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Understanding Homophobia

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by moonlake, Oct 14, 2008.

  1. moonlake

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    I still trying to understand why people are homophobic. Especially those you'd never suspect would be. Not people you know well or are friends with, but people you meet in various settings. The neigbor or the distant co-worker you and a group of people go out to lunch with. You pleasantly small-talk over this and that, and bam : they hit your with "Have you heard that homos can now get married. Isn't that disgusting ?" The most dishartening part of this is that most of these people I would have never in a million years suspected of being homophobic. Just ordinary, decent, generally nice people....

    Honestly : Why do people care so much ? I can understand that if a child, parent, relative or very close friend were to come out, you'd have a vested personal interest, but why do so many people care so much about what complete strangers do relationship-wise ? I mean - if my neighbor were to blast his stereo past midnight, I'd care. If my neighbor were to park his car in front of my garage, I'd care. But why would I care if two women move in next door ?? :confused:
     
  2. I don't really know why they care what complete strangers do relationship wise. All the homophobia I have is internalized so it's only a problem where I'm concerned, it doesn't matter what other people do.
     
  3. Adam

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    People are this way when they just don't understand it.
    Hell even I thought negatively about gays in the past, minds can change though when you actually know about it.
     
  4. Wander

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    Fear. Every ounce of it traces back to some sort of deep internalized fear: of being associated with homosexuals, of being suspected as one, of being sexually abused by one, or in general, a fear of the unknown. Gays are made out to be "odd, social outcasts" who you're not supposed to know about. So when the subject gets brought up, people react with various levels of hostility. Anywhere from mild verbal comments to murder.
     
  5. george678

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    I dont know why It gets annoying I know.
     
  6. moonlake

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    I'm not quite sure I understand why people are afraid. Sure, you might be afraid to be associated with something that is declared awful, but that is only secondary. It's only declared such by (parts of) society, because people are homophobic in the first place. But where did the "original" homophobic fear come from ?

    Example : I really don't get football. I don’t understand why people get so exited every time it's Super Bowl time. I personally would probably not become best friends with a person that constantly talks about football and nothing else. I might even feel a bit uncomfortable if I found myself in a group of people all talking football. Likewise, I could understand that a straight person would not be best friends with a person that wants to talk about gay sex all the time.

    However : regardless of whether a person is an avid football fan or not, most people have multi-faceted personality. So you can still have a great time with a person if you share other common interests. And most importantly : I would never feel the urge to beat up a football fan. Or deny them their right to watch it. Why would I ? What they do with their free time is none of my business and even more so if I don't even know them personally. So why do people care so much if others are homosexual ?
     
  7. BlueRose

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    Homophobia stems from the same place as racism: humanity's need to identify, and subsequently ridicule, some "other." This "other" can be anything, from a different race, or religion, or sexual orientation. By finding some group they can mutually hate, they feel like they belong to a group, and by deriding this other group they are naturally in the "better" one. And they want to be in the "better" group because they are unhappy with themselves, or something. The deep down, basic root of the problem is, in my opinion, really superficial. But it creates a bit of a snowball effect, especially given enough time. Aside from homosexuals, America also currently seems to be afraid of the Muslims. Another group they can deride and make fun of, regardless of whether they actually deserve it.
     
  8. I don't understand, i don't understand any form of discrimation. We are all different, one way or another, therefore, we are all the same, and any biggot who can't see this, in my eyes, are not worth dealing with. I really, really hate any type of discrimination and always have. I don't get it.
     
  9. riddlerno1

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    well theres also the stuff on gender role conflict (psychology student here!) where men especially are socialised from a young age to be fearful of femininity and homosexuality as this is not what a masculine man is supposed to be.
     
  10. moonlake

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    Hmm. I would agree that society has set gender roles that people are taught to adhere to. And homosexuality may be percieved as breaking those rules. So I would understand if straight men were to be angry or spiteful towards lesbian women, who the heterosexual man might percieved as being too masculine and thus as reducing his chances of procreation. But most of the violence/abuse/slurs by males seem to be directed against gay men, which a heterosexual wouldn't be interested anyway. On the other hand quite a significant number of straight men seem to be turned on by watching lesbian pornography for some reason.

    Racism usually seems to be based on a percieved threat by a group. It's something like "The Muslims are all out to kill us", "The Jews are out to cheat us", "Illegal immigrants take away our jobs". With homosexuals, again, I'd think that the hatred of straight men would be directed against lesbian ("they're reducing the number of potential partners for me") rather than gay men. But you may be right that it is simply a matter of "us against them" and that anything "them" is bad.
     
  11. BlueRose

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    As a general rule (at least in my experience), men don't mind the lesbians as much because they do actually fantasize about them. With the gay men, though, there is very probably the inherent fear that they themselves might be gay. In which case, they would be among the derided. And there are those that blame bad things on us. Generally the fundamentalist Christian types. Who were very possibly the origin of the hatred/fear towards homosexuals present in today's society. And, over time, that fear/hatred has become embedded into a large portion of society at large, whether or not they are aware of it. So, from a young age, they are taught that the gay is evil. Or, at the least, they are unable to separate the concept of goodness from one's being straight. Or something like that.
     
  12. moonlake

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    I'm not so sure it's purely the fundementalist Christians. Homophobia is very much present in parts of the Old Testament as well, which was written centuries before Christ. I.e. Homosphobia is something very old and may well pre-date modern religion. Most moral values pre-date organized religion, which is then set up to provide a rational for pre-existing values.

    I guess homophobia could be the result of a subconscious fear of being gay or turning gay, but if so I'd say more likely the result of some innate fear of not passing on your genes. Of course if the latter is true, that means that homophobia will almost certainly never fully disappear.