Out From Under

Here’s a tidbit for you:

The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals.

Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored.

They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli.

The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

If you’re curious, you can find a version of the Index of Homophobia by clicking the highlighted words. (I gather this is adapted from the original, which I couldn’t find for free. If anyone knows where to find a free copy of the original Hudson and Ricketts Index, I’d be curious to see it.)

So you take a group of men, all of whom are straight (or at least, have only ever had sex with women), and you show them straight and gay porn. The gay-friendly straight men only respond to the porn with women in it (straight or lesbian); the homophobes respond to it all — including the gay male stuff.

Isn’t that fascinating?

The conclusion the researchers drew was the obvious one: homophobes have latent homosexual inclinations, deeply buried and denied. This probably doesn’t come as a huge shock to anyone …

However, as a straight woman with gay male friends, I would like to have seen one more group added to the study: openly gay men. Because the majority of gay men I know, though they enjoy the company of women, get the screaming heebie-jeebies at the thought of having sex with one. Would they, despite their conscious reaction of revulsion, show arousal when confronted with straight porn?

If they would, the conclusions of the study could probably stand. Or — and here’s where the plot get really sticky — does that mean that happily gay men are in fact in denial about their straight sexuality?? (Is your head spinning yet? I’m picturing making that suggestion to a gay friend or two. The images are hysterical.) If gay men wouldn’t respond to straight/lesbian porn, does that mean ALL the homophobic men in the study were bisexual? Hardly seems credible. Or that only latent bisexuals are homophobes? Equally incredible.

It’s a fascinating study, and though in fact I tend to agree with their conclusions, there’s also a largish hole in it, which I’d love to see addressed.

Maybe the only thing that can be determined with any assurance is that human sexual response is too complex to be defined by a single study. And that simple categories: gay, straight, bi — are too limited.

Aren’t people interesting?

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 5:50 am and is filed under Ilona's Take. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.