FEMINIST FORUM The Influence of Declining Homophobia on Men’ s Gender in the United States: An Argument for the Study of Homohysteria Mark McCormack & Eric Anderson Published online: 4 March 2014 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 Abstract Generations of scholars have examined the variety of correlates of attitudes and behaviors of heterosexual men toward gay men. There has also been substantial exploration of the impact of homophobia on gay men and its gendering of heterosexual men. However, less research exists into the ef- fects of the liberalization of sexual attitudes on these groups. In this forum, we call for scholarly engagement with a rela- tively new arena of masculinities studies: the impact of de- creasing homophobia on socially acceptable gendered behav- iors among heterosexual males in the U.S. We offer homohysteria as a concept to examine the social impact of heterosexual male’ s fear of being thought gay; suggesting that homohysteria is an effective heurism for investigating micro- and macro-level processes relating homophobia to masculin- ity. Our thesis is that as homohysteria declines, heterosexual males are able to engage in homosocial relationships charac- terized by a number of positive traits, including: the social inclusion of gay male peers; the embrace of once-feminized artifacts; increased emotional intimacy; increased physical tactility; the erosion of the one-time rule of homosexuality; and a rejection of violence. We focus solely upon heterosexual males and their attitudes toward gay males because these are the demographics of the participants in the empirical research in this area. We then highlight eight key areas where further research could both develop homohysteria as a concept and enhance understanding of social life. Keywords Gender . Heterosexuality . Homohysteria . Homophobia . Masculinities . Theory Introduction In this article, we argue that there has been a recent social trend of decreasing homophobia in the U.S. (Baunach 2012; Keleher and Smith 2012) and that this has had a significant impact upon the gendered behaviors of heterosexual males (Adams 2011; Anderson 2009). Whereas homophobia had traditionally restricted heterosexual males’ gendered behav- iors (McCreary 1994; Whitley 2001), they are able to engage in once-stigmatized behaviors as attitudes toward homosexu- ality improve (Anderson 2008a; Gottzén and Kremer-Sadlik 2012). These changes make salient the need for gender scholars to find new ways of theorizing the intersection of masculinities, homophobia and gendered behaviors, as existing theory is insufficient for the task (see McCormack 2012). Accordingly, in this forum, we use the concept homohysteria to detail a new way of conceptualizing the power dynamics between homophobia, men’ s homosociality and the construction of masculinity, in a context of decreasing societal homophobia. Unlike existing theoretical frameworks (e.g. Connell and Messerschmidt 2005), homohysteria explicates an under- standing of the intersection of masculinity and homophobia that is historically situated, contextually nuanced, and able to both document and explain social change. It thus enables a more sophisticated understanding of the stratification of pow- er and privilege between U.S. men. After demonstrating the power of homohysteria to understand social change in the U.S., we call for further research into the utility of the concept for understanding a number of other demographics and cul- tural contexts. All empirical studies cited are based on U.S. samples unless otherwise noted, and we restrict our focus to M. McCormack (*) School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University, Durham DH1 3HN, UK e-mail: markmccormackphd@gmail.com E. Anderson Department of Sport Studies, University of Winchester, Winchester SO22 4NR, UK Sex Roles (2014) 71:109–120 DOI 10.1007/s11199-014-0358-8