“We’re Disgusted With Queers, not Fearful of Them”: The Interrelationships Among Disgust, Gay Men’s Sexual Behavior, and Homonegativity

ABSTRACT

Using a combination of personal reflections, published literature, and original empirical research, we argue that the disgust triggered by gay men’s sexual practices (specifically, anal intercourse) is a critical, though overlooked, contributor to heterosexual men and women’s homonegativity (i.e., negative attitudes and behaviors directed toward men who are or are perceived to be gay). We conclude our article by articulating several directions for future inquiry that we believe will advance current understanding of prejudice and discrimination directed toward gay men.

KEYWORDS:

• Homonegativity
• gay men
• homophobia
• disgust
• sexual behavior
• anal intercourse
• prejudice

Notes

^1. Watching movies that ridiculed “fags” was acceptable. Watching talk shows or movies of the week that focused on gay men demanded strategy: As an ostensibly heterosexual person, how could I justify being interested in this type of material? Would the mere act of watching Consenting Adult, for example, serve as an unspoken confession? Could my sexual identity be inferred from my desire to watch a program that focused on a gay teenager?

^2. The omission of gay sexuality does not mean that homonegative humor lacks a sexual component. Beyond the inherent amusement of words such as homo, fag, and faggot, emphasis was often placed on the sexual practices of gay men. Of course, gay sexuality itself, in terms of sexual activities between men, was elided. Thus, while two supporting characters in Once Bitten (1985) could bemoan that, due to a mishap in the locker room, they were now “rump-rangers,” the viewer never saw any physical manifestation of this description.

^3. One reviewer disagreed, asserting that “being gay is not principally about having sex with other men.” However, outside the realm of same-sex emotional/sexual attraction, what unique biological, psychological, or cultural marker reliably differentiates “being gay” from “being straight”?

^4. The lengthier entry from which this text was extracted links gay men’s sexual activity with death, intestinal parasites, colostomy bags, “urine sex,” “fecal sex,” “tearing and ripping of the anal wall,” “fecal discharge,” ingestion of medically significant amounts of feces,” and the insertion of “bottles, carrots, and even gerbils” into the rectum. “Lesbians” are mentioned only five times.

^5. Throughout this article, we have suggested that gay men may be regarded as disgusting because anal intercourse is widely (mis)perceived as a common practice among members of this social category. This behavior, especially when engaged in receptively, constitutes a nexus of taboos: violation of hegemonic standards of masculinity (i.e., “real” men fuck, they don’t get fucked); a disconcerting proximity to feces and attendant concerns about germs/disease; and, given its non-procreative and “base” nature, the capacity to erode the distinction between humans and animals and, hence, undermine our faith in speciesism. Yet we also reviewed studies suggesting that the induction of disgust increases homonegativity toward gay men. This raises the question: Do gay men trigger disgust, or are they the unintended recipients of prejudice and discrimination when individuals experience (or are prone to experience) disgust? We speculate that both questions may be answered in the affirmative. Gay men are capable of eliciting disgust—hence, the association between disgust sensitivity and homonegative attitudes. As well, individuals, when in a disgusted state, may perceive gay men as possible sources of their disgust and, thus, negatively evaluate them.

^6. Anecdotally, we have witnessed undergraduate students use public displays of affection to render intelligible (and palatable) the sexual disgust they experience when viewing sexually explicit footage of gay men. The rationale is “I have nothing against gay sex. I just don’t want to watch any kind of sex.” It is interesting that this rationale seldom, if ever, surfaces when the sexually explicit content is heterosexual in nature.