Content area
Full text
Sex Roles (2014) 71:152158 DOI 10.1007/s11199-014-0401-9
FEMINIST FORUM REVIEW ARTICLE
Homohysteria: Definitions, Context and Intersectionality
Mark McCormack & Eric Anderson
Published online: 7 August 2014# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract In this article, we engage with the commentaries of our Feminist Forum article (McCormack and Anderson 2014) by Parent et al. (2014), Plummer (2014), Worthen (2014) and Negy (2014) to enhance understanding of the concept homohysteria and to explore its application to a range of demographic groups. Developing a stage model of homohysteria that accounts for both increases and decreases in levels of homophobia in U.S. cultures, we focus on three key issues that were highlighted by the commentaries. First, we discuss the definitional clarity of homohysteria. Next, we argue that while it is important to recognize the diversity of sexualities in the U.S. and historically, it is primarily heterosexuals perceptions of homosexuality that are most important. Finally, we call for the incorporation of an intersectional and international approach that extends the concept beyond heterosexual men in the U.S.
Keywords Gender . Heterosexuality . Homohysteria . Homophobia . Masculinities . Theory
Introduction
The liberalization of attitudes toward homosexuality in the U.S. that has occurred in the previous few decades has been one of the most profound attitudinal changes in U.S. culture (e.g. Baunach 2012; Keleher and Smith 2012; Loftus 2001). This has been shown to have had a significant positive effect on the lives of sexual minority youth (Anderson and McCormack 2014; Riley 2010; Savin-Williams 2005). It has also had a significant effect on the lives of heterosexual men as well (e.g. Anderson 2009; Dean 2013; Gottzn and Kremer-Sadlik
2012). As much of our focus in this article is on the U.S., all empirical studies use U.S. samples unless otherwise noted.
It was the positive impact of decreasing homophobia on heterosexual men that formed the empirical base for our Feminist Forum article (McCormack and Anderson 2014). Over the previous decade, there has been a significant improvement in the lives of heterosexual men (Adams 2011; Anderson 2009), particularly among younger generations (those called millennials). Whereas older research has shown that men adopted behaviors that were homophobic, aggressive and stoic (e.g. Derlega et al. 1989; Floyd 2000; Pollack 1999), resulting in men being physically alienated...