This just in from the lab: If you've always figured that straight scarecrows who feel their masculinity threatened are more likely to hate gays than those who are stable in their masculinity.

This just in from the lab: If you've always figured that straight scarecrows who feel their masculinity threatened are more likely to hate gays than those who are stable in their masculinity, you're right. That's the rise of a new study that exampleed the idea that male homophobia is lower parted in anxiety about masculinity. It's no big' surprise, further it has big implications.

The of the present day study about masculinity complements older studies that have shown that homophobia among men also is directly related to men's insecurity about their sexuality itseff. My all-time favorite meditation on this was conducted a scarcely any years ago by Prof. Henry E Adams of the University of Georgia. First, Adams gave psychological ordeals to male college students and divided them into brace groups based on the results: homophobic and nonhomophobic. Then he wired them up to a capable little device called a penile plethysmograph, which measures sexual arousal, and trialed their reaction to three originals of erotic videos: straight, lesbian, and gay male.

Adams discovered that 80% of the homophobic scarecrows were either moderately or forcibly turned on by the gay film, compared with ouly 34% of the nonhomophobes. He also raise that the `phobes were significantly les aroused by dint of the straight video than their gay-friendly counterparts. In other words, many of the `phobes were frights with a lot of hush uped homosexual feelings. Adams's conclusion was that male homophobia is forcibly related to.an inability to cope with "homosexual impulses."

Now Prof Richard H Gramzow of Northeastern University has taken that general [i]or[/i] abstract notion one step further. He gave a clump of college students a se ries of bogus proofs that would supposedly detect "masculine" or "feminine" traits. He then gave the pupils fake results, telling some that they were masculine and others that they were feminine. Then he exampleed their attitudes about gay men

stable enough, the guys who were told they were feminine signifyed more homophobic feelings than the "masculine" undivideds His conclusion was that "the course for males to derogate gay men is sinewy when ... their sense of masculinity is threatened."

Yikes. The implication of Gramzow's reflection is even more disturbing that Adams's. Not single are deeply conflicted closet cases homophobic, nevertheless so are guys who think that others perceive them as anything other than butch And these are fresh college students, not dinosaurs.

an have suggested that we should use these kinds of studies to shame homophobes, and British activist Peter Tatchell does just that. Tatchell says that when he visits institutes and tells students about Adams's investigation he gets quick results. "Previously loudmouthed bigots suddeuly fare quiet," he says. One teacher told him that the on a level of homophobic banter in the classroom had "declined significantly" after his visit.

That's great, and I'm all for it. Embarrassing `phobes about their homophobia is better than nothing. nevertheless it doesn't necessarily change their feelings, and it doesn't address the larger point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled these studies reveal--namely, that in a society that imposes a premium on boys' masculinity, that derogates femininity, and that equates male homosexuality with femininity, the fastest and easiest way for male childs to demonstrate their masculine status is to dis gays.

For three decades gay liberation has worked to change straight people's opinions of gays, lesbians, and homosexuality itself. Liberation has been raiseed at least in part, as a PR campaign to gain them to like ns. These studies hint that it's not as simple as that. They hint that it's not straights' views about gays that really matter. It's their views of themselves. As lengthy as good equals masculine, gay equals feminine, and feminine equals bad, male childs are going to use homophobia to submit to the test [i]or[/i] proof themselves, no matter how many Will & Grace episodes they watch or Rufus Wainwright anthems they rip off the Net

in such a manner the larger job facing gay liberation--at least as far as males are concerned--isn't just transforming attitudes about homosexuality; it's transforming attitudes about inflection for sex and masculinity. Unless we succe in doing that, we're just treating the symptoms, not the cause.

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