Robert Stacy McCain asks: Exactly what does the word “homophobia” mean?
Well, let me try:
homophobia (noun) [from Mod. Eng. homo, “big gay pouf” + Gk. phobos, “fear”] — The delusional belief that the ideal “prelapsarian” rate of homosexuality in the human population (as planned by God before the Fall of Man) was 0.000000%, and could not be higher than zero, because homosexuality is self-evidently useless and a flaw and a stain on natural creation.
There are other definitions, of course, but mine has the advantage of at least getting the etymology correct. (Anyone who says “homophobia” means “fear of sameness” is an obvious nitwit.)
As Tyler O’Neil pointed out, the science is settled:
I suspect (and hope) that McCain is being deliberately cheeky in proclaiming that “the science is settled.” I mean, I read the link to the study on salivary enzymes, and it struck me as what you might call “an interesting preliminary result.” But it’s JUST preliminary — and in any case, even if other studies produce similar results, it may be hasty to interpret the physiological responses of the straight-male test subjects as “disgust.” As it happens, the amount of “alpha-amylase” in spit will also go up when subjects are required to solve arithmetic problems in their head in front of an audience. It’s not because they’re averse to math, though; it’s because they’re averse to looking like a fool if they’re caught in a simple subtraction error. In other words, the tests with straight guys looking at slides of two men kissing were designed to detect the biochemical changes associated with a “psycho-social stress response.” But “psycho-social stress response” is far less specific than “disgust.”
That said, I think it’s fair to let McCain off with a stern tsk-tsk and not berate him too much for saying “the science is settled” — after all, as I’m sure he’s aware, some gay activists are also excessively quick to say that up-in-the-air scientific questions have been conclusively answered, and to find Irrefutable Proof in rather tentative results, when it suits their purpose.
There is a vast difference between a mere aversion to homosexual behavior, on the one hand, and what can fairly be called “prejudice” or “hate,” on the other hand. People have a right to their own opinions and “de gustibus non est disputandum.”
True, but there is also a vast difference between an aversion to engaging in homosexual behavior oneself, and an aversion to OTHER people doing it. It’s fine to abhor liverwurst, but if you grumble at public displays of liverwurst-eating, and privately suspect that anyone who enjoys the flavor of liverwurst must be tetched in the head, then you might be a bit prejudiced — even if you’re not “hateful” about it.
I mean, it’s understandable that a straight male might be very annoyed to be the object of an unsolicited gay advance, but if two OTHER males want to engage in homosexual activity without dragging him into it, why should he care? If anything, it means two fewer rivals in the Great Beaver Hunt. And from what I understand, most non-human males and females seem to have figured this out — at least, in species that live in large groups, a same-sex pair going at it in full view of everyone else will generally be left in peace. Yet persistent homosexual overtures towards an individual who simply isn’t interested may result in a bite, a kick, and a short chase. Even the beasts of the field know that “leave ME out of it, please” isn’t homophobic.
Does any woman ever want to be bothered by the suspicion that, when her boyfriend kisses her, he would rather have another man’s penis in his mouth? Of course not.
And who can blame her? If I’ve got another man’s penis in MY mouth, I don’t want him closing his eyes and pretending that I’m actually a woman; there must be a clear understanding between us that we’re both men and each of us wants to be with a man. THAT doesn’t make me heterophobic, simply because I don’t want intimacy with a man who isn’t at all attracted to my maleness. And it’s not homophobic if a woman doesn’t want a man who’s not really interested in her femininity, but only wants a “beard” for social cover.
My memory may be inaccurate, but it seems that it wasn’t until about 1985 or so that one encountered “homophobia” in general usage.
I think you may be right. On the basis of binge-watching Nick At Nite, I would say with confidence that even in the 1970s, when popular sitcoms like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Barney Miller and (particularly) All in the Family had begun to deal with anti-gay prejudice as a concept, the actual word “homophobia” did not appear in the scripts.
Shilts, who was himself gay, was demonized by many leaders of the gay community because he accurately reported on researcher’s conclusions that AIDS was a contagious disease, and that it was being spread by the extremely promiscuous behavior of men in the gay bathhouse scene in San Francisco, New York and other major cities.
A contagious disease, yes, but a NOT-VERY contagious disease. It doesn’t spread by coughs and sneezes, and it doesn’t spread by simple skin-to-skin contact. It doesn’t even spread particularly well by taking someone’s genitals directly into your mouth. In other words, it’s an STD that isn’t T.’d by most forms of S., and therefore doesn’t require strict monastic celibacy in order to be avoided — which is what makes the ongoing spread of HIV among gay men all the more depressing.
I don’t have a copy of And the Band Played On at hand, but I think that somewhere in its pages, Shilts noted that in the late 1980s, the Dutch government launched an anti-AIDS campaign aimed specifically at reducing risky behavior among gay/bi men in the Netherlands. The ads said, basically:
If you are a man who has sex with other men, the best way to avoid AIDS is to abstain entirely from anal intercourse. If you are not willing to abstain from anal intercourse, the next best thing is to use a condom for this act.
Two things worth noting: First, the campaign said nothing about fellatio. Even by 1985 or so, it was already becoming clear that promiscuous oral sex among gay men, although a big factor in spreading infections like gonorrhea, was NOT a big factor in spreading the AIDS virus — anal sex was overwhelmingly the route of transmission.
Second, the language attempted to separate self-identity as “gay/bi/MSM” from the high-risk act of anal sex — abstinence from anal need not mean monastic celibacy, nor denial of one’s sexual orientation, because other modes of erotic intimacy are available.
It’s like the Moscow Show Trials of the 1930s, where Stalin’s enemies were accused of wildly improbably plots against the Soviet Union, which the official state media reported as if they were both real and dangerous.
Oh, ye gods, Queenie McDrama, and you’d been making a certain amount of sense up to now.
Yes, it’s quite a lot like the Stalinist show trials, apart from the fact that Kevin Smith and Ben Affleck are in no danger of sudden death from “acute cerebral lead-poisoning,” and no one is going to drag you off to a Siberian forced-labor camp for what you’ve written here on Medium. It’s like the Stalinist show trials in the same way that California’s Prop 8 (which temporarily put a halt to Same-Sex Marriage licenses but had no effect whatsoever on California’s binding and comprehensive Domestic Partnerships law) was like South African apartheid.
