New Study Links Homophobia with Homosexual Arousal August 1996 Press Release WASHINGTON -- Psychoanalytic theory holds that homophobia -- the fear, anxiety, anger, discomfort and aversion that some ostensibly heterosexual people hold for gay individuals -- is the result of repressed homosexual urges that the person is either unaware of or denies. A study appearing in the August 1996 issue of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA), provides new empirical evidence that is consistent with that theory. Researchers at the University of Georgia conducted an experiment involving 35 homophobic men and 29 nonhomophobic men as measured by the Index of Homophobia scale. All the participants selected for the study described themselves as exclusively heterosexual both in terms of sexual arousal and experience. Each participant was exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual and lesbian videotapes (but not necessarily in that order). Their degree of sexual arousal was measured by penile plethysmography, which precisely measures and records male tumescence. Men in both groups were aroused by about the same degree by the video depicting heterosexual sexual behavior and by the video showing two women engaged in sexual behavior. The only significant difference in degree of arousal between the two groups occurred when they viewed the video depicting male homosexual sex: 'The homophobic men showed a significant increase in penile circumference to the male homosexual video, but the control [nonhomophobic] men did not.'
60 odd people ? Hardly a worldwide study then. In any case, the sexual arousement ahs not been verified as either homophobic or hetero-! Sexual arousal can be because the male viewer compares his prowess or masculinity with the subject being viewed, not necessarily what the subject's act is. "Mine is bigger than his," may cause one's own arousal through superiority feelings, for example. A man may feel more aroused when viewing intercourse between two men, because the viewer may imagine a 'tighter' situation, but it may be that he is imagining the 'tighter' in a woman. Did anyone ask? All subjective, and useless survey, with copious amounts of unproven supposition. Mr. HandyAndy - Really
This was meant to be a about the history of the Screwfix forum not about the history of the Stonewall forum.
You are quite right, Mr Ha - I was teasing. Even the results of that experiment couldn't work out if the 'arousal' was due to anxiety or disgust, which can also cause that response.