Homophobia And Homosexual
The existence of a relationship between homophobia and homosexuality or rather homosexual arousal has always been a matter of controversy. Whereas some individuals have argued that homophobia has nothing to do with homosexual arousal, others greatly feel that the two have a significant relationship. In an attempt to proof their position, a number of empirical and theoretical surveys have been undertaken with a core objective of establishing whether there is any relationship between homophobia and homosexual arousal. A good example is the study represented in this article that was carried out by Henry, Lester & Bethany (1996) from the University of Georgia and which aimed at establishing whether there was any relationship between homophobia and homosexual arousal. Although the research presented in this article revealed significant relationship between the two variables, the subject is controversial in my own opinion.
First, homophobia is the natural stigmatization, fear, anger rejection and negative attitude towards all aspects of homosexuality mainly by the heterosexual partners. Ideally therefore, it would be ironical that this condition would derive sexual arousal from the men who have everything against homosexuality. It is important to note that sexual arousal is purely controlled by psychological thinking hence a homophobic person is not likely to be aroused by homosexual scenes display as to be depicted in the results of the survey. In my own opinion, non homophobic individuals are more likely to be homosexually aroused than their homophobic counterparts. Critically, the control variables such as inclusion of heterosexual films and lesbians in the experiments might have to a greater extent influenced the outcome. However, the thought of a person having being exposed to sexual scenes is likely to cause sexual arousal to the latter irrespective of whether it is heterosexual or homosexual both in females or male. I strongly feel that the research could have used only the individual who claimed to be homophobic and then exposing them to homosexual films to get the best results and conclusion.
Nevertheless, an individual may either pretend that he is homophobic yet he is not, or denies that he is prone to homosexuality feelings. Inclusion of such individuals in the survey would automatically make the results non apprehensive and thus wrong conclusion. Personally, I feel that there were a lot of assumptions in the survey hence the results are likely to be biased. However, the study conclusion that homophobia is significantly associated with homosexual arousal (but the homophobic individual does not know about it or denies) can to some extent be true. Practically though, it would be expected that the non homophobic persons are more likely to be homosexually aroused than the homophobic just like the former are more likely to engage in homosexual practices than the latter.
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