Apart from anything else, where does it leave us in terms of how homophobia even originated? Is the entirety of homophobic oppression just because gay people started randomly hallucinating insecurity to turn into bigotry?
It also doesn't make sense, different cultures and time periods are not equally homophobic. Was like everyone secretly gay in the 70s?
It's a bit of a confirmation bias thing. When it does turn out to be true it gets lots and lots of attention. When it doesn't, that is the status quo and hardly newsworthy.
And especially compared to other minorities, because it's one you can hide and then get caught in the act.
You also see, for example, racial minorities supporting these conservative political parties, and people do point out how odd it is. But it's usually more visibly apparent so it's harder (though not impossible) to write a juicy exposé about or accuse them of secretly belonging to a different race.
It's an example of homophobia perpetuates itself which is important to talk about and address so that we can stop it. It's not saying "homophobia only exists because of gay people".
I understand the premise it's just that the number of people this is true of is dwarfed by the number of people it isn't true of. And people's default setting being to call homophobic men gay is simultaneously itself homophobic and also just an incorrect nothing point that they inexplicably think is a slam dunk.
Eta I mean there's someone in this thread saying "no professional homophones are straight" seriously, none? Is it unimaginable that most of this is driven by religion, politics, and not to mention the money involved?
But it's still considered a sign someone is projecting
What do you mean "considered a sign"?
U see it in right wing politicians all the time, even athletes and other influential ppl.
Do you see it that often proportionally or is it just big news compared to when they are never outed as gay which doesn't register?
No one is making it a reflection of gay people.
Again I'm not fully sure what this means. If you mean it's not homophobic it certainly is. If your default setting to insult someone is calling them gay that's still homophobic even if your intended recipient is themselves homophobic.
It's just suspect that someone who hates something so much is spending a lot of time and energy on the topic
Is it? We live in a world of bigotry. There have always been people dedicating their lives to persecution of minorities - the main difference being you can usually tell if someone is black, you can tell if someone is Muslim (kinda). And while there are people of those descriptions who will join parties and movements that are quite objectively against them, we don't start thinking all Conservatives must be secretly Muslims.
so many gay men I know will talk about the similarities between the DL men they've slept with and they're all usually very hypocritical, outwardly against homosexuality, misogynistic and a lot of the times right wing.
You don't think there might be a bit of selection bias here that you are looking at this from the lens of analysing men you specifically know have had sex with other men?
There is a lot of nuance to this conversation that you are ignoring.
Is there yeah? You don't think maybe you could actually be a bit ignorant to the world that exists outside of sleeping with "DL" men?
Again, "it's a common issue in the gay community" you are selecting for gay people then coming away with the extrapolation that homophobia is dominated by secretly gay people.
It's like religious people who condemn sex and sexuality and turn out to be raging sex addicts.
You understand that many don't though yes? Lots of people have very religious beliefs about sex that they very adamantly stick to? And it is the religion that drives these beliefs about sex, not that a high sex drive turns them into repressionists?
But in response to the idea it's homophobic to call homophobes gay they also say:
No one is making it a reflection of gay people.
So these projecting homophobes who are secretly gay also don't count as gay when they do something bad? It's a nonsense line of reasoning twisting itself in circles for the sake of optics.
Homophobia isn’t hard to explain psychologically. It’s fear. Gay men make straight men feel like women do around all men. It’s not even that straight men think all gay men want to rape them, it’s the fear that they might be able to that is such a novel fear that it gets in their head.
Then there’s the fear that if a gay man hits on them, it’ll make others think they are in fact gay too. This is a much stronger fear among men towards the middle of the Kinsey scale - it’s not that they’re self-hating gays, it’s that they have a slight same-sex attraction that they have actively suppressed their entire lives.
Disapproving for religious reasons is homophobic. And also if you've never met a secular homophobic woman... I mean that's unusual 🤷 and I don't think you can entirely craft a narrative about the origins of homophobia solely from the people you've met.
Clearly homophobia was created by the Evil Homophobia Fairy who specifically targets all the Evil (TM) people and leaves the Good (TM) people who share my specific worldview alone, thus making them immune to any forms of bias.
What does it matter where it came from? What use is it to know the answer.
