Why Homophobia is Detrimental to Straight Men

[Dirty Hippie]

Many years ago I saw an interesting show on TV. A sociologist was talking to a group of high school kids. He asked the boys to list behaviors that they considered to be “gay” behaviors.

This list included things like hugging, crying, showing emotions, touching, etc.

The guys admitted they purposely avoided such behaviors for the fear of being labeled gay. The girls however, did not avoid these behaviors.

The group leader pointed out that these behaviors were actually considered to be nurturing and considered essential for psychological health. The girls understood this and relayed examples of how they derived benefits from crying, hugging, etc.

The boys did not disagree but relayed their fear of being labeled gay prevented them from engaging in these behaviors.

I’ve left out many details but the harm homophobia does to straight men (especially young men) has basically been overlooked in the recent debate.

Maybe someone can develop this argument further (Read… calling Plaid Adder!)

[OnceBlind]

1. Could be

that that is just their nature. I see this in the majority of men. It's not new.

[rockymountaindem]

2. As a young straight male

I can say that the crying thing is more about a sign of weakness to me than anything else. Usually when I feel like crying I just slap myslef in the face repeatedly until I stop.

[belle]

4. Ouch! But why is it the worst thing in the world to be "weak?" And...

why is it preferable to slap yourself in the face?

Crying is human; it's an expression of grief. It's a release. It's not "weak."

[rockymountaindem]

5. The slapping stops me from crying.

I know that it really isn't weakness. I just can't let other people think I'm weak. If I'm alone then it isn't a big deal.

[Heddi]

8. why is it a sign of weakness, though?

It's a natural physiological response to emotinal stimuli.

If someone you loved or were very close to died, would it be weak to cry at the news of their death? Would you stop yourself from crying in those instances?

What if you heard such great news that you felt the need to cry? Would you also withhold the need to cry in those instances as well?

And you say you slap yourself to not let others think you're weak, but if you're alone and need to cry it's okay---

It may be just me, but I think I'd be more disturbed seeing someone slap themselves in the face in public than I would seeing a man cry (which I don't find disturbing at all)

[belle]

11. Agree. Also, if you slap yourself, doesn't it just *add* to the pain?

Or is it more okay to feel physical pain than the emotional pain that made you feel like crying? I'm just trying to understand this.

[rockymountaindem]

When my grandmother died

I went into a private room in the hospital and forced myself to stop crying (I was 14). That was mostly because I didn't want my mom to see that I was upset and then feel like it was necessary to comfort me right after her mother had just died suddenly.

That's just one instance. I can't think of any others. Basically it takes me a very long time to trust anyone. I'm always afraid that people will use my feelings against me in some way because I always assume the worst. Since crying is a display of emotion, that's not good for me. I always try to make sure people know as little about me as possible. There are other manifestations of this fear. I never tell people how I feel about them, either. If I like someone (particularly a girl) I never tell them becaue I'm afraid they'll use that knowledge to manipulate me. If I don't like someone, I never tell them for reasons of civility and good manners.

On edit:
Yeah, physical pain is better than emotional pain. Physical pain subsides more quickly.

[Heddi]

18. Showing signs of emotions

Laughing is a sign of emotion (something is funny).
Smiling is a sign of emotion (something is pleasing).
Yawning is a sign of emotion (something is tiring).
Rolling your eyes are signs of emotions (Something is silly/irreverant/etc).
Yelling is a sign of emotion (something infuriates you).
Frowning is a sign of emotion (Something is upsetting).

Do you feel equally unsettled showing those emotions in front of others? Those displays of emotions can ALSO be used against you.

It's not healthy to hold in a cry if you feel you need to cry. If someone you love dies, CRY. Fuck what anyone else thinks about you.

If someone is going to hold a grief-filled cry against you, then why do you care what they think anyways? They're obviously disturbed to see bereavement as a sign of weakness.

Stop worrying about what others think of you and your emotions. Worry about yourself and cry when you need to cry. If someone thinks its a sign of weakness, so be it. It's a NATURAL EMOTIONAL RESPONSE. Just like laughing. Just like TALKING.

I mean, if you have to pee, you pee, right? If you have to sneeze, you sneeze, right? Look at NORMAL DISPLAYS OF EMOTIONS the same way. REally. It's not healthy to hold your pee (leads to incontinence and urinary tract infections). Not good to continuously hold in sneezes (traps bacteria and germs and other foreign material in your lungs and throat) and it's not good to hold back emotional releases. Seriously. This is coming from a health-care professional who only wants whats best for you and for you to be as mentally and physically healthy as possible....

[belle]

21. Not to be all Freud 101, but I think a lot of people...

have these rules (spoken or unspoken) because of messages they got growing up. Yeah, it doesn't make sense, logically, to say "laughing is okay but crying isn't." You'd think. But if people keep telling you that crying is bad and bad things (named or not) will happen if you do let down your guard enough to cry anyway, well, yeah, the logical response is to learn to not cry.

