
And of course, he couldn’t care less about female/female homosexuality.
Pretty much, though, I agree with the theories I’ve seen here. Gender roles, repression of inate homosexuality, contempt of the passive partner, biblical fundamentalism, and so on.
I am nott sure why myself…why it’s such a big deal!!!
…I am straight and you don’t see me going around shoving it down peoples throats that I am straight…it’s a ‘private/sexual choice’ and I just don’t get it!!! Really!!! Like Yo USA Government…look at me I am straight…see me here… I am straight and I am very proud of it…WHO CARES about a persons sexual preference…I just think a GAY person could be translated to this…very very very HORNY BASTARDS…and if this means getting a little more options out of the deal by claiming to be ‘GAY’ well big freaking WHOOP DEE DOO!
It’s telling that this message board is so old that society has changed since this thread was last replied to. Nowadays, the question isn’t “Why is being GAY an issue”, but rather “Why would people even THINK that being gay is an issue”.
It’s well known that everyone was in the closet in the gay 90’s. It was thought to be gay to be hetero, so no one owned up to anything. Everyone was anonymous. No one even wore clothes, cause that would have given it away. And some gave it away by giving it away.
I miss the good ol’ days, when men were men and sheep were nervous. {sob, snerk}
Almost forgot. Everyone wore boots under their socks. Yeah.