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Study: Homophobes May be Attracted to Same Sex
A new study published in the April issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests people with an intense hostility toward homosexuals may be linked to a repressed same-sex attraction, combined with an authoritarian upbringing.
Study co-author and University of Rochester psychology professor Richard Ryan said: "People who have a discrepancy within themselves about their expressed vs. unconscious sexual attraction find gay and lesbian people more threatening and are more likely to express prejudice and discrimination toward them."
His co-author Netta Weintstein, of the University of Essex, added: "Individuals who identify as straight but in psychological tests show a strong attraction to the same sex may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves."
The study subjects were four groups of about 160 college students each, in the USA and Germany. They rated the attractiveness of people in same-sex or opposite-sex photos and answered questions about the type of parenting they experienced growing up, from authoritarian to democratic, as well as homophobia at home.
However, other scientists are skeptical of the findings.
Psychology professor Gregory Herek, of the University of California-Davis, has done extensive research on anti-gay bias and violence, and he says measuring unconscious same-sex attraction is "incredibly difficult."
Herek added: "This study is asking the right questions, but it's a pretty big leap to say it's revealing sexual orientation."
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Comments
It is to be expected that the
It is to be expected that the harder one needs to struggle against unwanted same-sex sexual attraction in order to maintain standards of behaviour that empower one's self-esteem, if one disapproves of homosexual behaviour, the less comfortable one will feel when witnessing openly homosexual behaviour in others.
In other words, some people, who have the same rights as anybody else to breath the air we all breath, are homophobic, because they have a NEED to be homophobic. Get over it.
Yes that is the kind of sex
Yes that is the kind of sex of same kind of gender and is going an issue now a days for same sex marriage.
blogs para gays
Well-put. I think the point
Well-put. I think the point is, why do they have that need? Gay behavior, as long as it is between consenting adults, harms no one. Nor does gay marriage. Why do people even care?
FWIW, even though we often disagree on some issues, I do appreciate the reasonable, intelligent approach you take.
Bertrand Russell developed a
Bertrand Russell developed a theory of ethics that was called Emotivism, I think. The gist of that theory was that so-called moral judgments were nothing more than dressed-up aesthetic judgments. We call "wrong" what we don't like the thought of. That is certainly ONE possible explanation of many for homophobia.
Sure, it's true. Certainly
Sure, it's true. Certainly it cannot include all anti-gay people. I do suspect it does take in more than most would suspect.
To be fair, they may be playing out what they have been taught as children. If they even suspect they might be a tiny bit gay, they would be filled with the self-loathing programmed into them as children. That early indoctrination is very difficult to overcome and they might not even be aware that their thoughts are not their own but the result of how and when they grew up.
I dunno what to think about
I dunno what to think about this. On the one hand, it makes sense, psychologically, that someone who was gay and didn't want to be might overreact and start hating gays because he hates his own gayness.
But on the other hand, it can't be globally true. Homophobia is just too universal to explain all of it that way. I think that when you hate someone, it's because you've made a choice to hate them--not because you psychologically can't help displacing your self-hatred. A self-loathing gay person has a choice, just like a straight person does, whether or not to hate gay people.
Ironic, that I should be saying "it's a choice" on the other side of the argument. But there's a difference between being born with a certain sort of brain wiring and hormonal balance, and choosing your views on how to interact with people who are categorized one way or another by your culture. We learn culture; we're not born with it.
While you can be taught, early on, to hate gay people, it's still your choice whether or not to question that teaching once you reach your teens and you're old enough to think critically. I was raised by fundamentalists, and it took me a while to question it--but if I can, then I think others can, too. I won't pat people on the head and say, "Oh, it's okay, you were just raised that way." If you were raised with bigotry in your culture and you don't question it, that's still your choice, and you are ethically responsible for it.
You're right. It isn't
You're right. It isn't globally true. I don't think many would claim that. It is obviously often true. All we have to do is look at the high-profile gay-bashers that have been caught (literally) with their pants down. For the ones that have been exposed (pun intended) there must be many others still hiding in the closet.
I also agree that it's possible for anyone to overcome their early conditioning. Consider the theists that become atheist later in life and the arch-conservatives that become more liberal as they mature.
