The Question
Eternal
So says this article:
Without knowing the exact details of how the study was pursued, I can spot two potential problems, right off the bat:
Problem 1. There is no mention of control groups for results comparisons. Ideally, Professor Adams should have performed variations of this test on four groups, not just one.
Group 1: Heterosexual men viewing homosexual pornography.
Group 2: Heterosexual men viewing heterosexual pornography.
Group 3: Homosexual men viewing homosexual pornography.
Group 4: Homosexual men viewing heterosexual pornography.
This doesn't seem to have been the methodology for the study -- and if it were, it seems reasonable to believe that such would have been mentioned in the article.
Problem 2. Erection is not an air-tight indicator of sexual arousal. Men who are raped by women (and yes, that has happened) reported erections. There are even supposedly instructions floating around radical feminist online blogs and so on, on how to use various items (rubber bands and so on) in order to artificially prolong an erection in order to accompllish the deed. There are also at least two phenomena I can think of, off the top of my head, in which erections occur absent any external sexual stimuli -- morning wood, for one, and Hangman's wood is another. (Hangman's wood is the occurrence of an erection in a man who is nearing death, or already dead, by hanging.) So on this score also, Professor Adams was not thorough.
From the article, then, this "study" is pure junk; just feel-good pseudoscience.
Sunday Sun News Headlines
Was our Ken telling it straight?
Feb 5 2006
By Peter Tatchell, The Sunday Sun
Research by an acclaimed US psychologist suggests that 80 per cent of men who are homophobic have secret homosexual feelings.
This finding lends scientific support to the long-standing speculation that those who shout the loudest against homosexuality have something to hide.
The research results were published in the prestigious Journal of Abnormal Psychology, with the backing of the American Psychological Association.
In tests conducted by Prof. Henry E Adams of the University of Georgia, homophobic men who said they were exclusively heterosexual were shown gay sex videos.
Four out of five became sexually aroused by the homoerotic imagery, as recorded by a plethysmograph . . . a calibrated band fitted around the penis, which measures any enlargement.
Without knowing the exact details of how the study was pursued, I can spot two potential problems, right off the bat:
Problem 1. There is no mention of control groups for results comparisons. Ideally, Professor Adams should have performed variations of this test on four groups, not just one.
Group 1: Heterosexual men viewing homosexual pornography.
Group 2: Heterosexual men viewing heterosexual pornography.
Group 3: Homosexual men viewing homosexual pornography.
Group 4: Homosexual men viewing heterosexual pornography.
This doesn't seem to have been the methodology for the study -- and if it were, it seems reasonable to believe that such would have been mentioned in the article.
Problem 2. Erection is not an air-tight indicator of sexual arousal. Men who are raped by women (and yes, that has happened) reported erections. There are even supposedly instructions floating around radical feminist online blogs and so on, on how to use various items (rubber bands and so on) in order to artificially prolong an erection in order to accompllish the deed. There are also at least two phenomena I can think of, off the top of my head, in which erections occur absent any external sexual stimuli -- morning wood, for one, and Hangman's wood is another. (Hangman's wood is the occurrence of an erection in a man who is nearing death, or already dead, by hanging.) So on this score also, Professor Adams was not thorough.
From the article, then, this "study" is pure junk; just feel-good pseudoscience.