[rockymountaindem]

22. I can't explain it.

I guess the whole thing freaks me out because I see it as the strongest expression of emotion. Therefore it means there are some real problems that must be forcing that person (or me) to cry. It just scares me to think that people feel that strongly about something. I'm more comfortable with humor and sleepiness (lots of fun when mixed together!) of course. With anger and rage there's always the chance that it will boil down to a physical confrontation (which bothers me less than crying). With crying it means that there's nothing to be done, and if I can't help then I don't want anything to do with it.

[belle]

23. That makes a lot of sense, actually.

I mean, you're explaining it very clearly.

It does feel awful to feel helpless. Thing is, crying, in and of itself, doesn't "help" a situation in a practical sense (when someone dies, for example); but then again, neither does *not* crying.

To me, crying is usually more like...dropping a stone. Yeah, you can carry it around with you, but eventually, it does take a toll. And the accumulation of stones actually ends up being "stronger" than dropping them along the way would be; sooner or later, there's an avalanche. Or a rupture. (Okay, I've killed this metaphor, but you take the point, I hope).

[belle]

19. I feel very moved by what you're saying here, rockymountaindem.

>Basically it takes me a very long time to trust anyone. I'm always afraid that people will use my feelings against me in some way because I always assume the worst.


I just want to say that I think it's cool that you're open enough even on an anonymous message board like this to be able to say this stuff so clearly. A lot of people don't even do that.

[rockymountaindem]

24. Thanks for the compliment.

I'm off to the gym now. TTYL!

[DrWeird]

12. Whoops.

Nevermind. I should remember to read the original post. Self deleted.

[belle]

16. I think that's what the original post was getting at.

In other words, *everyone* is affected by homophobia, because it becomes an effective tool to police men and boys (and, to a lesser extent, or at least in different ways, girls and women) with. Don't like getting beaten up? Well, fight back or take it like a man! Otherwise, you're a faggot. Don't like sports? Too bad, better pretend you do; otherwise, you're a faggot. Like to dance, or wear soft fabrics with pretty colors? Better be *real* careful about how you go about expressing it, especially as a boy and teenager. (I know at least several straight guys who had an early interest in learning to dance--not even ballet, we're talking jazz and hip-hop--who quashed it because they were too afraid of what people might think. Now they're adults and can barely move their hips or raise their arms above their heads. Yeah, they do stomach crunches and other "manly" things; but try working *that* on the dance floor--or in bed).

[DrWeird]

20. Alright, I can't believe I'm bringing this up...

I was watching "Straight Plan for the Gay Man" the other night for a few minutes. This is a parody of "Queer Eye", which I have never seen, and is also a send up of straight men, a la The Man Show. Some comedians took a "flaming" gay man to a goodwill clothes to dress up like a "straight man" and as they were leaving, the gay man made the statement that all straight men dress alike, they all want to fit in.

And that pretty much some it up IMO. Straight men will often be conformists in a unspoken fear of people thinking they're gay. Hawaiian shirts, Homer Simpson says, are for gays and big fat party animals.

[belle]

3. I agree, and have often thought this.

As for it being "natural;" uh, maybe, but from what I've observed, most parents don't take any chances. I can't count how many times I've seen a dad--or a mom, for that matter, trying to shame a crying young boy--we're talking under five, sometimes--by saying something like "Boys don't cry! Don't you want to be a man? Only sissies and babies and girls cry! Come on! Buck up! Its not so bad!" ...and so on.

So what happens is that the boy not only comes away with the idea that crying is a Shameful Thing (and that girls, who are allowed to do the Shameful Thing, are therefore somehow inferior), but he also swallows the idea that his feelings don't matter as much as pleasing his parents (and later, society) does. Of course, the bad feelings don't go away just because he's swallowing his tears. So he converts into something more acceptable: often rage.

[Heddi]

6. In my Sexual Psychology class

we read about a study that was done--I don't remember ALL the details (the class was many years ago), but researchers took 2 group of men -- one was a group of men who identified themselves as homophobic. The other group of men were men who identified themselves as homosexual.

The researchers put the men (individually, of course) into a room and hooked them up with electrodes on the head to see brain waves, and also put a devise on their penis to detect any arousal.

The men were then shown various images, some of them were of man/woman erotica and pornography, and others were of woman/woman erotica and pornography, and others were of man/man erotica and pornography.

Amazingly, 87% of the men who identified themselves as being homophobic experienced arousal when seeing the male/male erotica and pornography.

----

Now, as to how harmful males withholding natural emotions are, of course it's harmful. It's harmful for ANYONE who doesn't express their emotions in a positive way, and yes, crying, hugging, etc, can be POSITIVE releases of emotions.

