I haven’t yet read the article, but I wonder if people who have difficulty expressing and managing anger (i.e. those more likely to be physically hostile) are simply less capable of hiding their homophobia? In other words, I wonder if expressed homophobia indicates deficits in social management of emotions and beliefs, rather than psychoticism? I think there is far more homophobia below the surface than what is visible.
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Totes don’t get that… ■■■■■ is sexy.
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With a lot of self-defense classes ;(
If “hurrrr lesbians!” canceled out homophobia there’d be a lot less fratboys gaybashing where i lived.
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Seriously, I like how they sat back and waited for the high-fives to roll in.
Well, I’m not Italian…so all this must not apply to me. I’m already confused enough.
You are probably right, but I couldn’t just leave it unchallenged.
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Even if homo/transphobia were identified as a legitimate psychological condition I wonder how many sufferers would try to claim compensation because it would mean admitting they have a problem.
Besides homo/transphobia does respond amazingly well to treatment, and, as a condition that can cause demonstrable harm both to others and the sufferer, sufferers shouldn’t be absolved of being responsible for getting treatment.
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I almost find that worse, I feel the earnest can be reached easier due to their honesty versus the ones who couch their utter revulsion through attempts at humor.
None, really. They’d bring up the usual right wing cliches about the Soviet Union institutionalizing dissenters. Not that I feel pathologizing hatred as such is constructive.
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I don’t see utter revulsion on display here, though.
I see a pretty minimal display of it.
Did you not see the smillie face emoticon?
Clearly you have broken the rules of the internet. Your ISP has been informed and your connection shall be terminated forthwith 
That’'s definitely an issue. Some (presumably male) people above are saying they find seeing men kiss disgusting to them, but recognize that that’s their issue - they just shouldn’t watch. So those are people who have some level of embedded homophobia but who recognize it’s their problem. Psychological problems are basically diagnosed on behaviour, and pretty nearly every bad behaviour has an element of poor impulse control or decision making in it.
That phrase “sensitivity to disgust” really highlights the problem. They mean reactive to disgust. Changing thousands of diapers certainly changed how I would react if I had feces on my hands, but I can’t tell you if I am less disgusted or simply more practical about how to handle that feeling of disgust.
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As someone who has been mistaken for both a lesbian and a gay man and subject to the abuse regularly handed out by ‘hurr lesbian’ assholes: your ha ha only serious smiley faced ‘edginess’ was not fresh or interesting when I first encountered it in the late 80s and it has not improved with age.
All you folks who think seeing men kissing is weird or whatever can just watch it repeatedly on video in the privacy of your own homes until it becomes as normal and uninteresting as anybody else sharing a smooch. Your homophobic cultural conditioning can really very easily be overcome, if you desire to become a decent human being. I believe you have the capacity to not be an utter shite! Believe in yourself and it can happen! You need not be a worthless cockwomble!
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The link seems to be broken, but this is the Telegraph article, and this is the study. People were given a questionnaire on the Homophobia Scale, the Defence Style Questionnaire (DSQ-40), the Relationship Questionnaire (RQ) (attachment styles) and the Symptom Check List-90-R (SCL-90-R) (psychopathology).
Interestingly enough, while there is a positive correlation between homophobia and psychotism and “fearful-avoidant” attachment styles as well as immature defense mechanisms, there’s a negative correlation with depression and neurotic defense mechanisms. This could suggest that those with these traits are more likely to direct negative reactions against themselves rather than others.
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To be fair to @Verse and @caryroys, I think what they’re describing is exactly the same as what the Implicit Association Test results tell us, only with more awareness.
The IATs find, for example, that about 70% of test-takers have an unconscious preference for white people, compared to about 20% who self-report their biases. This includes many people who profess to have no biases at all, and may strongly believe that they have no biases.
More directly related, one study also found that about 70% of people prefer straight people to gay people.
Many of these people are probably not self-aware enough to recognize their own internal “squick factor” (from above), but many may indeed be self-aware enough, even well-intentioned people who support gay friends and gay rights.
Telling someone they’re racist or homophobic for these implicit biases may or may not be technically true, but it seems more worthwhile to recognize that a large majority of people are apparently unconsciously biased, and work out how to (1) help people recognize the effects of those biases, and (2) help change society so that we don’t keep conditioning children to grow up into adults with these biases.
And as for point #1, studies have shown that people who recognize their own unconscious biases tend to actually be more able to overcome them and behave in an egalitarian manner (e.g. when accepting job applications) than people who truly believe they have no biases.
(NB: thinking those biases are just fine, as @caryroys seems to, is a different matter.)
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This is what I was reacting against. There’s a case to be made for saying that one has some embedded homophobia because of how they process seeing men kiss.
But how dare you! There is nothing wrong with how I am handling my own emotions. Whether or not someone is a piece of shite is defined by their actions.
I am human, therefore I am not without bias. But I repeat: How Dare You.
And their actions are making jokes at the expense of gay persons, not themselves. That’s the delimiter for garbage person.
I’m sure I have some idiot thoughts lurking somewhere. The difference is that I’m not so proud about them and I actually want to root them out and stomp them, I’m not going to be so bizarrely defensive and protective over them at both my expense and others.
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There is nothing bizarre about getting defensive over being called a piece of shite, particularly over how you rationally handle your own irrational feelings.
Pride doesn’t enter into it.
Did you observe who they were replying to?
