Homophobia vs Homoaggredi

[pioneer]

The term phobia means fear. Homophobia appears to be different than most traditional phobias, because it does not involve the avoidance of the threat. Rather it involves the aggressive pursuit. For example, someone with hydrophobia avoids water and does not aggressively pursue it. If they see a swimming pool they will go the other way. One does not see a homophobe running away when he sees a gay walk down the road. The behavior is different.

 

One way to characterize the difference is connected to preditor and prey. Traditional phobias place the person in the prey role. The fear of drowning is the fear of being consumed by the water. The prey runs away from the water preditor. Homophobia is more like the preditor role, where the adrenline from fear's fight/flight causes the person to pursue the prey.

 

As such, homophobia may not be a traditional phobia, because it appears to be more connected to preditor behavior, which uses the fear to pursue the prey. Maybe there needs to be a new term to differentiate this from traditional prey-side phobias.

 

The Latin word for aggression is aggredi. Maybe the more accurate term is homoaggredi. From a moral point of view such aggression is not good for anyone. But from a science point of view, distinctions are useful.

[Sayonara]

Actually hydrophobia means rabies. The proper term for fear of water is aquaphobia, although hydrophobia is sometimes substituted because in general people don't know very much about clinical terms.

 

The English language is so full of exceptions and oddities such as homophobia and hydrophobia that it's a wonder it is not referred to as the Irregularity Language.

 

But to your point: I'm not convinced that aggreddi is the way to go. What we currently refer to as "homophobia" encompasses disdain, distaste, prejudice, aversion, and so on... not just aggression towards.

[Sisyphus]

What about the "homo" part? Fear of sameness? It's not a clinical term anyway, and I agree with Sayonara that it's just one of those irregularities. If you came up with a term that was clearly more accurate and descriptive, I'd be ok with trying to replace it, but I don't think homoaggredi is such a term. In fact, I think it's actually less accurate. "Phobia," in its various shades of meaning, I think actually describes the phenomenon in its various manifestations fairly well. Fear can manifest in aggression, too. There's a reason it's called "fight or flight."

[sobe]

accualy, some homophobics do fear gays (avoid them and such), some for stupid reasons like they think gays have no self controle and will rape them, but other because they see it as something dirty, because theyve been tought that love is to be with a man and a woman, and it contridicts sociaty.