So why is anyone who is
So why is anyone who is "anti-gay" labeled as a homophobe. Phobia implies a fear of something. Do gay people really feel that someone who doesn't like them is afraid of them? Probably not, the term is used to imply that something is wrong with the anti-gay crowd; people with phobias are somehow sick, or not normal and need to be fixed. So the gay community uses homophobe to describe people they want to label as not normal.
Phobias are also used to
Phobias are also used to describe irrational hate as well. For example, xenophobia is used to describe people with an irrational hatred or fear of outsiders, immigrants, etc.
The "rationality" of hating homosexuals just for being gay is what is at issue. I am a straight married man, and I couldn't care less if someone is gay. Why do you care?
The alternative to being called a homophobe would be the word "bigot." Would you prefer that term instead?
Agreed, the Latin root has
Agreed, the Latin root has been corrupted to include hate, as well as fear or panic, but I could find nowhere that the root implied "irrational" fear. The prefix phobe, has come to replace anti as meaning against, I suppose to make the new words seem more legitimate or less negative. Antihomosexual sounds more normal than homophobe, which sounds like an abnormal condition. Homophobia, or antihomosexualism is not always irrational, it could be based on Christian or other religious principals.
Why do I care? I don't really. I was wondering why certain groups have come to refer to their detractors as phobic, instead of anti.
So far, I haven't heard of
So far, I haven't heard of atheists being called, Religious-phobic, or god-phobic. I have often been asked, Why do you hate god?" My reply is always, "How can you hate something that does not and never has existed? Do environmentalists hate Paul Bunyan for cutting down so many trees?"
It's been obvious to me for some time that when "hate" is introduced into a topic, it is almost always by the religious.
"It's been obvious to me for
"It's been obvious to me for some time that when 'hate' is introduced into a topic, it is almost always by the religious."
I haven't noticed many people introducing "hate" into any of the topics here that didn't already have hate in them (for example, apparently racially-motivated crimes), EXCEPT the frequent occasions when people (not usually religious) describe disapproval of homosexuality as the "hatred" of people who practised homosexuality, which I always thought of as an unfair debating tactic.
The analogy would be apt if
The analogy would be apt if people were expected to believe in Paul Bunyan.
I don't expect people to
I don't expect people to believe in a god. It always amazes me that a seemingly rational, intelligent being will choose ignorance and lies over truth and knowledge.
Hate is usually based in some
Hate is usually based in some kind of fear. People who express hatred for gays often express fear or concern for the influence they will have on the "morals" of society.
Language is constantly in flux. I took several linguistic courses as a graduate student, and things like grammar, vocabulary, and word usage are never static.
This is wishful thinking by
This is wishful thinking by people on the left.
No... this is a well known
No... this is a well known phenomenon going back Freud. However, it is hardly newsworthy.
Please see "Reaction Formation," to understand how repressed gay men and women can be so militantly anti-gay.
No left or right conspiracy here... just psychology.
I don't doubt your claim that
I don't doubt your claim that there has been some link established in some studies, I just doubt that the link is real. You can find an established study for anything. Eggs are good for you. Eggs are bad for you. Coffee is good for you. Coffee is bad for you. You can go on for days with all of the contradicting studies that are out there.
This whole notion of people who are anti-gay secretly having gay thoughts themselves has always struck me as the same sort of school yard fairy tale belief of they pick on your because "they're jealous" or because "they like you". Sometimes they pick on you because you're weak and they want to pick on you.
Same ide ahere. As great as it would be if everyone that was really anti-gay was actually harboring gay feelings themselves, somehow I doubt it's that simple.
No one has claimed that all
No one has claimed that all anti-gay people are repressed or secret homosexuals. It is obvious that many are. The evidence is overwhelming, the Larry Craigs et al of the world are the proof.
Very little in the world is absolute, especially when dealing with people. It's the percentages that make the case.
A lot of people that are constantly criticizing and deriding anything anyone else does have lives so miserable (at least to themselves) that they only way they can feel better is to try to make someone else feel worse.
So, I guess that most of you
So, I guess that most of you in this forum are repressed fundamental, right-wing, God fearing Christians.
It all makes sense now.
Oh! Have you found a peer
Oh! Have you found a peer reviewed study indicating that? I'd love to read it. This was a study about a specific group of people. It made no implication that anybody who disassociates themselves with anything are inherently in that group.
