this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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doi: 10.1037//0021-843x.105.3.440

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[–] Godric@lemmy.world 12 points 5 hours ago

1996 sub 100 participants

Data quality is shit, and should be discarded.

That aside, I feel bad for my extremely closested buddy. We went to a rather homophobic highschool, and a mildly homophobic college, and he always tried too hard for ladies for how dedicated he was to his certain type of looks.

[–] Zezzoz@lemmy.world 15 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

35 people makes it a useless study.

[–] BreadOven@lemmy.world 23 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Funny, but the sample size? Would like to see a larger study (probably would show the same results).

I also wonder if they considered bi individuals in the non-homophobic group.

If these are easily answered by reading the paper, I'll see it now, when I actually read it.

[–] gwilikers@lemmy.ml 8 points 8 hours ago

Bi - the invisible sexual orientation.

Glad that Lower Decks has a bi protagonist. Its really sad that bisexual people just seem to be completely invisible within the broader culture.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 24 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

A sex worker friend told me that he had some homophobic (male) clients who didn't seem to be gay, but frequented male sex workers. This confused me, but he explained that it seems to be part of a convoluted humiliation kink thing, rather than attraction.

For example, I know a subby guy whose domme makes him kiss her feet. She does this because he finds feet gross, and thus ordering him thus is a humiliating and submissive act that he ultimately finds hot. This association has become strong enough that even outside of the specific context of scenes with his domme, he finds the prospect of footplay arousing, whilst simultaneously still being grossed out by feet. He finds the paradoxical vibes of this hilarious, and indeed, reports that it's one of the things he finds fulfilling about kink play.

In the case of homophobic straight men who have gay sex, it's far more psychosexually complex. However, one plausible angle of it is that some men may actually just want to be pegged, but conservative attitudes may mean that being fucked by a woman with a strap-on is perceived as more taboo and transgressive than being fucked by another man.

Another bizarre example my friend relayed to me was an instance of a man who engaged in gay sex as a form of self-harm that was felt to be deserved due to being insufficiently masculine. In this scenario, the homophobic client was topping. The guy apparently seemed to believe in a sort of "conservation of masculinity" in penetrative sex. For example, let's say that any act of penetrative sex (anal or vaginal, it matters not) contains a total of 10 arbitrary units of masculinity. In this guy's ideal of How Sex Should Be, the penetrative partner would contain all 10 units of masculinity, and his partner, with 0 units of masculinity, would be the mostly womanly woman to ever woman. However, this dude was pretty insecure in his masculinity, and he would probably rate himself as having only 6 units of masculinity. This is sufficient for him to feel comfortable being the one who penetrates his partner, but by the principle of conservation of masculinity, this would mean that "balanced" sex would involve a partner with 4 units of masculinity.

I don't intend to kink shame anyone, but frankly I find this bizarre, because it sounds like this guy is genuinely quite disgusted by having sex with another man (and likely not attracted to men either), but feels even more disgusted by the prospect of feeling insufficiently masculine and having sex with a woman. It's like the gay sex is a punishment for not attaining the impossible ideal of hegemonic masculinity. I asked my friend if it wasn't more likely that the dude is just gay and has a heckton of internalised homophobia to work through, but he was pretty sure of his assessment. I'm told that the job involves a surprising amount of "I'm not a therapist, but I'm the closest thing you have to one, so let's talk".

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago

I think for that last paragraph it's a thing where sex and processing emotions are equally taboo to a lot of men who are as fucked up as you described. Except sex and even utilizing a sex worker's services fit within a script they have the mental space to comprehend. You sneak off, have sex, pay, shut up about it. Whereas asking a friend if they can help you process some stuff over a beer or going to therapy are public in the sense that they aren't hidden. They're awkward, they involve potential accountability and may demand change. They're hard and seeing a sex worker in such a way is cathartic and exciting in all the ways that telling a friend you're worried you aren't masculine enough isn't.

But also yeah, sexuality does also seem to just be where misc mental issues wind up dumped. I'm certainly not one to judge about any of that shit. I just suspect some people only go to sex to deal with it instead of also working to become mentally healthy. Like you can still be freaky once you are, in fact you often get better at it.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 5 points 8 hours ago

Boy am I glad I'm asexual for all practical purposes. This sounds frankly exhausting.

[–] Wolf@lemmy.today 32 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

This seems kind of obvious to me honestly. Like if you weren't worried that you would 'turn gay', why would you give a single shit about what other men do in their bedrooms? It just goes to show how even in our 'enlightened' age that there is still a terrible stigma associated with being gay among certain groups. Ignorance and fear is part of it but religion plays a big part as well.

I have a friend who 'admitted' to me that he was gay as if he were telling me he was a pedo or a murderer. Of course I told him that I dgaf, but it mattered to him. He's a devout Catholic and has been tortured by his sexuality since before I knew him (30 years). He has even enrolled himself into a coupe of those 'Pray the Gay Away' camps. It's amazing how willing people are to follow a God who would put them through something like that.

I used to work with a religious guy who started this whole "Homosexuality is a choice" bit. I said "You think you could just choose to be gay?" and to his credit he admitted that he could. He's more honest than a lot of closeted homophobes, usually that question makes them backtrack their position, but he's to devout too realize that homosexuality isn't always a boolean and he didn't have a choice in his sexuality anymore than my friend had.

[–] jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

my theory is that most homosexuals are bi, specifically because then the idea that they could turn gay is logical

[–] tektite@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

my theory is that most homosexuals are bi

Guessing you meant "homophobes"

[–] gofsckyourself@lemmy.world 30 points 19 hours ago

Not sure what is up with this screenshot. Looks like someone erased something from the sides? I dunno, but the quality is not great. Here's a new one:


https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8772014/

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 12 points 17 hours ago

I think the more complete question is: Is sexual repression common among conservatives the root of their infantile lashing out against LGBTQ+?

