Asklemmy

I'm pulling this out of my ass, no pun intended, but I've always imagined it as homephobes distancing themselves from anything gay, especially being gay and liking gay stuff.

Like as in they would never go to a gay bar with their gay friend even though they platonically like the friend, enjoying dancing and so on. If gay stuff is on TV they have to affirm the mantra "I'm not gay so I don't like stuff" so they use slurs to reaffirm their stance.

There's also the thing where people view manly and gay as opposite. They identify as manly so they have to not like gay stuff.

Bottom line, I think they're insecure about their masculinity, afraid of actually becoming gay or both.

Usually just insecure people who hang around with other insecure people who always need to prove their toxic masculinity to each other. Then others get roped in because you get excluded from the group if you don't get involved. It's very tribal and stupid and fortunately it's getting less and less common amongst younger men.

And obviously religion plays a big part because being gay is sinful in many religions.I suspect a lot of it got worse around the time Christian values became the "default" cultural representation for pop culture in the west.

I felt a bit of this as a child, it's just social pressure and anxiety about being outcast. I'd imagine that often being more outspoken about it is from insecurity because someone might actually be gay (or bi) and either not want to admit it to themselves or at least not want anyone to find out.

In many cases it's also probably some deep hatred of anything that goes against what they consider "right", but that too ultimately mostly stems from social pressure about honosexuality being seen as "wrong"

The knowledge that they have thought about sucking dick many times in their life.

That they would get dehumanized and treated the way they/other men treat gays and women.

Read "whipping girl" by Julia Serano, she goes into the idea of social stigma driving bigotry

Themselves.

Nobody is completely heterosexual. They see homosexuality as a weakness because they've been taught that it is. So when they feel it, they lash out.

It's always personal insecurity. Every time. Weak people attack things that are outside their comfort zone, and twice as hard when they see themselves in those uncomfortable things.

I know this is a semi serious question. But my first thought was "the penis".

Mean fear being treated they way they treat women

That they would like it and become gay.

Like someone already said in here,
I would say that the type of people that are "terrified" are the type that are "hyper-competitive".
They're extremely status minded and constantly want to tear people down to pull themselves up.
It's also why they're disgusted with non-manliness, which is not the same as gay in my opinion.
You can have a manly man who is gay and a girly man who is heterosexual.
Even making fun of acting tough behavior gets them into disgust.
You can't have fun with these people.

I do have to say, before I was in a relationship,
I would get annoyed if mistaken for gay and thus prefer to avoid any confusion.
I consider the dating market to be skewed in favor of women simply by the numbers
and anything to further pull down those chances was the last thing I needed.

I'll do my best. I can vaguely remember some of the words that came out of my mouth when I was around 13-18 years old. Most of which were slurs rather than deep thoughts.

The slurs were more to do with what was typical/acceptable talk at the time (late 90s-early 2000s) in combination with teenage boys love nothing more than being assholes to each other (typically to my straight friends) because they think it's funny.

Some of my "deeper thoughts", for as well as a teenager can articulate, were to do with not understanding and frankly not actually trying to understand any other perspective. I believe I was simply trying to boost myself by stepping on others. I don't think there was ever a point in which I hated gay people, but I do remember saying how I thought it was disgusting (gay sexual acts)and I had opinions on gay couples raising children even though I had no evidence to support those opinions.

I don't think any of it ever scared me, none of what I said was out of fear. I was never worried about liking it, as some other comments suggested. Instead, It was an easy way to safely feel superior to cope with my lengthy list of insecurities.

As my brain began to mature, my thoughts quickly changed.

So... Immaturity, insecurity, ignorance.

Nowadays... regret. Sorry everyone.

I've heard the argument before that it's tied up in misogyny, homophobic men are, consciously or otherwise, thinking basically "I'm afraid gay men will treat me the way I treat women"

Hence all the anti-gay jokes like "backs against the wall lads" (note how the straight men are often imagining themselves as the bottom) - implication being, "I don't respect consent therefore what if the gay man who's more of a threat to me physically doesn't either"

No idea how accurate this is but it certainly rings true for some behaviours

I'm scared of appearing to be gay, because i went to school in the 90s. Being gay was the worst thing you could possibly be. If there was any evidence that could potentially point towards you being gay (wearing anything remotely pink. Accidentally listening to a girl band. Getting an ear pierced was trendy but one of the ears meant you're gay. The pitfalls are endless.)

I want to clarify that I enjoy seeing gay people. It feels like a little victory for mankind. This is a very learned fear. If you've never had your ass kicked my multiple people, all of whom could beat you 1v1 anyway, its hard to explain, it gets deeply instilled in you. I know I shouldn't touch fire. I know I shouldn't fall from a height. I know I shouldn't be seen to be possibly gay.

Hetero cis male here. I've always personally felt that the stereotypical male macho reaction to homosexuality is pretty odd. But I have a lot of gay people in my friends and family, and was around homosexuality a little more than some people were growing up.

If I had to infuse anything into the mind of someone scared or worried about gay people, it would just be that outside of that one detail, and their own small subculture they've embraced, they're just people, the same as anyone else.

To me it feels similar to fear-driven bigotry based on racism. Outside of a little melanin (or lack thereof) and a slightly different subculture, other "races" are people, just the same as you. But rather than get to know other, some folks find it easier to be scared and ignorant and shield themselves behind hate.

I actually think it's hyper-competitive bullshit.

