New preliminary research published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine suggests that men who hold anti-gay views have a lower interest in sex compared to men who are more accepting of gay people.
A team of researchers led by Boris Cheval of the University of Geneva in Switzerland examined pupil dilation to determine that more homophobic men had a decreased physiological response to sex-related imagery.
Cheval and his colleagues had previously found that a particular set of homophobic men displayed an unconscious bias in favor of homosexual imagery. However, that study also found that more homophobic men tended to look less long at sex-related photographs compared to men who were less homophobic.
The researchers wanted to follow-up on this secondary finding. In particular, they wanted to know whether this apparent lack of interest in sexual material was an unconscious reaction or a conscious effort. Were these men just less interested or were they purposefully trying to disengage with sexual content because it conflicted with their beliefs and values?
For their study, Cheval and his colleagues recruited 38 heterosexual men and evaluated their attitudes about gay people using a survey.
The researchers then instructed the participants to rate 25 pictures on a 9-point scale, from “very unpleasant” to “very pleasant.” Each participant viewed 10 images of homosexual couples, 10 images of heterosexual couples, and 5 neutral images. As the participants viewed the pictures, the researchers measured changes in their pupils.
The pupils reliably dilate in response to sexually-appealing imagery, even when a person consciously tries to suppress their desire. Among all the participants, the pupil dilated more in response to the heterosexual pictures than the homosexual and neutral pictures.
However, the researchers found that the pupil size of homophobic men increased significantly less compared to non-homophobic men.
The finding suggests that the lack of interest in sexual material results from “a spontaneous, unconscious reaction, rather than a strategic, conscious form of self-regulation, given that pupil dilation cannot easily be controlled,” the researchers explained. “Theoretically, these findings reinforce the possibility that homophobia reflects concerns about sexuality in general.”