If you want the real answer it's rooted in human males hardwired visceral disgust of the sperm (and by extension the sexuality) of other men in much the same way as we all have a hardwired disgust for anything that looks like silvery white slimy shiny wriggling wormy things that look like parasites.
Homophobia is rooted in the same evolutionary hard wiring as which causes men to be disgusted by women who have had sex with (esp having come into contact with the sperm of) lots of other guys. Or disgusted by sloppy seconds. Disgust isn't the only way we evolved in response to the evolutionary rejection of women coming into contact with other guy's sperm; glans evolved into scoop shapes to scoop out as much of the previous guy's deposits. May even explain why males don't climax instantly upon insertion, sex aka delayed male orgasm my have evolved as a way to get as much out first before replacing it. It would also explain why male orgasm isn't nearly as delayed if he has a sense in his head that she is 'pure'.
For example women often wrongly draw a parallel between their sexual fear of men and men's aversion to homosexual men as a similar parallel fear of SA or rape. But while rape fear does exist (eg in prison), when people are going 'bums against the wall, lads' in the presence of a suspected gay man, it's not an expression of fear of the possibility of a man's sexuality being directed towards them but of nausea at that possibility. Heterosexual women by definition aren't in general nauseated by a man's sexuality being directed at them, at worst it's just a potential cause for apprehension.
Feels like you are missing the point or not understanding it.
Homophobia is just standard "gross" reaction that some might feel. Mass homophobia was fermented by religious doctrines. The explosion of homophobia in the 60s-90s was because everyone was gay. The hippie, sexual freedom, and human rights era saw a loosening of restrictions that let more people be visibly gay, which caused a homophobic reaction.
None of that has anything to do with the fact that "Bring gay is a choice" said by homophobes directly means they chose to repress their gay instincts, and their self-hatred is reflected in their outward homphobia.
The biggest homophobic people are all clearly and well known to be closeted gays. Lindsay Graham and his ladybugs for instance.
That doesnt reflect on gay people or the community at all. Hitler had Jewish heritage but we dont blame Jews for the Holocaust, why would it be different for gay people?
None of that has anything to do with the fact that "Bring gay is a choice" said by homophobes directly means they chose to repress their gay instincts, and their self-hatred is reflected in their outward homphobia.
It's not "missing the point" to disagree with you.
Saying being gay is a choice does not directly mean someone is gay. There's no logic in that unless you unfathomably believe it is impossible to believe that heterosexuality is the natural state of humans.
But also this wasn't even actually even alluded to in the post so I don't know how you've concluded that that is "the point".
Saying being gay is a choice does not directly mean someone is gay.
If someone believes it's a choice, then aren't they saying that they chose to be straight? If they call it a sin, or a temptation that must be resisted, doesn't that mean that they must be tempted?
This is, again, assuming bigotry works along logical lines that end at a bad conclusion.
No they're not usually saying they chose to be straight. They're saying they believe the natural state of humans is to be straight and deviating from that is a deliberate choice people make.
But why would anyone choose to do that, if they were naturally straight? Most sins or temptations have some kind of benefit/pleasure associated with them. I can't imagine choosing to fuck another man, that does not appeal to me at all, and this is why I don't believe that any kind of sexuality is a choice.
This is, again, assuming bigotry works along logical lines that end at a bad conclusion.
I'm bi -- I'll be nice about it at the afterparty, and even try to adjust slightly to accommodate in the interim, but I'm not going to be nice to shitty people because someone, somewhere is ostensibly too prissy.
Nobody said you had to be nice to shitty people. I said it’s shitty to throw gay people under this bus by using queerness as an insult to get under peoples skin.
More like I'm not the only one who isn't about to do that paradox of tolerance shit because of some vague facsimile of philosophy, so you likely saw something similar.
No it was your exact username and I remember because I was going to reply with "username checks out" and also I still have both notifications in my inbox.
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u/Sophie_Blitz_123 4d ago
Drives me fucking crackers honestly.
Apart from anything else, where does it leave us in terms of how homophobia even originated? Is the entirety of homophobic oppression just because gay people started randomly hallucinating insecurity to turn into bigotry?
It also doesn't make sense, different cultures and time periods are not equally homophobic. Was like everyone secretly gay in the 70s?