For simple, stupid men especially, they see everything as a status contest, and for that worldview to work there must be clear ways to measure who is doing better than someone else, so they know where to rank with others.

But that system breaks down if you don't value the same things they do the same WAY they do. This is also why these same people have the same visceral aversion to things like small cars, simple foods, etc, etc. "I can't make you feel like I'm better than you with my truck if you don't want a truck. There's something wrong with you."

This also explains why they look up to and lick the boots of people higher on the social ladder by their strict measure of what that means. It also explains why they view partners as prizes and not people.

And anyone who steps outside their ranking system is an anomaly that might, God forbid, make them have to reexamine some aspect of their value system, and that won't fly.

Straight men who fear homosexuality are afraid of discovering that they secretly like the cock.

I don't know, the dicks i guess?

Seems reasonable to me that it's a network effect. Hating gay people is a thing their community does, so they do it to fit in with the community, at first, and then it becomes part of who they are after they've done it for a while. Their "culture" in a sense. But if their community sees them as gay, or gay enough, they'll be targeted by their own discrimination and lose their community and be outside the pack, which is what they actually fear. And if one of their friends starts getting too close to gay, they may have to hate them and cut them loose just to make sure the target doesn't spread by association and cause people to start hating both of them.

As acceptance of gay stuff increases, they see their community shrinking. Their "culture" has fewer and fewer people, which means their pack is getting smaller, and all they want with all their hearts is to be firmly in the biggest safest strongest group. So their group gets smaller, but can they change? Can they just give up hating at this age? Can they honestly see themselves forming community with those people? They still have some people in their community, the ones closest to them, that they'd still have to give up if they changed. Maybe their uncle and brother and mom, people important to them, and so as uncomfortable it is to be on a shrinking island, they'd rather that than to be alone with no one they knew. So they keep fighting, but with a new discomfort, the knowledge that they're fighting for a losing side.

This makes them all the more dangerous, as they're more willing to do anything to overcome their worsening odds...

The "I find it fucking disgusting, bro!" fraction probably isn't here. Or if they are, they are probably smart enough not to walk into this wood chipper.

There is a strong correlation between shame people feel for having tried it before or for not being able to admit to themselves that they feel this way and then how loud they get. Pair that with religiosity or just a very conservative environment and upbringing and you get the aforementioned bros. It's more about how they feel, how insecure they are, than about anything physically off-putting. And as somebody who once reacted poorly to being hit on by a lovely Aussie, I think it's also the somewhat unexpected element of it. We are pattern recognisers. Heterosexual is the majority. We can easily get freaked out by something that's different. And a lot of the LGBTQ+ folks are still not living their romance in public (if there is some and they also want to) because they avoid wood chippers society has an unfortunately abundant supply of for them.

i doubt you'll get a meaningful response from those you're asking. this platform, lemmy, is in particular not going to expose your question to people like you described. ask it on the big platforms, you'll get a much wider range and within that, an insanely wide range of bs. but as is obvious, it's cultural and educational

I don't believe that they are scared but jealous.

Probably got raised in a way that they couldn't express themselves so the first thing is to put others down who have the strength to express themselves.

Older kids taught us to point out people that were different. Often with slurs. Not everyone grew out of it.

They are afraid of liking it.

I suspect it is somewhat similar of women looking at each other and judging each other about "giving out free milk. Biggest slut shamers are women, tho men are right after them lol.

So from a purely guessing point of view:

Place in society, and perceived safety of norm enforcement and the fact, that historically being gay was (almost/mostly) a death sentence.

Raising yourself up by hating someone else "at least I am not XYZ" or "it would suck to be XYZ I'm so much better" is an easy copium.

And distraction also: if you hate someone else, you won't have time to hate yourself.

"The problem men see with lesbians, is that they do not want to have sex them. But gay men do."

This phrase is from a book of the early 2000's, about language, jargon and, in one chapter, prejudice and specifically prejudice on sexuality.

It's the most destilled explanation I ever found.

I sincerely don't care about what others want for their life, as long as they are happy and not hurting anyone.

Well, you're gonna have trouble finding many men here that are genuinely "afraid" if homosexuality. Those that exist are unlikely to respond because it's painting a giant target on themselves.

So, you'll likely have to settle for second and third hand answers.

With that caveat in mind, I grew up in the south where the kind of homophobia that isn't necessarily bigotry (though it usually is) sometimes gets discussed if you approach people right.

The general answers I ever got amounted to social approbation. They're not so much scared of gay people, or gay acts, and almost universally not of "turning gay". It's that they have this idea that behind anything other than anti gay gets them tarred and feathered with the same brush.

Yeah, the other reasons exist, but it really does come down to being scared of sharing the same fate as gay people if they don't object enough. And it is an actual fear, rather than hatred, it just shares the same external trappings. And, for most of the people that have that fear, they would rather share the label of bigot than the label of gay.

But make no mistake, it isn't common. The kind of yelling-at-the-screen shit is just as performative, but it's the flip side of the fear. Those assholes believe that they seem more manly by doing so. It's territorial pissing and chest thumping.

It's one of the reasons I dislike phobia being the suffix for forms of bigotry. While phobos, and thus phobia has relation to rejection of things, it's a misnomer to say that most bigots are really acting out of fear. Which is dangerous, possibly even more dangerous than regular hate. But also not as dangerous as blind hatred paired with dehumanization of a target. The mental processes involved in bigotry are far more insidious than simple ignorance and fear of the unfamiliar.

Which is tangential, but I think worth examining.