Never heard that term before? I had not either before stumbling upon this blog today: A Wonderful Journey. After reading a few posts I settled on the one titled “homohysteria.” Good stuff! I remember trying to explain to friends from my former life–after coming out–that all my time as their friend was not a covert operation to “get them into bed.” What is all this fear about anyway? Here is an excerpt from this author’s post.
“I call this homohysteria. That is all it is. People get scared of what they don’t know and how can they know homosexuality if they are straight? That would be like asking me to know what it is like to grow up in the inner city. I can’t, I have never experienced it. That doesn’t mean that I fear anyone who did. It just means that I don’t have a personal reference to completely understand.
So maybe I am wrong, but this is my thinking on how homohysteria plays out.
1. I am not gay and cannot understand the attraction.
2. If I can’t understand then it must be something bad.
3. If it is bad then I need to fear it.
4. If I am afraid of it then it must be able to hurt me.
5. If it can hurt me then I must protect myself by striking first.
Okay, first off if you are not gay, I am not asking you to be. I am not trying to change anyone. I am not trying to switch you to my team. You are straight, hey that is fine with me. If you are straight then you can’t understand being gay. But then again I can’t understand liking chocolate better than vanilla, being left handed, enjoying S&M behaviors, hating poetry, or even growing up in the inner city. Just because I can’t understand (or maybe the better word is know), doesn’t mean that I have to judge you or be afraid of you. All I ask is the same consideration.
If I don’t understand something doesn’t mean I have to be afraid of it. And if I am afraid of something doesn’t mean that it will hurt me.”
Click here to catch the entire article.
I totally understand the attraction to both sexes.
I have something funny to tell you. I’ll e-mail
you it.
HUGS!!!!!
i prefer homohysteria to homophobia
Laurie: thanks for the email… replied! {HUGS}!!
queerunity: I agree, had not heard the term before, but much prefer homohysteria to homophobia. I actually “googled” homohysteria just for kicks, and came up with a very different kind of creepy site. Won’t copy the link here!
hahaha, maybe we should have something like heterohysteria. i’m not straight and cannot understand the attraction. since i can’t understand it, it must be bad! so i must protect myself before heterosexuality has the chance to hurt me.
hahaha. it’s totally logical, but funny how we don’t see that many incidents of straight bashing compared to gay bashing.
(i shall go google homohysteria and see what they offer)
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for confessionsofaclosetcase:
LOL!!! Funny stuff! You’ll have to let me know if you found anything good!!
bridgeout
i am doing a photo essay on same sex marriage and i was wondering if anyone could help me on the facts for it??
What are you looking for Kara? If I can help… I would be happy to. You can drop me another note here with details.