I’m not a homophobe, you can do whatever the hell you want with other consulting adults as far as I’m concerned, but the thought of two men boning is still weird af to me. Like repulsive weird. But I’ve heard a similar thing about hetero intercourse and hetero PDA from a lesbian, so… I don’t think it’s abnormal to feel this way?

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.

I’m not homophobic anymore, but my father still is & I still remember my backward thinking from my teenage years.

1. Anal sex is something I found disgusting. I still have less than 0 interest in it, but I don’t give a flying f. about others doing it, apparently hetero anal it’s extraordinarily popular in my country, to the point that people wouldn’t believe it.

2. The smell, as a teenage boy I found the odor of other teenage boys disgusting. Thinking about someone smelling like that touching me or me touching them made me shiver. Now as an adult maybe my nose is worse, or adults just smell better, but I don’t get disgusted by such thoughts anymore.

3. The silliest point of them all is that I was afraid of a gay guy hitting on me or even courting me. (I know now it’s ridiculous, but in my defense kids are stupid)

4. The most important point of them all is learned behavior, just hate who or what your friends and family hate, the be social within your tribe.

I’ve watched grown-ass men bark “f@gg0+,

Oh yeah, I’ve gotten that a lot myself. (well in my early twenties at least) Mostly as a criticism to my fondness of certain genres of music & romantic movies. The real wakeup call had been actually interacting with openly gay people on a daily basis for a while.

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.

Mean fear being treated they way they treat women

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’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.

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

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 know this is a semi serious question. But my first thought was “the penis”.

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.

That they would like it and become gay.