When a person has repressed homoerotic tendencies, how are they expressed? What behavior should one look for?
Normal male socialization tends to produce emotional attractions between men. Whether those attractions are ultimately interpreted as erotic depends a great deal on whether there is a cultural taboo against homosexual expression, and whether the males have anything to lose by violating it. In most cultures, boys tend to self-select into all-male play groups pretty much as soon as they are able. Through their association with other males, they learn to value certain masculine attributes, cultivate them, and develop a distinctive masculine identity. During this “latency” period, the boy’s social world is defined by older and higher status males, whom the boy is attracted to and seeks to become closer with, because closer association brings with it a higher masculine identification, higher status, and the admiration and esteem of people whose opinion he most values in the world–his male relatives and his peers. Team sports, athleticism, and the like provide a focus for what is basically
