The knowledge that they have thought about sucking dick many times in their life.

Read “whipping girl” by Julia Serano, she goes into the idea of social stigma driving bigotry

That they would get dehumanized and treated the way they/other men treat gays and women.

I know this is a semi serious question. But my first thought was “the penis”.

That they would like it and become gay.

Like someone already said in here,
I would say that the type of people that are “terrified” are the type that are “hyper-competitive”.
They’re extremely status minded and constantly want to tear people down to pull themselves up.
It’s also why they’re disgusted with non-manliness, which is not the same as gay in my opinion.
You can have a manly man who is gay and a girly man who is heterosexual.
Even making fun of acting tough behavior gets them into disgust.
You can’t have fun with these people.

I do have to say, before I was in a relationship,
I would get annoyed if mistaken for gay and thus prefer to avoid any confusion.
I consider the dating market to be skewed in favor of women simply by the numbers
and anything to further pull down those chances was the last thing I needed.

Themselves.

Nobody is completely heterosexual. They see homosexuality as a weakness because they’ve been taught that it is. So when they feel it, they lash out.

It’s always personal insecurity. Every time. Weak people attack things that are outside their comfort zone, and twice as hard when they see themselves in those uncomfortable things.

I don’t know, the dicks i guess?

Mean fear being treated they way they treat women

Hetero cis male here. I’ve always personally felt that the stereotypical male macho reaction to homosexuality is pretty odd. But I have a lot of gay people in my friends and family, and was around homosexuality a little more than some people were growing up.

If I had to infuse anything into the mind of someone scared or worried about gay people, it would just be that outside of that one detail, and their own small subculture they’ve embraced, they’re just people, the same as anyone else.

To me it feels similar to fear-driven bigotry based on racism. Outside of a little melanin (or lack thereof) and a slightly different subculture, other “races” are people, just the same as you. But rather than get to know other, some folks find it easier to be scared and ignorant and shield themselves behind hate.

I’m scared of appearing to be gay, because i went to school in the 90s. Being gay was the worst thing you could possibly be. If there was any evidence that could potentially point towards you being gay (wearing anything remotely pink. Accidentally listening to a girl band. Getting an ear pierced was trendy but one of the ears meant you’re gay. The pitfalls are endless.)

I want to clarify that I enjoy seeing gay people. It feels like a little victory for mankind. This is a very learned fear. If you’ve never had your ass kicked my multiple people, all of whom could beat you 1v1 anyway, its hard to explain, it gets deeply instilled in you. I know I shouldn’t touch fire. I know I shouldn’t fall from a height. I know I shouldn’t be seen to be possibly gay.

Straight men who fear homosexuality are afraid of discovering that they secretly like the cock.

I’ve heard the argument before that it’s tied up in misogyny, homophobic men are, consciously or otherwise, thinking basically “I’m afraid gay men will treat me the way I treat women”

Hence all the anti-gay jokes like “backs against the wall lads” (note how the straight men are often imagining themselves as the bottom) - implication being, “I don’t respect consent therefore what if the gay man who’s more of a threat to me physically doesn’t either”

No idea how accurate this is but it certainly rings true for some behaviours

Seems reasonable to me that it’s a network effect. Hating gay people is a thing their community does, so they do it to fit in with the community, at first, and then it becomes part of who they are after they’ve done it for a while. Their “culture” in a sense. But if their community sees them as gay, or gay enough, they’ll be targeted by their own discrimination and lose their community and be outside the pack, which is what they actually fear. And if one of their friends starts getting too close to gay, they may have to hate them and cut them loose just to make sure the target doesn’t spread by association and cause people to start hating both of them.

As acceptance of gay stuff increases, they see their community shrinking. Their “culture” has fewer and fewer people, which means their pack is getting smaller, and all they want with all their hearts is to be firmly in the biggest safest strongest group. So their group gets smaller, but can they change? Can they just give up hating at this age? Can they honestly see themselves forming community with those people? They still have some people in their community, the ones closest to them, that they’d still have to give up if they changed. Maybe their uncle and brother and mom, people important to them, and so as uncomfortable it is to be on a shrinking island, they’d rather that than to be alone with no one they knew. So they keep fighting, but with a new discomfort, the knowledge that they’re fighting for a losing side.

This makes them all the more dangerous, as they’re more willing to do anything to overcome their worsening odds…

I’ll do my best. I can vaguely remember some of the words that came out of my mouth when I was around 13-18 years old. Most of which were slurs rather than deep thoughts.

The slurs were more to do with what was typical/acceptable talk at the time (late 90s-early 2000s) in combination with teenage boys love nothing more than being assholes to each other (typically to my straight friends) because they think it’s funny.

Some of my “deeper thoughts”, for as well as a teenager can articulate, were to do with not understanding and frankly not actually trying to understand any other perspective. I believe I was simply trying to boost myself by stepping on others. I don’t think there was ever a point in which I hated gay people, but I do remember saying how I thought it was disgusting (gay sexual acts)and I had opinions on gay couples raising children even though I had no evidence to support those opinions.

I don’t think any of it ever scared me, none of what I said was out of fear. I was never worried about liking it, as some other comments suggested. Instead, It was an easy way to safely feel superior to cope with my lengthy list of insecurities.

As my brain began to mature, my thoughts quickly changed.

So… Immaturity, insecurity, ignorance.

Nowadays… regret. Sorry everyone.