New Study: Homophobes Try to Deny Their Own Same Sex Attraction

The findings of yet another study suggest that the males expressing the loudest homophobia may in fact be striving to deny and/or cover up their own same sex attraction.   These results come on top of studies going back to 1996 that found that homophobic men had the most penile stimulation when looking at gay pornography.  A summary of that study noted as follows:

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 and a group of nonhomophobic men; 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. 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. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

The new study took a different approach by recording eye-tracking when homosexual erotica was viewed and found - not surprisingly, in my view - that the most homophobic males lingered the longest on gay erotica.   Here's a summary:

Heterosexual men first completed a scale measuring their level of homonegativity. Then, they performed a manikin task to evaluate their impulsive approach tendencies toward homosexual stimuli (IAHS). A picture-viewing task was performed with simultaneous eye-tracking recording to assess participants' viewing time of the visual area of interest (i.e., face and body).  IAHS positively predicted the viewing time of homosexual photographs among men with a high score of homonegativity. Men with a high homonegativity score looked significantly longer at homosexual than at heterosexual photographs but only when they had a high IAHS.

The take away?  The next time you hear some politician like Rick Santorum or Ken Cuccinelli or some pastor or priest/bishop/cardinal bellowing about the evil of gays, just remember that they probably would love to get into the pants of some of the males in their audience or congregation. Never be duped by "oh, but he's married with children."  Been there and done that myself, and it means NOTHING other than the fact that the individual could not accept them self and their true sexuality, most likely due to religious brainwashing..