Homophobic Expectations Influence Perception

When Percival Lowell (1855-1916) read that there appeared to be something like canals on the surface of Mars, he decided to investigate for himself. He spent a significant amount of his life looking at Mars through telescopes in the early morning hours and drawing maps of what he saw. Lowell was convinced he had observed evidence that there was once intelligent life on Mars. Lowell was sure the canals had been built by Martians. Lowell turned out to be wrong, and his beliefs serve to illustrate how our expectations can influence our perceptions. We often see what we expect and want to see.

Lowell was a visionary, someone who was following his dreams, and although his conclusions were often off base, his determination and enthusiasm is inspirational. However, our all too human tendency to see things as we expect and want them has a darker side. Bigotry is born of this trick of the mind.

I once had an argument with a homophobe who was convinced that all gay men behave like the participants of San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair, and he was sure that this proved our nature was savage. I informed him that he was mistaken and that his assumption indicated that he was biased, but he demanded that I prove him wrong. I stopped communicating with him at that point. It was obvious his mind was made up, and he was not interested in me as a person. To him, I was other, some strange creature that was to be feared and hated.

I don’t think that gay men would be any less human or any less deserving of respect even if all of us did behave like the participants of the Folsom Street Fair. But since I know myself, and since I’ve come to know a number of other gay men, I’m aware that we are not all alike. Some gay men, given the chance, would fully participate in the high jinks of the Folsom Street Fair or some similar event someplace else. Some may do so because they enjoy it and feel no need to restrain themselves. Others might do it as a kind of rebellion against sexual repression and shaming. Some gay men might go to an event like that and observe. Some might get some level of satisfaction out of looking at images and reading of detailed accounts of what goes on there. Some gay men may never think of going there but don’t think any less of those who do, and then there are some gay men who condemn such open displays of sexuality to one degree or another.

In regards to the Folsom Street Fair, our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors run the gamut…just like straight people. But try telling that to someone who wants to view us in a certain light. To them, we are not fellow human beings or individuals. We have been assigned to play a certain role in their imagination, and they’re not about to let us mess up their weird, highly sexed, grand inner pageant. They project onto us their own insatiable lust, and we become outward reflections of the sex monsters that they dare not admit live inside their own psyches, and that’s that. When we discover someone is like that, we may as well growl at them and have a good laugh at their foolishness.