'Homophobia ruins the lives of gay people. It's often deadly, in fact, motivating both murder and suicide. I'm making a note of this now in the hope that what I say next doesn't come off as trivialising the LGBT victims of homophobia. or suggesting we should make this issue all about straight people. But homophobia is one of the earliest forces that conditions, and very often damages straight people too, particularly males. Boys, especially when they're in peer-driven environments like schools, fear others will think they're gay. They're taught to push out any remotely "effeminate" mannerisms or activities, to conceal their emotions, and ditch anything, or anyone, that may raise questions about their sexuality. They learn to treat women as mere objects that exist for their own pleasure, and are discouraged from forming platonic bonds with them (after all, the by whose friends are predominantly girls cannot be straight), and by doing so at such a crucial age, they fail to grasp the appropriate way to treat women and shut themselves off from the only people left in this environment who are likely to give a damn about their emotional problems and help them talk things through. They're forced to sacrifice hobbies they're genuinely interested in, choose subjects at school that aren't seen as girly - hell, pursue careers they don't really like because of a system that makes us decide the path our futures take before we're even old enough to drink. All to not look gay.'
Jack Urwin, Man Up: Surviving Modern Masculinity, p.168.
