About the title: you can go on the Net and look up definitions of homophobia and most of the examples are justified. Much homophobia is just ugly, cruel and wrong. This much is crystal clear.
However, some of the acts that are called homophobic are quite acceptable. This includes most of the acts that straight men do to avoid being called gay or to defend themselves if someone calls them gay. If that’s homophobia then all I have to say is some “homophobia” is fine with me.
Further, there are serious issues with gay rights crowd’s definition of homophobia. First of all, it ends up lassoing the vast majority of gay men by calling them homophobes. This is because the very common gay male attitude of contempt for very effeminate men (The “I hate sissies” mindset) is considered homophobic. Once you get to the point where your homophobia definition covers 75% of gay men themselves, I think you have a problem with your daffynition.
Lisa FOS writes: Beating up another, more obvious homosexual, makes you look ok in public, Hides you…6 months later you are having sex with each other
The GLBTI world has been going through a terrible debate within itself for many years now about ‘outing’ people. The consensus is it is a bad thing, and people should ‘out’ themselves if they want and only if they want. But, there are exceptions, if there is someone important (preacher, politician, etc) that endlessly attacks gays.while having sex wth them…then they should be outed.
I agree wth that. I do love it when some British lord, US preacher or politician who endlessly hammer gays gets outed. They deserve it.
So some ‘homophobics’ (lesiabianphobicis, TGphobics and all the rest) are themselves, at least to a point, attracted to it.
It comes down to time and interest, people concentrate on what is important to them, if you don’t give a shit, then you think nothing of it, there are 50,000 things more important to you (like the latest cricket scores).
So why does a ‘homophobic’ go on and on and on about it?
I have some problems with this. Islamophobes really want to be Muslims? Black haters really want to be Black? Sexist men really love women? Fox News types are closet liberals? Communists are really secret capitalist pigs?
I do not know, but reaction formation is a known psychological mechanism. A study was done on college students recently. A number of men were located who were always going on and on about other people being messy. Neat freaks. Prigs. Whatever. The study then inspected the rooms of these neat freak pesterers and found that the students who complained most about others being messy tended to have the messiest rooms while those who did not complain much had cleaner rooms.
Denial and projection in action. Projection is a very common defense and people use it constantly. You project off things you do not like or want in yourself, such as guilt, or anything really, onto other people and that way you do not have to deal with the problem because it is not yours, it is someone else’s.
There are indeed some very loudmouthed homophobes who have later been outed for having sex with men. It doesn’t work that way with women.
I suppose you have to wonder about some extreme homophobe who is yelling about it a lot. Why are they screaming about it so much?
Most straight guys are seriously homophobic – it is simply normal to them – but in general they are pretty quiet about it. Nowadays most guys accused of being homophobes are these quiet types exhibiting “normal homophobia,” and I do not think many of them are gay. And in my life, I found that strong acceptance of male homosexuality in a straight man correlated much more with later bisexual activity that strong condemnation of it.
I grew up on the beach with macho, hardass surfers. You are on the beach with a lot of the handsomest males on Earth who are hardly wearing any clothes. And you are often changing into and out of swim trunks so you are exposed a lot of nudity, often very good looking males once again. The only way to make a scene like that go smoothly is to completely ban homosexual activity, vibes or even thinking to be honest. In an environment like that, once you let that genie out of the bottle, things are going to get very uncomfortable very fast.
Despite the fact that this scene was probably a gay man’s idea of Heaven, among that crowd, homosexuality was never discussed. If it was ever brought up, people would look at you suspiciously, like “Why in the Hell are you bringing up the unmentionable? Are you a fag yourself?” The general rule was you did not look at other guys. If guys are changing around you, you look the other way. You never look at them at all. If you look at them too much, you’re a fag, and people will soon start spreading rumors about you, and then everyone will disassociate themselves from you.
Now the gays say that avoiding look at naked guys and having a taboo on gay talk is supposedly homophobic, but I thought it was great. It kept everyone in line and enabled the whole surf scene to be very smooth and low stress.
I never knew one gay or even bisexual surfer the whole time I hung out with these guys. Certainly no one was out.
And no one at my high school was out either. I can’t even think of anyone closeted at my high school, though one of my best friends later came out, moved to Hollywood, got AIDS, and was dead very soon. We used to hang out in the bedroom of his parents’ house getting stoned out of our brains. He never gave off gay vibes around us because he had not come out to himself yet. But when you brought up women or girls, he never wanted to talk about it. This is one thing you notice about these guys.
