— Homophobia: The fear that another man will treat you like you treat women.

[Occulus]

32. That's one reason, yes.

That particular stereotype appears twice, in the first and third quotes. It is particularly odious in the first, in which the teacher- a presumably heterosexual female- assigns an undesired expression of "potential rape" power exerted by the gay passenger against her male student. It is apparent, by her leading, single question, that she directed her student to the conclusion she wanted him to reach: that the gay passenger in the cab was a potentially overpowering figure to her student, physically and sexually.

It reads, to be blunt, like a script.

That's actually a form of not-so-very subtle abuse, to both her student and the absent source of the topic (not to mention, to the reader themselves). It does not address any other possible social or cultural influences regarding homosexuals or homosexual behavior the student may have been exposed to, or any incorrect information or honestly ignorant positions that student may have held, or learned. Essentially, that teacher hear what she wanted to hear: that the male student, exposed to an advance from a gay man, felt the same as a heterosexual woman receiving an unwanted advance from a heterosexual man.

That is vile. It is exactly the sort of absolutely incorrect conflation of behaviors I have long expected from actual homophobes. Gay men do not behave toward women the way misogynistic heterosexual men behave. We just, very simply, do not think that way. Radical feminists will insist that is not true, and we do in fact act like that, but we don't. We simply do not see ourselves as being in any way "better" or "higher on the ladder" than heterosexuals, male or female. We don't hit on random men on the street. We have had that driven home, repeatedly, over and over, for centuries. There is, simply put, no truth at all to the entire idea. We get beaten and killed for that behavior.

In the last quote, the heterosexual man who was the "victim" of a gay male "catcaller" "had to" dive into a Qdoba restaurant to "escape" it. I'm using scare quotes here because I am almost certain this simply never happened, or if it did, the writer left out the part where he said no, and it stopped. We don't do that unless we're comfortable in our surroundings, and unless this happened in the Castro district or Boystown in Chicago or perhaps a few other "big city" places I can name it's simply unbelievable on its face. If we're that comfortable in our surroundings, it's because we're in an area known for a high concentration of homosexuals in the local population. Even the most "out" gay men I know or have met will severely "tone it down" in unfamiliar surroundings.

Heterosexuals who knowingly visit such areas know they're in a "gay part of town", full stop. Tourists not "in the know" learn as much, very quickly (picture a church mom at the Folsom Street Fair. If you want an eyeful, go Google). That whole last quoted section reeks of fiction written around a heterosexual's (perhaps honestly) ignorant conception of how gay men who are comfortable with themselves and their local surroundings behave in public. Maybe (qualifier here used with extreme reservations) it actually did happen, but I have a strong feeling some very pertinent details, place and date chiefest among them, were deliberately left out. Under normal circumstances, we are simply not that bold, and will stop, right away, if asked. Those of us who don't are looked upon by others of us with a lot of scorn. Most of the gay men I know will actually go into "protective buddy" mode once that's made clear to us. Heterosexual women who have visited gay bars will know what I'm getting at here. We usually know almost immediately that our "advances" are unwanted and we will stop, because we don't want to be beaten or killed.

Most of us, the vast majority I've met, are hypersensitive to the fact that our very existence is anathema to some, precisely because we do not know who feels that way about us in a crowd.

I take extreme issue with the article's title itself. That is not and never was any even faintly accurate definition of homophobia. The terms 'homophobe' and 'homophobia' imply a great many nonsexual, but rather social and cultural preconceptions, constructs, laws, memes, perceived behaviors, assumptions, presumptions, and a particularly hateful and bigoted imagining of sexual attraction and focus as a core "goal" that it is astonishing whomever wrote that title could possibly, in 2013, believe it to be anything near an accurate definition. The title itself is one of the very reasons some of us take issue with the term "homosecual" itself, because it places the focus on our sexual behavior, as though it were our all of everything. Furthermore, gay men are not women; a great many of us are far more "manly" or "masculine" than the most laser-straight of heterosexual men (and those straight men who such gay man damned well know it, and we know they know it), and it is only the very most isolated heterosexual, long unexposed to and long isolated from actual homosexuals, who would believe that title's undercurrent of stereotypical, bigoted implication.

This article makes me angry, and in a bunch of ways. I cannot believe it's being accepted and applauded, here on DU, a anything close to truth.

And now I've said more than I meant to say in the first place. Thanks for making me angry enough to rip this to shreds, because I wanted to in the first place. It was cathartic, and after reading this pile of offal, I badly needed to speak my mind.