Homophobia is associated with sexual excitement by male-on-male sex. <\/i><\/p>\n
Even\u00a0a man who\u00a0thought that women want to have sex<\/a> 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<\/a>, theorized that people often have the most hateful and negative\u00a0attitudes towards things they secretly crave, but feel that they shouldn’t have.<\/p>\n If Freud is right, then perhaps men who are the most opposed to male\u00a0homosexuality have particularly strong\u00a0homosexual urges for other men.<\/p>\n One\u00a0study<\/a> asked heterosexal\u00a0men how comfortable and anxious they\u00a0are around gay men. Based on these scores, they then divided these men\u00a0into two groups: men that are homophobic, and\u00a0men who are not. These men were then shown three, four-minute videos. One video\u00a0depicted straight sex, one depicted\u00a0lesbian sex and one depicted gay male sex. While this was happening, a device was attached\u00a0to each participant’s\u00a0penis. This device<\/a> has been found to be triggered by sexual arousal, but not other types of arousal (such as nervousness, or fear<\/a> – arousal often has a very different meaning in psychology than in popular usage).<\/p>\n When viewing\u00a0lesbian sex and straight sex, both the homophobic and the non-homophobic men showed increased penis circumference. For gay male sex, however,\u00a0only the homophobic men showed heightened penis arousal.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Homophobic men were the most sexually aroused by gay male sex acts.<\/p>\n __________________________<\/p>\n Nathan\u00a0Heflick\u00a0is 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.\u00a0<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n Related Articles <\/b><\/p>\n