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New Study Links Homophobia with Homosexual Arousal
August 1996 Press Release
WASHINGTON -- Psychoanalytic theory holds that homophobia --
the fear, anxiety, anger, discomfort and aversion that some
ostensibly heterosexual people hold for gay individuals -- is the
result of repressed homosexual urges that the person is either
unaware of or denies. A study appearing in the August 1996 issue of the
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, published by the American
Psychological Association (APA), provides new empirical evidence
that is consistent with that theory.
Researchers at the University of Georgia conducted an
experiment involving 35 homophobic men and 29 nonhomophobic men as
measured by the Index of Homophobia scale. All the participants
selected for the study described themselves as exclusively
heterosexual both in terms of sexual arousal and experience.
Each participant was exposed to sexually explicit erotic
stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual and lesbian
videotapes (but not necessarily in that order). Their degree of
sexual arousal was measured by penile plethysmography, which
precisely measures and records male tumescence.
Men in both groups were aroused by about the same degree by
the video depicting heterosexual sexual behavior and by the video
showing two women engaged in sexual behavior. The only significant
difference in degree of arousal between the two groups occurred
when they viewed the video depicting male homosexual sex: 'The
homophobic men showed a significant increase in penile
circumference to the male homosexual video, but the control
[nonhomophobic] men did not.'
Broken down further, the measurements showed that while 66% of
the nonhomophobic group showed no significant tumescence while
watching the male homosexual video, only 20% of the homophobic men
showed little or no evidence of arousal. Similarly, while 24% of
the nonhomophobic men showed definite tumescence while watching the
homosexual video, 54% of the homophobic men did.
When asked to give their own subjective assessment of the
degree to which they were aroused by watching each of the three
videos, men in both groups gave answers that tracked fairly closely
with the results of the objective physiological measurement, with
one exception: the homophobic men significantly underestimated
their degree of arousal by the male homosexual video.
Do these findings mean, then, that homophobia in men is a
reaction to repressed homosexual urges, as psychoanalysis
theorizes? While their findings are consistent with that theory,
the authors note that there is another, competing theoretical
explanation: anxiety. According to this theory, viewing the male
homosexual videotape may have caused negative emotions (such as
anxiety) in the homophobic men, but not in the nonhomophobic men.
As the authors note, 'anxiety has been shown to enhance arousal and
erection,' and so it is also possible that 'a response to
homosexual stimuli [in these men] is a function of the threat
condition rather than sexual arousal per se. These competing
notions can and should be evaluated by future research.'
Article: 'Is Homophobia Associated With Homosexual Arousal?'
by Henry E. Adams, Ph.D., Lester W. Wright, Jr., Ph.D. and Bethany
A. Lohr, University of Georgia, in Journal of Abnormal Psychology,
Vol. 105, No. 3, pp 440-445.
The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington,DC, is
the largest scientific and professional organization representing
psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of
psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 142,000 researchers,
educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions
in 49 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 58 state and Canadian
provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as
a profession and as a means of promoting human welfare.
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