Judith Levine on Homophobia

“In school, perhaps more than at home (which is why parents are sometimes appalled when they catch their kids unawares among their friends), both masculinity and femininity are narrow balancing beams, easy to tumble off. Girls must appear amenable to sex but not too amenable. If a girl is standoffish or proud, she is a "bitch." But if she talks too dirty or behaves too lasciviously, she's a "slut" or a "ho." A boy who does the latter is admired as a "player." If he does the latter toward girls, that is. Because if a boy is shy or insufficiently enthusiastic about, say, discussing the size of a classmate's breasts, he can find himself ostracized as a "faggot." Masculinity is policed chiefly by boys against other boys, and homophobia is its billy club.”

“One of Feinstein's main exercises in the classroom is the open expression of caring for friends- what she calls "put-ups," the antonym of "put-downs." Homophobia stands foursquare in the way of boys' showing their affection to each other. But she persists, and the put-ups get closer to their intended mark. "At first, the boys will think and think and say something like, 'You play sports good.'" Eventually though, they begin to use the exercise not only to assess another person positively but also to acknowledge a relationship. "More and more, they'll say things like 'You've helped me with math. You've been a good friend.'" Feinstein thinks the homophobic restraints on masculine affection might also thwart boys' playfulness and tenderness in heterosexual sex- and that learning to express closeness openly could do the opposite.”

“"Anything that is feminine, boys learn to reject- sensitivity, empathy, vulnerability," said Deborah Rakowsky, a guidance counselor in a suburban middle school. But this is not just a phenomenon of lockstep suburban conformity. Carol Kapuscik, the mother of a seventeen-year-old male skateboarding fanatic named Max, described how her son participated in casual gay-bashing, even though he had grown up in the sexually iconoclastic Lower East Side of New York, with many gay and lesbian family friends and neighbors (the waitresses at the corner restaurant are drag queens). "Everything they denigrate is 'faggot,'" said Carol. "That's a 'faggot' movie, 'faggot' pants, a 'faggot' video game. I've even heard them refer to certain foods as 'faggot.'" She did not think her son uses the term against other boys but said, "Even though they throw the word around like it was nothing, when a kid is called a faggot, it really has the power to sting." No wonder few gay or lesbian kids have the wherewithal to be "out" in junior high school or high school. As a straight boy who graduated from high school in rural Vermont told me, "Everybody called everybody 'faggot' or 'queer.' But there were no gay people at school." I imagine his second observation was wrong.”