A matter of perspective

This article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, 'Are Gays Icky?', is rather shallow and facetious but at its core it does recognise a certain truth that gays too easily forget.

That truth is that most straight men find the whole idea of homosexuality (and homosex specificially) disgusting. And this isn't necessarily due to any personal failing, or because straight men are homophobic per se.

It's simply that the idea of regarding another man with sexual desire is completely at odds with a straight man's core drives.

When a straight man considers a gay man, in an attempt to understand him, his first impulse is to put himself in the gay man's position, and "walk a mile in his shoes", as the saying goes. As a result, he asks himself, "What would my mindset need to be in order for me to want to have sex with another guy? What would I need to feel to make me want to do that?"

As a result, he comes up with the only reasons he can imagine for prefering men over women: catastrophic childhood sexual abuse, severe moral perversion, and so on. This is understandable, since these are the things that would need to happen to make HIM want to have sex with another man.

Unfortunately, that's not relevant. What's relevant is what makes A GAY MAN want to have sex with another man. And in this case, the reason is exactly the same as what makes a straight man want to have sex with a woman: natural drives.

So it's perfectly understandable that a straight man will find homosexuality disgusting, since catastrophic childhood sexual abuse and severe moral perversion are disgusting things. The only reasons they can imagine are negative ones, not because they're ignorant, but because their attempts at empathy are misguided. No straight man can, at his core, feel what it's like to be gay.

The somewhat counterintuitive upshot of this is that simple tolerance might be more important than empathy.