Gender-atypical personality or sexual behavior: What is disgusting about male homosexuality?

ABSTRACT

Research consistently finds that homosexuality elicits strong feelings of disgust, but the reasons remain unclear. In the current research, we investigate responses to gay men who violate social norms governing the expression of gender and sexuality. Two hundred forty-three college undergraduates read a vignette about a gay male college student whose personality traits (masculine, feminine, or neutral) and sexual behavior (active vs. passive) varied and reported their affective responses to and cognitive appraisals of the target. The gay target who displayed a feminine personality elicited more disgust and was perceived as lower in gender role conformity than a gay man who displayed a masculine personality. Similarly, the gay target who assumed a passive sex role elicited more disgust and was perceived as lower in gender role conformity than a gay man who assumed an active sex role. The sexual behavior/disgust relationship was mediated by perceived gender role conformity.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotions
• sex roles
• sexual behavior
• sexual prejudice

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Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/8xg6m/

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open science badges for Open Data through Open Practices Disclosure. The data is openly accessible at https://osf.io/8xg6m/

Notes

1. All data necessary to reproduce the analyses reported in this manuscript are available online (https://osf.io/8xg6m/).