A Phenomenological Study of Men’s Fear of being Perceived as Gay

Abstract

This study aimed to explore and describe the fear of being perceived as gay among heterosexual males and the cause of this fear. This also aims to describe how the fear is enforced through the years of the men's lives. Unmarried heterosexual males were the informants in this study and are not below twenty one years old and not older than forty years old. The sampling strategy used for this study is convenience random sampling, where informants were collected through random searching across Metro Manila. The sample size acquired for this study was 10 informants. Qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews. Inductive data analysis procedures with support from certain theories were utilized. Themes were constructed from the answers given by the informants. The results attained from the analysis categorized the causes and triggers for the fear of being perceived as gay into two themes: the result of family and male peers repulsion towards unmanly males, and the high value that they place on masculinity and manhood. This high value and prestige that they place on masculinity makes men fear being perceived as gay because it would diminish or lose their masculinity and manhood, which also means losing their pride and prestige.