[–] conicalscientist@lemmy.world 86 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Most of what I learned about LGBTQ came from homophobes. The ones who would not shut up about it.

For example when I didn't know that rainbows were associated with the community. I had friend school over one time. He saw a blanket with a rainbow stripe pattern. He basically had a gay panic meltdown. He was so certain we were a family of closeted gays.

So anyways later on he got a degree from a bible college or something. And he joined an evangelical church. One where they travel around to city streets around preaching from megaphones. Kind of like that Westboro Baptist thing.

In our early 20s he sexually assault me. I found out later from another guy we went to school with that he also forced himself on that guy too.

He's not the only person I've known like this but certainly the most crazy one.

If there's any true to the saying that gays rub their identity in everyone's face. Then it's the homophobe ones. It's got to be a massive projection. It's like they're trying to tell the world but it manifests as some kind of self-hate in denial or something.

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 22 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

The rubbing it in your face bit always got me. It sounds like something a jealous person would say. Like why do they get to suck dick and I can't!

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 16 points 17 hours ago

You have just figured out 40% of GOP insanity right there.

"How does he get to be a pretty woman when I cant? Well I'll show him!" (the misgendering was intentional and hypothetical to make a point, mods pls)

[–] yarr@feddit.nl 42 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Is this why Republican senators keep getting caught kissin' with other men in public restrooms?

[–] Alaik@lemmy.zip 31 points 21 hours ago

I mean grindr always reports an increase in traffic around the republican conventions.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 4 points 17 hours ago

The world would be so much better if they stopped being so concerned with what other consenting adults are doing in private.

[–] underscores@lemmy.dbzer0.com 81 points 1 day ago (26 children)

I really don't like the idea of citing this study. It's always this same one from the 90s, and if it were acurate I expect the results would have been reproduced more. It's also not clear that the results indicate what the paper says. There's other reasons than sexual arousal that could explain the results. It could be they're imagining the scenario and are axious or disgusted by it. There's this paper that indicates homophobia is usually caused by fear or hate.

I don't like the idea of putting the blame for homophobia on closeted queer people. It's seems extremely likely to me that most homophobic people are straight, since most people are straight. Also we should respect other people's own identification instead of trying to force labels on people, even if they're bigots.

[–] faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 18 points 21 hours ago

I always felt like that study from the 90s is missing part of the picture. Like, it's less 'closeted gay people' that are the problem, and it's more the people who are closeted because it was beaten into them at a young age that being gay means they deserve the worst of the worst.

I think you're spot on with fear being the root cause, and we really have done a good job at making people afraid of their own sexuality.

[–] Sidhean@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago

I was hoping someone else articulated this better than me. When I read OP's screenshot, I heard "Your dick got hard when we showed you sex. What are you, gay? You're gay, aren't you?" Which doesn't really follow. Thats just bullying, I think. The scientists were bullying the homophobes lmao.

And, like, they're probably sometimes correct. I conject homophobia is a mask worn by homos to blend in around homophobes, and then the paper you linked hits me with

These findings confirm the importance of considering the variability in impulsive processes to understand why some (but not all) men high in homophobia have homosexual interest.

and wow, this really does confirm my bias! Thank you for sharing

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[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 33 points 1 day ago

Attraction to women doesn't make people not misogynist.

[–] Semester3383@lemmy.world 59 points 1 day ago

IIRC, this hasn't been debunked per se, but it was a very small, very limited study, and doesn't really do a great job of explaining homophobia in a broader population. (I mean, you're talking about 64 people in total; depending on your inclusion criteria, that could be a meaningless sample size.) Penile plethysmography is a proxy for sexual arousal; it's useful in some instances--like predicting whether or not someone will commit more sexual offenses in the future--but isn't even that great in those instances. If I remember correctly, there's strong evidence that disgust is a trait strongly associated with conservatism, and homophobia is a an extreme disgust reaction.

FWIW, I was casually--but quite virulently--homophobic when I was younger. I'd been raised in a very conservative, evangelical religious group, and I believed all the bullshit that I'd heard about gay people. That changed once I lost religion, and actually met people that were gay. That, of course, is only anecdotal evidence, and does assume that I'm neither gay nor bisexual (and I don't believe that I am), but it fits with what I've seen from conservative thought.

[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 142 points 1 day ago (12 children)

It's always important in science to do the experiment or study, even if you're pretty sure you already know the answer.

Sometimes, the result will be surprisingly counter-intuitive. And other times, like in this study, it confirms what seems blatantly obvious.

What could it possibly mean when a man who identifies as heterosexual feels threatened by the mere existence of homosexual men? What could it mean???

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[–] peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 92 points 1 day ago (6 children)

So interesting thing here: both groups were aroused at heterosexual and lesbian stimuli.

The homophobic ones responded to the homosexual stimuli.

The guys were bi. Sort of explains why they argue "everyone chooses to be gay or straight." Because they have decided they have to.

This also explains the more-frequent-than-i-enjoy conversation about how "no, there really isn't a celebrity I'd go gay for."

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[–] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 99 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Homophobes: resist those evil urges, don't give it to the gay sex, you can do it just say no...

The rest of us: uh, who's gonna tell them

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 51 points 1 day ago (4 children)

If you're scared enough, even wiping your ass is gay.

[–] ByteJunk@lemmy.world 56 points 1 day ago (4 children)

That's outright disgusting.

If you need to regularly scratch your anus, go see a doctor.

Also, even if you do need to scratch your anus, why wouldn't you be able to eat with your hands? SURELY you sanitize them properly RIGHT? RIGHT?!

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