gays would drop dramatically, and no one will deny that this would be a desirable outcome. Men’s violence against women is well documented; perhaps less well known is the growing intolerance shown by heterosexual males for gays, an intolerance that has certainly led to a dramatic increase in assaults on homosexuals by ‘straight’ men.2
The growing incidence of anti-gay violence is even adduced as further evidence for our bisexuality. A Dutch study of anti-gay violence noted that the victims were usually ‘the least manly’ in appearance.3 Without citing evidence (no questions were directed to the attackers) the study solemnly reported that ‘it was presumed that [the attackers] victimised this group of men … because they themselves were homosexual and could stamp out the fire within them by the use of violence against “obvious gays”.’ So straight men attack gays because they are really gay themselves? Freud and his followers have much to answer for in this tortuous reasoning. Not one to cling to a single fallacy when he could hold two, Freud asserted that men were partly women (they have nipples, don’t they?) and that they repressed their ‘natural bisexuality’. That notion has given intellectual respectability to the claim that we all have the ever-present possibility of being gay or straight.
To be anti-gay is thus explained as a reaction to the male’s fear of his own latent homosexuality, an explanation that is supported by the word used to describe such prejudice, homophobia, which means ‘fear of sameness’. ‘People are homophobic because they fear their own latent homosexuality, or because they are insecure in their own masculinity. This answer represents one of the most popular “common sense” explanations for homophobia. It is a theory that guides our practice.’4 Homophobia, another learned journal says, ‘reflects three assumptions; that anti-gay prejudice is primarily a fear response; that it is irrational and dysfunctional for individuals that manifest it; that it is primarily an “individual aberration” rather than a reflection of cultural values.’5 This is now received wisdom. In every straight man there is a gay screaming to be let out.
‘The heterosexual norm is taken as Enemy Number One,’ says Anne.
‘Mere heterophobia,’ says Bill.
Collins’ dictionary defines homophobia as: ‘intense hatred or fear of homosexuals or homosexuality’. Thus to use the word ‘homophobia’ is to imply that the aversion that most straight males feel towards gays is a psychological disorder. The word is a description of the extreme – ‘intense fear’ and ‘hatred’ – and to employ it as a description of the average male’s reaction to homosexuality is absurd. His feelings are not of hatred, but of aversion. The aversion might include an element of disgust, but never of fear. Nor is it a psychological disorder, rather it is the normal straight male’s instinctive revulsion from the idea of same-sex relations. That reaction is innate, natural, so prejudice it is not.
You will note that this ‘latent homosexual’ explanation is described as common sense, not as a scientific finding – hardly surprising, for there has been too little research into the aversion that most men feel for homosexuality. But what research does exist suggests that straight men do not fear gays, nor do they fear the possibility of gayness within themselves. ‘Common sense’, indeed, suggests the very opposite: gays, as a group, are not perceived as threatening, and since most men are oblivious of any homosexual urges within themselves, why should they fear such urges? Fear, or phobia, does not seem to play any part in the average man’s dislike of gays. The bisexual explanation of homophobia might be ‘common sense’ to the gay lobby, but it also might be plain wrong.
Heterosexuality is the norm for sexual attraction. This is not to assume or imply that homosexuality is deviant. It too is natural. Although most Americans still believe that our sexual orientation is a matter of choice,6 it is not. But that is a society in which you are meant to be free to become what you want – not least when that want implies a moral choice. And where there’s a choice, one should choose to be upright: straight. There is a confusion here. Gayness is no more a matter of choice than being born American or Mexican, black or white.
A new explanation is required for the average man’s anti-gay attitude. And the word ‘average’ is used deliberately, for research reveals that a majority of heterosexuals do have negative attitudes towards homosexuals. Those attitudes range from mild distaste to the extremes described in the dictionary definition, but their widespread existence suggests that ‘homophobia’, far from being an ‘individual aberration’, is in fact a reflection of something more than cultural and biological values. But what values?
One study correlated the masculinity profiles of male college students with their attitudes towards homosexuals and discovered, unsurprisingly, that the most masculine students were the most anti-gay. This might suggest that those who argue that ‘macho’ men fear their feminine side are right, but the survey did not uncover that fear. Instead the ‘homophobic’ subjects complained of gay harassment. Gays were ‘getting too close’ or ‘brushing against my body’. Another complained he was being ‘checked out’. Such homosexual behaviour made 42% of heterosexuals move away.7 A common heterosexual aversion to overt homosexuality is captured in these studies, but never commented on. Instead the ‘common-sense’ explanation is advanced; that the most masculine heterosexuals are really gays in flight-denial.
Another study reports that 47% of men have a purely negative reaction to gays. ‘I don’t like them’; ‘I want nothing to do with them’; ‘I hope Aids wipes them out’.8 At least 47% is a minority, but the same study discovered that a further 45% of men were mildly anti-gay; their attitude was summed up as, ‘[Gays] generally don’t bother me so long as they don’t try and press their beliefs on me.’ So if this study is right, then an astonishing 92% of heterosexual males will experience anti-gay feelings if homosexuality is overtly pressed on them. Again, this hardly suggests an ‘individual aberration’: it begins to look more and more like a common feeling. And once again ‘fear’ does not come into it. These heterosexual males show no fear of homosexuals, but merely feel distaste or revulsion at a homosexual approach.
And it is not men alone who experience this aversion. Alan Wolfe, a professor at Boston University, interviewed two hundred suburban Americans for a book on the state of American society and discovered that his slice of middle America was happily unprejudiced, open-minded and tolerant. ‘Yet,’ he reported, ‘there is one exception to America’s persistent and ubiquitous nonjudgmentalism. However much they are willing to accept almost anything, most of the middle class Americans I spoke to were not prepared to accept homosexuality.’9 Wolfe’s interviewees used words like ‘abnormal’, ‘immoral’, ‘sinful’, ‘unacceptable’, ‘sick’ or ‘unhealthy’ to describe the gay lifestyle, and other American studies show a similar widespread aversion. One such study reported that no less than 66% of American adults, male and female, condemned ‘homosexual behaviour as morally wrong or as a sin’.10 A similar result was yielded by another American study which reported that 60% of adults (male and female) thought that homosexuality in and of itself was no great problem, but it was still ‘obscene and vulgar’.11 The same survey suggested that these negative attitudes to homosexuality were associated with ‘sexual conservatism, anti-feminist attitudes, and with strong beliefs in male sex-appropriate behaviour’. For the gay or feminist lobbies this is a litany of horrors, but try putting it another way: so-called ‘homophobia’ is associated with men and women who lead decent lives, respect sexual fidelity and consider the male–female relationship to be natural. These same socially conservative people supported the right of homosexuals to attend church (80%) and their right to consensual sex in private (70%).
The broad conclusion to be drawn from these studies is that something under half of all straight men harbour strong anti-gay attitudes, and that about the same proportion possess a milder antipathy. Women share these attitudes, but perhaps the important thing to remark on is that the majority, despite their reservations about the morality of homosexual behaviour, are on the side of toleration: if the gays
