The link between homophobia and being gay — you’ve got it the wrong way round

The correlation between being gay and hating gay people is controversial, and for good reason. Although the stereotype of the conservative politician who is discovered having gay sex is a cultural giant, there are critics who say such narratives create a sense that gay people are responsible for our own oppression.

A few hours ago, Nazi propagandist Nick Fuentes forgot to turn his stream off before he switched tabs to some gay porn and started masturbating live on camera. This seems to be a pattern. And yet, can accusing reactionaries of being secretly gay actually help, or does it just add to victimisation of gay people?

I’d like to draw a distinction for a moment between being gay — being born or reaching puberty to find a same-sex attraction as a result of natural processes — and experiencing homosexual arousal. Being gay is natural, there’s nothing wrong with it, and it can’t be changed. But I’d like to submit the idea that there exist straight people, who are not gay, but who are still aroused by homosexual acts. Homoeroticism as a fetish, rather than a sexuality.

A study by H E Adams, L W Wright Jr, and B A Lohr found that homophobia is associated with homosexual arousal. They put a penis measurer on a bunch of straight men, and had them watch porn. The men all got boners when they looked at straight porn. No surprises there. And they all got stiffies looking at lesbian porn, as you can imagine. But something curious happened with the gay male porn. The gay-accepting men had no physical reaction, but the homophobes got hard.

Now, these were all straight-identifying men who clearly, demonstrably, were attracted to women. So the idea that the homophobic men were secretly gay doesn’t entirely make sense. Maybe the homophobic group contained a secret cohort of bisexuals. But I don’t buy it.

A large number of conservatives believe that homosexual arousal is an unnatural, preventable, evil state of mind, that a person can be infected with through social contagion. And you know what? I think they’re right! Not when it comes to actual gay people, of course, but when it comes to themselves. I think straight men can be infected with an unnatural homosexual attraction. And I think the cause of the attraction is homophobia.

The results of the study make sense in this light. Sexuality-wise, the homophobes were 100% straight. But they had a gay fetish. A fetish motivated by hatred, which caused them to degrade gay men, to fear them, to use them for sexual pleasure while viciously attacking them in other contexts. I would call that evil. I would call that unnatural. And I would call it preventable.

Conservatives are often right about certain details of social issues while having no actual understanding. For example, economic hardship has been observed to cause rises in fascism. The conservatives correctly identify that there’s a problem with the economy and that radical action is needed. And then they go blame the jews and invade poland instead of doing something sensible about it.

I think something similar is going on with the homophobia that causes homoerotic thoughts. These are straight men, subjected to an attraction that does not align with their identity, and which is motivating them to act violently. Of course they’re scared! Of course they work from their limited point of view and conclude what they’re feeling is actual gayness! Of course they can identify it as something bad.

But instead of the sensible solution of going to therapy, meditating, doing self-crit work, or taking accountability, they decide to make it everyone else’s problem, and in so doing make their problem worse. Assholes.

So no, I don’t think being gay causes a person to be homophobic. And I don’t think societal homophobia is caused by secret gay people. Critics are right to point out that narrative is harmful. I think the causality is the other way around. Homophobia causes (something similar to) gayness. But it’s not gayness as a sexuality, it’s gayness as a fetish. One that degrades and hurts the men they fetishise.

I think there’s hidden wisdom to be found in paying close attention to what your enemy is saying. Conservatives say a plague of harmful, homosexual thoughts threatens to overtake them. Where did they get that idea? I think they got it because it’s true.

And if nothing else, this theory presents us with a way to make fun of reactionaries like Nick for looking at gay porn, without blaming actual gay people.