To quote paraphrase Freud,
To quote paraphrase Freud, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
What a load of crap. One
What a load of crap. One study by ? and it is taken as truth. What about the studies saying being homosexual is a mental health issue? Some people are gay, and some people really don't like it. How hard is that? Why does it always have to make whoever disagrees with you "defective"? When you attack the person and not the issue, you lose credability.
When you state the truth, one
When you state the truth, one thing you will learn very quickly, it will make you reviled, despised, and attacked, sometimes physically.
What study says homosexuality is a "mental health issue"? Is this a peer-reviewed study accepted and accredited by professionals in the field? Or is it a "study" paid for by the religious reich such as the Westboro Baptist Church?
I hate to tell you this but
I hate to tell you this but the Westboro Baptist Church is a small cult-like family of nutcases led by their whackjob patriarch, Fred Phelps. I get the impression that they have no financial support outside their own wage slave salaries which they appear to devote almost entirely to their crazy demonstrations including signs and transportation to get there.
They are the last people who I would expect to be able to fund even some of the crappy "research" published by the Koch brothers network of "think tank" propaganda factories.
The media are drawn to Westboro like moths to flames, which feeds their insanity. They're acutely aware of their constitutional rights which they exploit to the fullest.
A number of them are attorneys, though Fred was disbarred long ago.
However, I've driven them away from a demonstration that they'd traveled over 120 miles to attend by joining them as they sung hymns, launching in a loud, poor rendition of "It ain't necessarily so." They don't respond well to being mocked.
They do spend time getting noticed in other venues. After Dr. George Tiller was assassinated, they demonstrated at his memorial celebration in Wichita along with their more dangerous, equally ostentatious, fundamentalists loons, Operation Rescue West and Operation Save America. ORW has spawned and supported a bunch of homicidal and terroristic thugs.
Not everyone opposed to
Not everyone opposed to homosexuality is a repressed homosexual. However, some certainly are as we have embarrassingly seen in the news over and over. Anyone remember the senator from Idaho - Larry Craig? Very anti-gay and he was arrested cruising for gay sex in an airport bathroom...... hmmmm.
"A new study published in the
"A new study published in the April issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests people with an intense hostility toward homosexuals may be linked to a repressed same-sex attraction, combined with an authoritarian upbringing. ... Do you think disliking and opposing homosexuality is a form of mental illness?"
Well, if the hostility towards homosexuality is rooted in same-sex attraction, then, yeah of course.
Is this surprising to
Is this surprising to anybody? It always seems like it's the most virulently anti-gay activists and politicians that get caught hiring gay prostitutes or stumbling out of gay bars. It's so common that now I just assume that if someone's out there ranting about gays it's a good 90% chance they're gay themselves. Similarly if they're constantly yelling about the sanctity of marriage they're probably cheating on their spouse. Just look at Gingrich and Vitter for perfect examples of that one.
None of the people you
None of the people you mentioned will say this, so I'll do it for them. OUCH!
You seem to have the elevation windage and ballistics dialed in. ;)
You mean anti-gay politicians
You mean anti-gay politicians like Larry Craig, Ed Schrock, Mark Foley, Roy Ashburn, etc.?
No one could possibly imagine that they're gay. They're men's men.
With "wide stances."
Ummm.... no news here. This
Ummm.... no news here. This is Freudian Reaction Formation, and it has been known for a very long time. Someone raised in away that demonizes homosexuality would tend to overcompensate for their own homosexual urges by being one of the most vocal opponents of homosexuality.
Move on...
Agreed!! A "new" study?
Agreed!!
A "new" study? Really? Wasn't there a study published in the 80's about this? I mean, an actual study, beyond the Freudian stuff....
Um... Wow. News! Or something!
Good reply. Here's the
Good reply. Here's the actual quote:
This is classical "reaction formation" from Freudian psychoanalysis. The people most threatened by homosexuality are the ones who are reacting to what they hate most in themselves.
For the rest of us who are not gay, we might be appalled when we are hit on by someone of the same sex, otherwise it just doesn't matter. This is why I support gay rights - I am comfortable in my heterosexuality and don't view gay people as threats to me or mine. People are people. Who they sleep with is not my business if the act is between consenting adults.