Straight panic

Read this from the Los Angeles Times: Why do Straights hate Gays? Good question. Better question: Why do Straights fear Gays? Fear is beneath the very real hate. Why does two people of the same gender loving each other, and having sex with other cause so much panic in "straights"? Everyone accepts this terror to such a degree that it is rarely questioned. Of course straight men get up tight around gay men...blah blah blah...
Why? Postulate: homophobia in heterosexuals has little to do with homosexuals.
Sometimes it is referred to in young men as "gay panic". This is a misnomer. "Gay panic" should be called "straight panic" - fear that one is not straight enough or "man" enough.

The idiotic superbowl snickers commercial is a fine example of "straight panic."

What causes this "straight panic" Is it a biological reaction? Is it cultural? Is it fear of death - like so much else? Why do straights fear gays so much? Labeling homosexual behavior immoral, - hurting, killing, mocking and debasing those oriented sexually and emotionally toward the same gender springs from terror not hate. It is a deep seeded fear that has no basis in reality. So why does it occur? I really do want to know.

Straights pay dearly for this nonsense. Not as much as gays - but the price heterosexual men and women pay for the free floating irrational homophobia in this society is still extraordinary. Pervasive, irrational homophobia destroys platonic intimacy between straight men, which in turn makes deep intimate bonds with wives and lovers something "gay" and therefore feared, and therefore almost impossible to attain. I would suggest this: for straight men much FEAR OF INTIMACY WITH WOMEN IS A RESULT OF FEAR OF - OR LACK OF - BONDING WITH MEN. Men and women are neither from Venus or Mars. They are from Earth. The clap trap pop psychology bullshit industry invariably neglects the most obvious reason egalitarian relationships between adult men and women are so difficult in America - BECAUSE ALL DEEP, AFFECTIONATE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ADULTS ARE SUSPECT IN AMERICA. In fact, anything that cannot clearly be made into a commodity in post industrial profit driven America is suspect.
Straight men fear gay men is a true sentence. Remove the modifiers to make it truer: Men fear men. That fear can be, and is, commodified all the time.

The appalling ,stupid, violent institutionalized bigotry of heterosexuals toward homosexuals must be changed. Many good people are working toward this. I want to add this: Gay men and women should not be asking why non gays hate them - but why they fear homosexual behavior so much. Hey straights in America - WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? Keep asking until an answer is given because there is nothing authentic to fear.

And that terrifies those who profit from victimizing gays and lesbians.