I do not feel very comfortable around homosexual people, I feel like there out to get my bum haha. I really dont understand why i feel like this, whenever i spot a homo i stay as far away as i can. I feel homophobia is just a natural reaction to something you dont like, for example snakes or spiders its just a phobia. I think that this phobia will never go away in alot of people, just because its natural. Although many people over come their phobias. What do ou all think of homophobia or phobias at all?
...that sounds like an adaptation of the Oedipus complex. Most of it doesn't make sense, but there is a grain of value which I'll attempt to extract:
Ever notice how most discussion of homosexuality centers around males? Back in the day, Freud noticed this, and from this he was compelled to observe that males ran into much more conflict regarding sexual identity than women (I'm not going to talk about the various 'hysterias' and the rofl-worthy 'enis envy' here.) I will also not talk about the specifics of the Oedipus complex here- what's important is that Freud noted that "it appears in the nature of women to display attractions for both sexes".
That's right, Freud reckoned that women are naturally bisexual. But I don't really care what Freud says here, I do care more that this understanding has continued to manifest itself culturally. We can debate until we're blue in the face as to the source of this, but the fact remains clear: guys and girls, as a general rule, behave quite differently in that guys appear obligated to behave 'straight' lest they are thought to be 'g@y', whereas with girls there is little in the way of such conventions.
As a result, when a girl is said to be 'homosexual', it's usually observed in those who have indeed made some kind of political, misandric (man-hating) stance about it, or are else in some way presenting themselves as masculine (because sexuality and gender appear to be often mashed together: please remember that they can be separate things). Thus what we think of as 'lesbians' are in fact more likely to be the ones who have a hate-on for guys.
In regards to that, I'll say this much: on average (the notion of spectrum in action again!), behaviors vary between men and women because it is now recognised that we might think in 'fundamentally' different ways. Thus we need to remember this when discussing sexuality and gender: it simply relates to different people in different ways. For some people it is very relevant, for others not at all.
Heh, this should probably go in the 'homosexuality' thread but seriously, same diff.
Now as for the word 'spectrum' (thank you garifu ), I'd spent some years thinking about this before I came up with the notion, then in a flash realised that the person who originally put this notion on the psych. map was the notorious Kinsey.
Now, the idea has changed and been refined since then, but Kinsey basically figured "surely there's a better way to describe people that simply straight, bisexual and g@y!" This is because from his survey on sexual behaviors, it seemed that people as a whole were not nearly as "straight" (or as "normal" as previous studies cited (the general scientific wisdom then being that 95% of people were straight and 5% of people would go into the 'other' category)...in fact it seemed like the majority of people were somewhat bi or g@y.
Liek, huh!?
Kinsey formed the opinion that very few people, if anybody, were 'entirely straight' (hence my joke about releasing one's inner-rainbow > This may sound like crazy-talk to you, but if you do end up honestly talking heart-to-heart with many people, you'll probably find that people do often question their sexual identity with varying validity and varying results.
What did Kinsey do? For the sake of convenience, he drew up a scale from 0-6, and asked people to rate themselves on the scale, where 0 meant "I only engage in heterosexual behaviors", 6 meant "I only engage in homosexual behaviors" and any of the numbers in between meant you would probably do both to varying degrees. Successors in the field of study (such as Klien) made further adaptations to this, recognising that the notion of one's own sexuality can change over time (regardless of whether it's a permanent thing, a 'tendency' or even some kind of 'whim', but the idea has persisted in the underground realms of scientific wisdom.
Hence the notion of a spectrum. Note here that Kinsey uses a very plastic term to define sexuality- this is because as many people already recognise here, we can't exactly pin down what sexuality is, but we can discuss around it because we can judge what might be and what mightn't be linked to the notion.
What most impresses me about Kinsey's work is that he was able to break through the taboo associated with sexuality at that time, and really delve into individual sexuality (rather than mass sociologic assumptions). I think despite what knowledge has been acquired, though, the taboo remains. This might explain why your average Joe or Jane doesn't have a true understanding of the spectrum of sexuality, and how it allows for people who don't call themselves g@y or straight. Joe/Jane would likely wrinkle their collective noses, maybe stare off into space, and finally conclude that the "other" category is going through a phase. Silly Joe/Jane.
uhh he problem is i dont bother homos, they bother me. I understand what stops talkn about. I notice more females to flirt with one an other, and their not shy to kiss or anthing. But sometimes you get that one female whos very uncomfortible with that.
I notice with alot of males that are straight, the homosexuality of the oposite sex does not bother them.
Also this is a homophobic topic so please talk more about the phobia, and not the sexuality.
Most guys are straight. Along the female sides of the population is where strong homosexuality occurs. In alot of places, the word is used as a joke. Therefor, alot of people find it scary. And if people find it THAT scary, then it ends up being unnatural. I think thats why by thinking on being g@y is so scarry and distant, you can't comprehend the fact that you'd know anyone like that. Its the same with girls, a few days ago a guy in my class called one lez, she slapped him. o.o Just goes to show. >.>
I am not really sure why this was locked, but I would like to post what I just found in my new stat's book. I think this is pretty interesting the homophobia issue. So, with out further ado:
Adams, Wright, & Lohr were interested in some basic psychoanalytic theories that homophobia may be unconsciously related to the anxiety of being or becoming homosexual. They administered the Index of Homophobia to 64 heterosexual males and classed them as homophobic or nonhomophobic heterosexual men to videotapes of sexually explicit erotic stimuli portraying heterosexual and homosexual behavior, and recorded their level of sexual arousal. Adams et al reasoned that if homophobia were unconsciously related to anxiety about one's own sexuality, homophobic individuals would show greater arousal to the homosexual videos than would nonhomophobic individuals.
The results of the homophobic men becoming more aroused to homosexual videos is......
. . . . . DRUM ROLL . . . . . 73% (confidence interval of .95) of those homophobic men were aroused by homosexual videos.
It makes sense, I have known a few gay guys to come out which surprised me because they seemed pretty homophobic before. What is really sad is if these homophobic homosexuals repress their natural feelings for their entire life. They must go postal at some point in their life.
Yes, I've heard of this and it doesn't s surprise. I have always speculated that it may be true before all this research came up, as hat's just how repressive projection is supposed to work in theory: a person experiences the inclination to feel a deep disgust or resentment toward a part of themselves that they subconsciously reject, so this manifests as an outward projection onto other people who reflect this same trait.
Also, seeing just the main homosexuality thread continually drift to the top is making some homophobes squirm, so I wonder how they'd react if you were to revive all the other homosexuality-related threads as well?
Repressive projection. THAT is the word I was looking for when I read that yesterday. It is funny, now, to go back and see all the homophobes that posted in that topic.
I wonder if it would be beneficial to organize that homosexuality topic. I'm thinking start it over again and in the first post lay out all the arguments already done and link them to the homosexuality topic. That way we could REDUCE the amount of the same arguments and move on to other things.
It would make sense because bullies make fun of people to build their self-esteem. I saw one kid who would always make fun of a girl because of her hair. Well, it turns out he started getting gray hair. He never apologized and tells everyone to shut up when they make fun of his hair. I am thinking a homophobe thinks they have to hide their sexuality. It is sad but I blame religion. Religion tells people homosexuals are terrible people. I think this puts homosexuals in a odd place if they go to church so they become homophobic to cover it up.
