Homophobia

[abyssx3]

How many of you guys actually agree with this term? If someone uses the F word, or any kind of gay bashing I always hear homophic. When in reality it isn't really a phobia at all. I mean I never understood the term itself if someone can shed some light on that.
-Eddy

I don't really understand the term either. Phobia as root is Greek for fear, so I can understand people who have an irrational fear or aversion to homosexuals. I don't understand how it came to describe people who hate and discriminate against homosexuals since neither hate nor discrimination are the definition of phobia.

[abyssx3]

i understand you can stem some of that hate with fear of becoming homosexual.

[halfy]

personally i beleive that all fears relate to fearing the unknown. like for example, i am scared of heights. meaning that when i am in a high place, fear comes over me. why? well i'm scared of falling from the high place. not the high place itself. why am i scared of falling from a high place? because i would die falling from a certain height. why am i afraid of death? because nobody truly knows what death is like or what happens after death. it's a true unknown in life. a lot of people fear the unknown.

homophobia isn't fear of gays. it's ignorance. the people who are homophobic don't understand it. it's fearing the unknown. but in fear, you get the flight or fight theory. you can avoid your fear or fight it. so some homophobes will just avoid gay people wherever they can, others will make hurtful comments or violent attacks.

[abyssx3]

Sorry have to disagree with you. Not all fear stems from the unknown. In fact some people find the unknown intruiging.

[Wander]

I find the unknown intriguing, but most common fears are based out of a lack of knowledge. So many people are afraid of the dark because you can't see, you don't know what's there and what could hurt you. Some people are afraid that their masculinity might be questioned, and so they put down more feminine people to try and boost themselves. Personally I think this is more of a self-image issue than a sexual one, but still...

Some people are also afraid that people will suspect them of being gay if they are friendly towards gay people, so they bash LGBT kids to make a visual barrier between themselves and the LGBT people. Others are afraid that if they act friendly towards a gay person, they might be dragged into some unpleasant sexual experience, and so they start up the bashing again. Most anti-gay sentiments are developed out of fear, but not always a direct fear of homosexuals. More often its the things associated with us (or the things they think are associated with us) that people are afraid of.

[Lava421]

From merriam-webster.com:

Main Entry: pho·bia

: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation

Aha! I didn't know -phobia has that second definition. It makes sense now.

Just for fun/nerdiness, here's the definiton of homophobia:

Main Entry: ho·mo·pho·bia

: irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals

[Lava421]

From merriam-webster.com:

Main Entry: -phobia

1 : exaggerated fear of <acrophobia>
2 : intolerance or aversion for <photophobia>

Aha! I didn't know -phobia has that second definition. It makes sense now.

Just for fun/nerdiness, here's the definiton of homophobia:

Main Entry: ho·mo·pho·bia

: irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals

[Alexander]

Language evolves, guys. So what if phobia means intolerance now?

[Trumpetplyer23]

Homophobia is the hatred or fear of gays. Simple as that.

We can't call the hatred of gays 'homoism', like we can call the hatred of a certain race racism, because the people who are homophobic would be concerned that they would be gay if there were 'homoists' and were 'homoist'. It just sounds, well, kind of stupid, actually.z

[Martin]

Originally Posted by Alexander

Language evolves, guys. So what if phobia means intolerance now?

Exactly. At one time gay was used when somebody was happy. Now it's recognised as meaning homosexuals (and can also be used as an insult). We sometimes use words that don't always fit the definition that we want, but people still know what we mean because it has become common to refer to it that way. This is most likely the case for the term phobia.

[ccdd]

Well, the term 'phobia' does come from the Greek phobos, meaning fear. But language does change. Interestingly, the OED, which tracks current and past usages of terms, has two entries for homophobia, the first meaning a general fear of men, the other, a fear and hatred of homosexuals. Here are the two entries for those who aren't geeky and don't have access to the online OED:

homophobia, n.1

rare.

Fear of men, or aversion towards the male sex; also, fear of mankind, anthropophobia.

1920 Chambers's Jrnl. 5 June 418/1 Her salient characteristic was a contempt for the male sex as represented in the human biped... The seeds of homophobia had been sown early. 1960 T. KORA in Koestler's Lotus & Robot II. 213 Of nervosity symptoms, homophobia appears most frequently. In this is included fear of blushing when appearing before a person, or erythrophobia, feeling of getting stiff or oppressed before an individual.

homophobia, n.2

Fear or hatred of homosexuals and homosexuality.

1969 Time 31 Oct. 61/3 Such homophobia is based on understandable instincts among straight people, but it also involves innumerable misconceptions and oversimplifications. 1971 Gay (N.Y.) 30 Aug. 15/1 A colleague..who read a paper of mine on homophobia, did the first piece of research on homophobia that I [sc. Dr. George Weinberg] know of. 1975 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 4 Sept. 7/3 There is no such thing as the homosexual problem any more than there is a black problemthe problems are racism and homophobia. 1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 19 Dec. 1440/5 Homosexuality does indeed pose serious problems: chief among them is widespread homophobia. 1988 P. MONETTE Borrowed Time vii. 171 It would be harder and harder to be openly gay. For once we would not internalize the homophobia.

I haven't got a problem with the term - as language changes, and we all know that it encompasses hatred as well as fear. But I do have a problem with people who start their sentences with "I'm not homophobic but...", or who say they're not homophobic because they're not afraid of homosexuals - even if they hate them.

[Poring]

it just means its for people who act all mean and hate gay people because deep inside, they're terrified at them. Tie that person up (to remove his ability to act and hate) and lock him in a room with a gay person, I bet he'll be pissing himself and crying before a minute is over :O