One of my psychology teachers told us that it is VITAL to have a 'good cry' every three months or so, even if your life is going well. Crying stems from a very ancient part of our brain. If we force ourselves to cry, we (supposedly) are able to releive ourselves of inner tensions that are just hoarding themselves inside of us.

So many men (and many women as well) feel that crying, touching, hugging, showing emotions, etc, are a sign of weakness. THey don't show their emotions in this way. So their hurt, or anger, or dispair are all bottled up inside of them.

Since hugging and crying and such are signs of weakness, and those can't be shown (in public or private), the only way they can release their feelings is through negative actions---hitting, yelling, fighting, etc.

In my psych. class we also read a study that stated that something like 85% of men who engage in physical confrontations with other men and 90% of men who engage in physical confrontations with women (their spouses, girlfriends, etc) were told during their youth that it was unacceptable for a boy (or man) to cry.

So as they got older, they conditioned themselves to act out in violence (which is such a manly, testosterone thing to do) when they really feel the need to hug or be hugged, to touch or be touched, to cry, etc.

Very telling.

[belle]

9. I think Mel Gibson's movie is the end result of that stuffing down process

That kind of macho masochism: like, being a man means taking pain without crying or complaining. To me that's what "The Passion" is all about: "see how much I can take, Daddy! Aren't I a good boy?" (via displacement, of course). The fact that it then gets tied up into religion for some people (like Gibson) is another disturbing issue, of course.

[Heddi]

15. Growing up in the south

I was a witness to Male Bravado throughout my life----Guys would get in knock-down drag out fights just for the hell of it. Emotional release, I guess. And these weren't enemies fighting--they were friends just knocking the shit out of each other for hours at a time. I saw one guy get his arm and collar bone broken --- SEVERELY broken --- and he still went on fighting. WOuldn't cry and wouldn't acknowledge the pain at all. Fought til he was clipped in the head and knocked unconscious.

I've also seen it in High School sports---a friend of mine was a football player. One game, he got tackled BIG TIME. He was in alot of pain, kicked in the stomach really hard (later it was revealed that his gallbladder had been ruptured in the kick). He went to the sidelines and was just hurting. JUST HURTING---started to cry and the coach tore him up one side and down the other. What kind of PUSSY are you anyways? You're a FOOTBALL PLAYER for god's sake. What are you, some kind of GIRL? You play on my team and you keep THAT BULLSHIT off of my field, do you understand me? Are you queer...on and on it went.....the dude had a busted fucking gallbladder for fuck's sake---but even sitting there with a life-threatning injury, he was NOT ALLOWED TO CRY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES....

It's sickening to me. I guess, as a woman, I just don't understand the need to be so violent---not saying all men are violent, but in my experience, the men who go for the MALE BRAVADO mind-set are the ones that wouldn't shed a tear if you killed their momma in front of their eyes, or kicked their kid in the stomach because it's a sign of weakness.

And we ALLL know that a male who is weak is just as worthless as a woman :eyes:

[mmm]

7. I don't think those behaviors are still linked to gayness

When I see a man crying at a movie, his possible
gayness never even crosses my mind. When I see a man sobbing in
public I do not think he is gay.
Is this the way gay men see it?

[Heddi]

10. I don't think this is the way gay men see it

I think this is the way that homophobic men see it. Cant' do anything that would lead another man to think I'm gay, dontcha know!

Why, Men don't cook. Only women and GAY men cook. Men don't clean the house either. That's a WOMAN'S job....

And more importantly, REAL men don't cry. REAL men don't hug or comfort other men. REAL men don't give comforting touches, even to women. REAL men hold their emotions inside of them, and only release them in REAL-MEN approved ways (hammering, sawing, mowing the lawn, punching a wall, punching your wife, etc etc)

[belle]

13. Book recommendation: two by Roger Horrocks

"Masculinity in Crisis" and "Male Myths and Icons." A (straight) male analyzing contemporary ideas of masculinity through pop culture, among other things. Very interesting stuff. As to REAL-MEN approved ways--also: drinking.

[Dirty Hippie]

14. I will add

that I ran this theory by a young male friend of mine who is a very evolved sensitive type. He did not feel that he personally was constrained by the fear of being labeled "gay" but he felt that many of his peers were.

I don't think this applies necessarily the DU type of guy but to young men as a whole I believe it is a significant fear they live with, much to their detriment.

[belle]

17. Right, there are always exceptions, and good for them. (and their parents)

Also, I do get the impression that slowly but surely some taboos get erased--at least for some people--over the generations. "Kids today" seem to be more comfortable, as a group (some polls were taken) with not only gayness but more fluid "gender-appropriate" behavior. But it's a long hard haul. It's been thousands of years of ingrained behavior, and it won;t go away overnight.