The Origins of Homophobia

Toby has four new books out: an updated, revised and expanded edition of his classic soft sci fi romance novel
SECRET MATTER -- with its quirky and mystical spin on what it means to be gay. Click on the title for info.
An historical novel, written in collaboration with historian/anthropologist Walter L. Williams,
set in the Old West TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life With the Navajo. And a collection of gay positive stories
contributed by more than 30 writers titled CHARMED LIVES. And his beloved spiritual romance novel
GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE has just been rereleased by Lethe Press.

Contact Us Table of Contents Search Site Home Also on this website: Toby Johnson's books: TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with the Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe SECRET MATTER: updated, revised & expanded edtion from Lethe Press with Afterword by Mark Jordan GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE PLAGUE: A NOVEL ABOUT HEALING. CHARMED LIVES: Spinning Straw into Gold: Reclaiming Our Queer Spirituality Through Story About ordering Books on Gay Spirituality: White Crane Gay Spirituality Series   Articles and Excerpts: Read Toby's review of Samuel Avery's The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco" The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate A Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality Why gay people should NOT Marry Wedding Cake Liberation Gay Marriage in Texas What's ironic Shame on the American People The "highest form of love"  The cause of homosexuality What is homosexuality? What is Gay Spirituality? My three messages What Jesus said about Gay Rights The purpose of homosexuality Interview on the Nature of Homosexuality What the Bible Says about Homosexuality Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men Varieties of Gay Spirituality Waves of Gay Liberation Activity Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium Easton Mountain Retreat Center Andrew Harvey & Spiritual Activism "It's Always About You" The myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara You're Not A Wave What is Enlightenment? Emptiness & Religious Ideas Experiencing experiencing experiencing Going into the Light Meditations for a Funeral Meditation Practice The way to get to heaven Advice to Travelers to India & Nepal Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva John Boswell was Immanuel Kant Curious Bodies What Toby Johnson Believes The Joseph Campbell Connection Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy The Nature of Religion Being Gay is a Blessing Freedom of Religion The Gay Agenda Gay Saintliness Gay Spiritual Functions The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives. The Sinfulness of Homosexuality Proposal for a study of gay nondualism Priestly Sexuality  "The Evolution of Gay Identity" "St. John of the Cross & the Dark Night of the Soul." Avalokiteshvara at the Baths.  Eckhart's Eye Let Me Tell You a Secret Religious Articulations of the Secret The Collective Unconscious Driving as Spiritual Practice Meditation Historicity as Myth Pilgrimage Next Step in Evolution Teenage Prostitution and the Nature of Evil Allah Hu: "God is present here"   Adam and Steve The Life is in the Blood Gay retirement and the "freelance monastery" Seeing with Different Eyes What are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel? The mystical experience at the Servites'  Castle in Riverside The Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis The Techniques Of The World Saviors Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby Part 2: The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Part 3: Jesus and the Resurrection Part 4: A Course in Miracles The Secret of the Clear Light Understanding the Clear Light Mobius Strip Finding Your Tiger Face How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated About Alien Abduction In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke The D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance More about Gay Mental Health Psych Tech Training The Rainbow Flag Toby's friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta. Harry Hay, Founder of the gay movement About Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first man to really "come out" About Michael Talbot, gay mystic About Guy Mannheimer About Dennis Paddie About Sterling Houston About Michael Stevens Our friend Tom Nash Second March on Washington The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the  "Statement of Spirituality"   Book Reviews Be Done on Earth by Howard E. Cook Pay Me What I'm Worth by Souldancer The Way Out by Christopher L  Nutter The Gay Disciple by John Henson Art That Dares by Kittredge Cherry Coming Out, Coming Home by Kennth A. Burr Extinguishing the Light by B. Alan Bougeois Over Coffee: A conversation For Gay Partnership & Conservative Faith by D.a. Thompson

I want to propose an explanation for homophobia in human beings. Why do the majority of (straight/heterosexual) people have negative opinions of a sexual minority (gay/homosexual -- and all the alphabet that can go with that)? The answer is in the word "sexual." I think the answer has to do with psycho-development stages in sexual maturation. Boys start out sexually aware of our own bodies, and our first sexual arousal is about ourselves and our being able to experience pleasure. (Of course, this is often very confusing and conflicted because nobody explains it properly and the religious people tell us we are sinning by experiencing the pleasure--but "Catholic guilt" is another issue.) There is obviously a kind of "homosexual" quality to self-arousal. Boys also develop intense friendships with other boys during this period as part of identifying as male and developing a sense of personal ego that is aware of other people's responses to us. So we form these intense (non-sexual, for the most part) relationships. Then a little while after puberty, straight boys begin to experience sexual arousal from seeing females--and the process of sexual awareness begins. In that process, the straight boys have to shift their sexual arousal from their own (male) bodies to the bodies of females. And they have to shift their intense friendships from other boys to girls. Part of doing that is distinguishing between the intense friendships with other boys and sexual attractions and crushes on girls. And the distinction is sexual. So the sexual side of intense friendships with other boys and the personal arousal by one's own body have to be supplanted in the interests of sexual maturation. I think that process of supplanting/suppression results in the thought "I am not homosexual." That's the start of homophobia. For gay boys the process works very differently. There is a smooth transition from arousal for one's own body to arousal for the bodies of the boys one has formed these intense friendships with. There'e no moment of turning away from the boys to the girls. On the other hand, of course, the gay boys likely experience rejection by their straight boy friends. And so there starts the internalizing of homophobia in them. There's yet another level of this that has to do with toilet training and awareness of one's anus and confusion about feeling pleasure around defecation. Much of straight male homophobia, I think, has to do with fear of being anally penetrated -- rather than fear of feeling intense feelings for one's friends. It isn't so much homosexual love that the straight men fear as homosexual sex which is understood to mean being anally penetrated, because genital penetration is how straight men have sex with women. This is, after all, what the Biblical injunction seems to be about: you shall not have sex with a man the way a man has sex with a woman. Actually, of course, what that rule can be interpreted to say is that when you have sex with another man, you shouldn't treat him the way you'd treat a woman. This was a rule in a very primitive and violent culture in which women were treated as chattel. So you were supposed to treat other men as equals. (And you weren't supposed to fuck the vanquished in battle because that kind of male warrior behavior was just dishonorable.) The worst victims of homophobia, oddly enough, are straight men who get strait-jacked into a set of rules about seeming masculine.  One of the ongoing cultural jokes is about the man sitting forlorn on the side of the bed while a woman assures him that "that can happen to anybody"; too often what he is anxious about is the possibility that his momentary impotence is a sign of homosexuality. (Though that doesn't make any sense, does it?) Perhaps the real issue involved in all this is human beings feeling comfortable in their bodies and positive about the wonderful possibilities offered by having physical bodies with organs of pleasure. We should rejoice in our incarnation and experience our pleasure as a positive thing. Our bliss--at the level of orgasmic pleasure AND deep interpersonal love and affection--creates gift waves into the spirit plane. There's more on this topic: See Q&A about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness

Toby Johnson, PhD is author of eight books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of his teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and religious problems, three gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality. In addition to the novels featured elsewhere in this web site, Johnson is author of IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD and THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET (Revised edition): AN APPRECIATION OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL.

Johnson's Lammy Award winning book GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness was published in 2000.

His Lammy-nominated book  GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe was published by Alyson in 2003.