We also had a locker room, and we all had to shower after PE. I spent four years showering with guys, and it wasn’t very comfortable. But the rule there too was you never looked at the other guys. Sure some looking was unavoidable, but you could not linger. When you showered, you just looked straight ahead. When walking to your locker, if you saw a naked guy, you averted your eyes. I’ve never been gay, so it was no big stress for me to avoid these guys in the locker room as they didn’t excite me anyway.
But most straight men are pretty uncomfortable in a room full of naked guys. It just feels weird and creepy. And the whole scene has a “faggy” air about that really bothers straight guys. The gays call this “homophobia,” but to me, it’s just normal.
The deal seemed to be if you looked at guys too much in the locker room, people were going to start saying stuff about you. And not too long after that, you were going to get hit. Probably punched. In the face. Most of us knew that somehow, so we just tried to avoid a punishment like that.
I must say though that I think that rule was justified as it kept us in line, was very disciplining and made the locker room experience very smooth and easy.
The thing is if there are out gay boys in that locker room who are pretty blatant about where they are at, the vibes in that locker room are going to get awful weird awful fast. So the rule is put in to keep weirdness out of the showers. Gays say that is homophobia, but it is fine with me.
Also a lot of us felt that if you violated the rule, you deserved to get hit. So, easy, just don’t break the rule.
Although I suppose it might be difficult or very weird for a gay boy have the high school shower experience.
Where I grew up, especially with the surfers, you never called another guy gay. Never. Ever. Ever.
If you called another guy gay, he had the right to punch you in the face right then and there. And there was an assumption that if you said it to the wrong guy, he might even try to kill you. Most guys seemed to think that this was justified, and if you accused someone of that wrongly, you deserved that knuckle sandwich.
And a lot of guys seemed to think that if a straight man killed a man who called him gay, this would be appropriate too, as a normal expected defense of honor. I have played along with this code most of my life, and I almost never ask another man if he is gay, mostly because in my opinion it is very rude, it is honestly a ridiculous question and number three, just asking the question in the first place seems way more homophobic than not asking it.
Most gay men in my experience aren’t fooling anyone, and I can generally spot them if not at first then surely after a bit. I haven’t been fooled by one yet. Also I can generally spot if a man is straight, as these types do not give off a gay vibe when they are around you. There is sort of a “straight man to straight man” way of relating and conversing, and it is hard to describe but very easy to spot. Once you get that vibe from a man, in general he isn’t gay. But he might be bisexual as some of those men are more difficult to spot.
Gay men are trivial to spot as most of them act like they are attracted to me on some level.
It is exactly the same vibe that many women who like men give off which is, “Hi, I am a woman. And I like men!” That’s as far as it goes but most straight women definitely give off that vibe, even older ones and bitter so-called man-haters. I think even elderly women give off this vibe.
At any rate, most males do not give off this vibe when you talk to them, so when you get it, there is usually something afoot. The gay man’s message is like the woman above: “Hi I am a man. And I like men!” That is as far as it goes again, but often with me there is an added, “Hi I am a man. And I like men! And I like you, cutie!” which is rather unnerving. I do think that these responses are nearly unconscious in both males and females and are probably pretty automatic. There is probably not a good way to shut them off either.
However, I do feel that calling a straight man gay is one of the worst things you could ever say to a straight man, and most straight men seem to agree. The attitude is that this is the worst of the worst of the lowest of the lowest of the ultimately most horrible thing you could ever accuse a straight man of. Once again the gays call this homophobia, but I think it is quite rational and even normal.
And I do carry on in life with the attitude that if I call a straight man gay he has a right to punch me or maybe even kill me. Sure he will go to prison, but so what? I will be dead.
So I am very careful in what I say to any man and try very hard not to insult their honor this way. I don’t even ask obviously gay men if they are gay. One it’s rude, and two it’s an asinine rhetorical question as the answer is obvious. So why ask?Anyway these gay men have a right to privacy, and if they want to be out or not, it’s their business, and I have no right shoving it in their face by asking them such a rude question.
I think that straight men have the right to defend their honor with force. Some may think this is primitive thinking, but I think it works very well as the fear or terror of acting like a prick seems to keep most men very well-mannered. The gays say this is homophobia, but once again I think it is acceptable.
I don’t care why people act good. If they act good because they are terrorized into it, it’s fine with me. Fear can be ugly, but enough of it keeps everyone acting pretty nice if only for fear of consequences if they don’t.