Homophobic Men Most Aroused by Gay Male Porn

SEXUALITIES, 7 Oct 2013

Nathan Heflick - Psychology Today

Homophobia is associated with sexual excitement by male-on-male sex.

Even a man who thought that women want to have sex with their fathers, and that women spend much of their lives distraught over their lack of a penis, is right sometimes. This person, the legend that is Sigmund Freud, theorized that people often have the most hateful and negative attitudes towards things they secretly crave, but feel that they shouldn’t have.

If Freud is right, then perhaps men who are the most opposed to male homosexuality have particularly strong homosexual urges for other men.

One study asked heterosexal men how comfortable and anxious they are around gay men. Based on these scores, they then divided these men into two groups: men that are homophobic, and men who are not. These men were then shown three, four-minute videos. One video depicted straight sex, one depicted lesbian sex and one depicted gay male sex. While this was happening, a device was attached to each participant’s penis. This device has been found to be triggered by sexual arousal, but not other types of arousal (such as nervousness, or fear – arousal often has a very different meaning in psychology than in popular usage).

When viewing lesbian sex and straight sex, both the homophobic and the non-homophobic men showed increased penis circumference. For gay male sex, however, only the homophobic men showed heightened penis arousal.

Heterosexual men with the most anti-gay attitudes, when asked, reported not being sexually aroused by gay male sex videos. But, their penises reported otherwise.

Homophobic men were the most sexually aroused by gay male sex acts.

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Nathan Heflick is a post-doctoral researcher at The University of Kent. His research explores the psychology of religious and spiritual beliefs, death and dying, dehumanization, and self-perceived objectivity. 

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