JanatUrlich said:
Men, however, are not. Moran suggests that this is where the fear of gay men comes from. Men are not used to being sexually targeted as women are. She believes that a lot of men feel threatened by homosexual men as they actually have the physical power to harass them as women are harassed on a daily basis.
I have asked a few of my male friends about this and they say that there could be some truth in the matter. None of my male friends are particularly homophobic, but they admitted that they feel uncomfortable knowing that gay men could hold power over them, whereas most heterosexual females physically could not.
I would agree that in alot of cases homophobia in men does stem from intimidation but I'm not certain that the root cause identified is correct. I would argue that in many cases heterosexual men do not see homosexual men as a physical threat but as a threat to their dominance, particularly in all-male social situations.
I have noted that it is most often (not always, especially with older generations) your archetype "Alpha Males" (and those who consider themselves Alpha Males) who will demonstrate the most aggressive homophobia. This would not be entirely consistant with the idea that the physical threat posed is the the root of this fear. "Alpha Males" (can you tell i hate the term?) are typically those percieved as physically stronger, among other attributes.
But a homosexual man does pose a potential threat of a different nature. As much as i hate to admit it, men tend to be, more primal -for want of a better term- and never more so than when around other men. Men are hierarchical, particularly in groups, although this is still expressed between a pair of male friends, just more subtley. Now I feel i should say im not ragging on my sex here, I am certainly not leveling accusations of men being less evolved than women or anything else, just that our social interactions retain a more animalistic element.
Now this hierarchy expresses itself differently depending on the social context but inevitably there is always an element of jostling for dominance within a group of men. Men will look for ways to distinguish themselves as superior to their fellows, be it through strength, inteligence or percieved success.
Crude as it is a major factor in this hierarchy is a man's percieved sexual prowess (whatever the reality) and among the more dominant members of a social circle (back to the Alpha Males) will almost always be those percieved as the most successful with the opposite sex. Now this is where a homosexual man threatens an Alpha Male. A homosexual man is not competing for the affections of the opposite sex so being successful gives the Alpha Male no victory and establishes no dominance over the homosexual man. This A) Disrupts the hierarchy and B) Leads the Alpha Male to seek an alternative way of asserting dominance over the individual - which can lead to victimisation in the form of homophobia.
On a last note at the end of my essay^
- I have spoken in very general terms and in many cases the thought processes I'm talking about are instinctive and sub-conscious. I am not demonizing men or suggesting that male friendships cannot be mutually supportive. Rather i am suggesting that this is a small element of our social phycology that can skew our thinking in minor ways.
